Its offical - ladies can lead a break!

[John S]

Originally posted by Wendy
Haven't been on here for weeks

Presumably you were leading an extended break????

Anyway, you've been missed - welcome back.

[Dance Demon]

Originally posted by Wendy


Haven't been on here for weeks and here I am crying my eyes out !!! I sooo wanted to go to Aberdeen this weekend !!! And it sounds like the workshops were fab !!! Any of you guys who want to practise your new skills..... well, you know where I am....

Wxxx

How can we refuse an offer like that Wendy will practice my new skills next time i see you........and maybe some of the old ones as well

[Wendy]

Originally posted by John S
Presumably you were leading an extended break????

Yes... it was Santana !



Wxxx

[Wendy]

Originally posted by Dance Demon
Will practise my new skills next time I see you........and maybe some of the old ones as well

Well, the old ones were pretty good on Friday !!! So add the new ones and you could be BTC before the end of the year DD!!!

Wxxxx

PS So pretty please Franck !!! Any chance of a rerun of these workshops some time soon ???

Girls can lead breaks ! Girls can lead breaks ! tra la la la laa ....

[Bill]

Originally posted by Wendy
PS So pretty please Franck !!! Any chance of a rerun of these workshops some time soon ???

Girls can lead breaks ! Girls can lead breaks ! tra la la la laa ....

As far as I know they may be back pretty soon Wendy and if they are grab a ticket quick. You'd have loved the workshops- especially the UCAP one on Saturday

And if you want to lead me I'll do my best to follow

[Franck]

Originally posted by Bill
As far as I know they may be back pretty soon Wendy and if they are grab a ticket quick.

Indeed they are... Following the success of last week-end, I have invited Adam to teach again and he will part of the line up of teachers for the August Perth Extravaganza

Watch this space!

Franck.

[Brady]

Originally posted by Bill
But the whole idea of finding the half beat ( to things like Mambo No 5) or doubling the beat to slower tracks to vary the tempo and rythm within one song was great to hear and hopefully will have a positive effect on everyone's dancing.

Just read through this thread and was interested to hear that the concept of speeding up or slowing down of moves was covered at this workshop. I have done a lot of this in recent workshops with Deb & Ben, Nicky & Robert, and Amir (all Aussie or New Zealand natives), but have yet to hear this from a British teacher. It is a fantastic concept, but one I've found hard to lead as a result of the concept never being presented in the regular Ceroc classes.

Amir's musicality workshop is one of the best I've been to and covered all this and more, including adding wee pulses in the middle of a move, listening to and dancing to specific instruments or beat patterns within the music, etc. Amir is booked to visit Scotland in mid September to do some teaching, so keep your eyes posted on this forum for more info!

Brady

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally posted by Brady
[ the concept of ] slowing down of moves was covered at this workshop.

Gilberts been doing this for years

[CJ]

Originally posted by Dreadful Scathe
Gilberts been doing this for years

Yeah, but he IS the man...

[SallyB]

Does anyone know when Adam & Mandy will be doing this w/s again?

I have been to Amirs classes and workshops, yes his musicality workshop is great, but I have been on one of Adams workshops albeit three years ago and thought then that his teaching style was brilliant, very clear, witty and I was probably inspired then to carry on ceroc.

Also why do they not do more appearances they just seem to dissappear, or be kept under cover. Maybe I am wrong but I do not recall Adam & Mandy ever having taught at Camber?? Or even the main London venues.

I am spreading the word that girls can lead. Think I upset a guy last night when he just stared at me. It was like he was dancing to a car radio playing outside! Any tips girls?

Sounds like Scotland is where it is all at. Do people from London come up for your events?

Sally

[Bill]

Originally posted by SallyB
Does anyone know when Adam & Mandy will be doing this w/s again?

Sounds like Scotland is where it is all at. Do people from London come up for your events?

Sally

See Franck's comment about the Perth weekend in August !

Some of us try to get to London when we can but a few of you sothern types do manage to break free from London and make it over the border.

Not many Londoners but we do now get a few dancers from the 'North' eg Newcastle, Manchester etc.. and a friendly bunch they are

We're always happy to extend a welcome but be wary of the Dundee mad crew. Mix with them at your own peril A few have visited but very few have ever been the same afterwards !!!!!


