Getting newcomers past the second night

[StokeBloke]

Originally Posted by Mike Allsopp

Hey SB, is this the Stafford boss lady you're talking about here?

No names, no pack-drill! She'll know who she is if she reads the forum. I wouldn't so crass as to name her and run the risk of possibly embarrassing her!

There was a reason why I was being vague Mike

[Mike Allsopp]

Originally Posted by StokeBloke

No names, no pack-drill! She'll know who she is if she reads the forum. I wouldn't so crass as to name her and run the risk of possibly embarrassing her!

There was a reason why I was being vague Mike

Some folks are great dancers but are not particularly enjoyable to dance with and vice-versa, so if you really enjoyed a dance with an individual tell them - whatever level they're at!....it's up to them what they do with the compliment.
If the response is "yes I know" then they probably aren't the sort to return the compliment

[StokeBloke]

You all know that I got to dance with an amazing dancer last night. Someone I have put on a pedestal from my very first Ceroc lesson, and avoided in freestyle because I was so in awe of her

Well, I saw her again tonight, and some kind soul had shown her what I had written about dancing with her A couple of songs after I arrived she strolled over and asked me to dance again. Two nights, two dances! Only tonight was different. She must have seen the concentration etched on my face or something, because she grinned and told me to just smile... yeah! easy for you to say! But I did as she said, and it all started to rapidly come together.

The thing is I really wasn't prepared for what happened next. Everything just seemed to melt away and it really felt like we were the only two people in the entire world! This is a brand new twist - I didn't know that dancing could do this! I wasn't expecting it, and I certainly wasn't prepared for it. She is an amazing dancer, just soooooooo easy to dance with; I relaxed and before I knew it the song was over and I was back to earth with a little bump! All I know is I could have stayed there dancing with her all night.

She was hypnotic. I did make a point afterwards of telling her how wonderful she had been to dance with. But it's hard to try and describe something like that without sounding like a gibbering idiot. I did say it was the first time I had ever felt that I had danced properly in my life. I hope she took that as the compliment it was, and not as some post-dance platitude

Something happened on the dance floor tonight that has never happened to me before. Damn! this dancing thing just gets better and better! Now if you could bottle that feeling, you would have no problem getting dancers past their second night - see what I did there

Yes:it's 2:30am and I am still too high to get to sleep

[bigdjiver]

its called "connection".

[Jhutch]

Spoke to a couple of girls i know last night who only went twice to various venues and have not been since.

One was fairly keen but didn't like the way that the men in freestyle would throw her around. One tried to show her about 12 moves in a row at the end of the dance. Don't know if he was trying to impress her, thought she would be excited by seeing the different moves (if you want to do that then you can watch other people doing them?) or whether he seriously thought that she would learn this many moves just from doing them once She wasn't impressed anyway.

The other has other reasons for not going since but is quite keen on doing ceroc style dancing and has done some with me on a few occasions outside of lessons. She had similar complaints about being thrown round and not knowing what she was doing. One man (who is quite experienced) told her that if she didn't stop doing something he would end up breaking her fingers I think that it must have come across in a different way to how it was intended but she was quite taken aback and I think that a bit more subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss...

Do any of the women have any views on this? I suppose that part of being a good follower is not anticipating at all but isn't it easier at first if you can recognise (most of) the moves that you are following? Men don't normally have this problem because they decide the moves that are going to be done (although i have had women try to show me moves on the dance floor - i appreciate the intention but if i struggle to learn a move in 10 minutes in a class then am i going to learn them in 1 minute in freestyle when i can barely hear the person who is talking to me? )

[MartinHarper]

Originally Posted by Jhutch

One man (who is quite experienced) told her that if she didn't stop doing something he would end up breaking her fingers I think that it must have come across in a different way to how it was intended but she was quite taken aback and I think that a bit more subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss...

I think that health and safety is important enough that it overrides considerations of tact and diplomacy. I'd rather a new dancer was taken aback than have her fingers broken, or break someone else's fingers.

[Jhutch]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

I think that health and safety is important enough that it overrides considerations of tact and diplomacy. I'd rather a new dancer was taken aback than have her fingers broken, or break someone else's fingers.