You can spend a whole week dancing up here now with Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth to choose from. Hope to see you up here sometime Sally.

[Dance Demon]

Originally posted by SallyB

Also why do they not do more appearances they just seem to dissappear, or be kept under cover. Maybe I am wrong but I do not recall Adam & Mandy ever having taught at Camber?? Or even the main London venues.

I would check out the Perth weekend Sally, as Adam mentioned that he and Mandy were going off to live in New Zealand, so their appearances over here are going to be few and far between. This would be a good chance to get on one of their rare workshops

[Sandy]

After the wonderful workshops at the weekend I just couldn't wait for the Aberdeen Tuesday class to try out THOSE moves Yep it was absolutely fantastic and thanks guys for those dances! and Lisa kept the mood going and gave us the opportunity to get UCP with the steps for the night and oh boy was it good!

The breaks!!! I danced with a few guys who had been on the weekend workshops and wow the moves were brill and the breaks were there, fantastic! Then there was the guy who hadn't been on the workshop! battle of wits! On hearing the break I stiffened my arm and was determined that he should be aware of the break...........em no! it was a battle of wills as to who would give in. I could see his mind ticking over - "I'm the guy and I'm leading, what the hell is she doing?"! Almost said didn't you hear the break but thought maybe the word would get round that I was a right bossy bitch and no more dances for me!! The long and the short of this is that the workshop definitely made me listen so much more carefully and think I will be a better dance for it. I'm now away to do exercises for the arms!!!

Sandy

[DavidB]

Originally posted by Sandy
On hearing the break I stiffened my arm and was determined that he should be aware of the break...........em no! it was a battle of wills as to who would give in. I could see his mind ticking over - "I'm the guy and I'm leading, what the hell is she doing?"!

Ladies - I'm sorry, but if you start "stiffening your arms" in an attempt to backlead the break, you are going to get hurt.

It might work with someone who went to the workshop, or an experienced leader. But these are probably the same men who at least try to hit the breaks anyway.

The majority of men do not expect the lady to backlead/hijack etc. Whether this is good or bad is irrelevant - it is the way most men dance at the moment. And most men are big enough and strong enough to do serious damage to your shoulder without even realising it.

Hitting one break is not worth sitting out the rest of the night injured.

David

[Heather]

Originally posted by Bill


We're always happy to extend a welcome but be wary of the Dundee mad crew. Mix with them at your own peril A few have visited but very few have ever been the same afterwards !!!!!

Don't you mean 'very few have been SANE afterwards!!!!'
Don't pay any attention to him Sally, you'll end up slightly MAd but you will get the warmest welcome in Scotland, we are a VERY friendly bunch here in Dundee.


Heather,
xx

[David Franklin]

Originally posted by Sandy
On hearing the break I stiffened my arm and was determined that he should be aware of the break...........em no! it was a battle of wills as to who would give in. I could see his mind ticking over - "I'm the guy and I'm leading, what the hell is she doing?"!

Originally posted by DavidB
Ladies - I'm sorry, but if you start "stiffening your arms" in an attempt to backlead the break, you are going to get hurt.

...most men are big enough and strong enough to do serious damage to your shoulder without even realising it.

The thing is, both sides need to be listening through the connection (and responding!) with something like this. If I lead something, and there's a lot of resistance, I assume there's a reason, and I don't just use brute strength to force things. If you're going to backlead, you should do the same. There really shouldn't be any "battle of wills" here.

I'm not saying stiffening the arm etc... is necessarily bad, but you do need to be aware of whether your partner is responding. The times I've been backlead successfully, it's been by someone who's careful to 'prelead' the break. In other words, they stiffen up enough before the break that I know they want to do something. Usually, I'll try to lighten the connection to "set them free". If I don't (maybe I missed the change), they don't force the issue. Not much force is involved.

Another thing - I was pondering the "women find it easier to hit the break" comment. Ignoring the whole "hearing the break" thing, I think there's a quite practical difference between the lead and follow sides of the dance. Basically, the follow moves a lot more than the lead. There are lots of times when it's hard for the man to lead a break, because the woman is moving with a fair bit of momentum, and he can't really stop her without using a lot of force. It's much easier for the woman to stop herself.