Yes, but it was the quite aggressive way that he did it she was objecting to. Almost made it sound like he was going to do it as some sort of punishment. I am not suggesting that he say nothing at all

[StokeBloke]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

I think that health and safety is important enough that it overrides considerations of tact and diplomacy. I'd rather a new dancer was taken aback than have her fingers broken, or break someone else's fingers.

I don't see why an experienced dancer would need to rely on a new follower to ensure that he didn't "break her fingers"!!! If she was gripping too tightly or something and he was concerned... why not adapt the lead to allow for that and make extra allowances when putting the girl into spins. Isn't that part of the skill of being a good lead?

I'm not sure it's a health and safety issue... sounds more like well intentioned but tactless advice to me

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by StokeBloke

I don't see why an experienced dancer would need to rely on a new follower to ensure that he didn't "break her fingers"!!! If she was gripping too tightly or something and he was concerned... why not adapt the lead to allow for that and make extra allowances when putting the girl into spins. Isn't that part of the skill of being a good lead?

Yeah, but there are levels in all these things. I think it's reasonable to give warning, if you're trying out a potentially dangerous move, that it's potentially dangerous. Of course, there's an element of judgement in these cases.

But then again, like almost all these things, it's subjective, it's relative, and it depends on the way it's both phrased and taken. But I think it's best to give the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a well-intentioned warning rather than a threat

Some moves - backhander, for example - are iffy because the follower's arm gets twisted behind their backs.

Originally Posted by StokeBloke

I'm not sure it's a health and safety issue... sounds more like well intentioned but tactless advice to me

- but to be fair, the middle of a dance floor is a difficult place to have a tactful and sensitive detailed discussion of dance etiquette.

[StokeBloke]

Maybe I mis-read the original comment. But I thought that this was said to a new dancer. Not someone who would need warning about potentially dangerous moves. Someone who it would be easy to lead in Arm Jives and over exaggerated returns, for the remainder of the track, if they weren't taking the hints of slipping your hands out and repositioning them.

I was just suggesting that in that situation (as you rightly say) it would be difficult to council anyone on technique, and as such you could use your experience to dance yourself out of the problem until the track had ended and you were able to speak quietly with your partner - if you chose to speak to them about it of course.

I would never dream of blurting out something so aggressive to my partner - even in jest

[MartinHarper]

Originally Posted by StokeBloke

I don't see why an experienced dancer would need to rely on a new follower to ensure that he didn't "break her fingers"!

Suppose a woman grips onto my hand very tightly, and turns abruptly and unexpectedly in a way that I didn't lead. Further suppose that the turn and tight hand grip is incompatible with the wrist bone being connected to the arm bone (etc). The result will be that one of our hands will break. Cf martial arts.

[StokeBloke]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

Suppose a woman grips onto my hand very tightly, and turns abruptly and unexpectedly in a way that I didn't lead. Further suppose that the turn and tight hand grip is incompatible with the wrist bone being connected to the arm bone (etc). The result will be that one of our hands will break. Cf martial arts.

As we drift from the realms of reality into the rhetorical can I take a moment to suggest that we find some code that allows forumites to understand that we are talking about 'in normal circumstances' as opposed to trying to cover every single eventuality with one sweeping comment - maybe we could call this the 'common sense clause' and thereby save ourselves the monotony of discussing the 'suppose a girl pulls out a gun during a man spin and shoots me in the face' type possibilities

[MartinHarper]

Originally Posted by StokeBloke

...we are talking about 'in normal circumstances'...

I was talking about circumstances in which "health and safety is important enough that it overrides considerations of tact and diplomacy". If there are no health and safety issues, then those non-existent issues don't override considerations of tact and diplomacy.

Can I take a moment to suggest that we find some code that allows forumites to understand that we are talking about 'in the circumstances under discussion' as opposed to trying to cover every single eventuality with one sweeping comment - maybe we could call this the 'communication clause' and thereby save ourselves the monotony of discussing the 'suppose we're not dancing but actually having tea with the queen' type possibilities.