What's the relevance to injury? Well, when the men do move, it's often with way more momentum than the women, and as they're leading, you might not know they're about to spring into a RH-archie or double manspin. If you try to "force" the backlead at that point, you really are going to get hurt.

I'm not sure if there are safe ways for a woman to "force" a man to "get" the break if he's oblivious to the music. The one thing that springs to mind is that from a R-L or L-R hold (1 handed), you could hold him above the wrist with your free hand. It feels it would be very hard to lead anything from there, so he'd more or less have to give in I think!

Dave

[TheTramp]

Originally posted by David Franklin
The thing is, both sides need to be listening through the connection (and responding!) with something like this. If I lead something, and there's a lot of resistance, I assume there's a reason, and I don't just use brute strength to force things. If you're going to backlead, you should do the same. There really shouldn't be any "battle of wills" here.

I'm not saying stiffening the arm etc... is necessarily bad, but you do need to be aware of whether your partner is responding. The times I've been backlead successfully, it's been by someone who's careful to 'prelead' the break. In other words, they stiffen up enough before the break that I know they want to do something. Usually, I'll try to lighten the connection to "set them free". If I don't (maybe I missed the change), they don't force the issue. Not much force is involved.

I think that the point that DavidB was making David F (too many Davids around here?), is that sure, you'll feel the backlead, and respond. But as said, you're probably going to hit the break anyhow. It's the other 97% of men that are being discussed here. Who won't hit the break, and could do some damage to the lady (been there, seen that done).

So, ladies, I'd suggest booking in for several sessions down the gym. And when you can lift Franck, one handed, above your heads, then go for it.

Before that, just be very careful. Although, I am an advocate of trying it. Maybe you can educate the guy into what a break is, he can pass on that knowledge to all the ladies that he dances with, and then the world will be a better place.

Steve

[TheTramp]

Originally posted by SallyB
Sounds like Scotland is where it is all at. Do people from London come up for your events?Sally

Ummm. Yes

And once you've got them, they can't get away!!!

Steve

[bigdjiver]

I have tried a pre-arranged signal with a few partners for a break, I lift the hand up about and inch, then back down again, rapidly, on the beat before, and repeat on the break beat. It worked O.K. with one or two. I do not dance regularly enough with anybody to get a proper understanding, or do enough breaks to give it a proper trial. It occurs to me that the woman could use this signal too. If anybody tries it please report back.

[cerocmetro]

I thought I should just post a reply for the record and clear a few things up before this gets messy.

In the workshop, we demonstrated that the girls were very aware of what is going on in the music. Quite often they are more switched on than the guys, especially the more intermediate guys who are sweating making sure they are staying on the beat and thinking up some outrageously and unnecessarily complicated moves.

We did this by letting the girls lead the breaks and of course in the workshops all the guys were expecting it and ready for it.

I agree with DaveB that it could be dangerous for the girls to just pull their partners and try and stop them and I would not recommend it.

What I would recommend the girls do is to change their style, tempo, stance where the breaks would be, maybe instead of a return and stepping straight back, be returned and then do some pivoting, shimmying or something else that emphasises the break, lets your partner know you know what breaks are. If he does not understand what you are doing, then provided it fits in with what is going on with the moves, you enjoy the emphasis anyway and you ultimately teach your partner that at times it is OK to play with the moves and timing. To stop someone in full flow takes a huge amount of strength and something is almost certain to give.

Where a girl can lead a break in complete safety is when she has been released from the mans grasp, eg a spin. Some girls have a wonderful way of changing the speed of a spin mid flow, bring it to a beautiful sweep of a leg as the break arrives and the man is left in awe of this work of art.

If he just looks at you and wonders what you are doing, just smile back. (You had to be there).

Sally coming back to your point, if you are serious about "spreading the word.." we could be changing the whole balance of lead and follow. I would not like to be held personally responsible for blood being spilled on the dance floor over who is leading who. The floor would become sticky and awkward for the other dancers.

About the workshop, it appears to have been such a success in Aberdeen, we have decided to run it in London, well just east of London in July. If you would like more details please just drop me an email ceroc@hotmail.com

The reason we have never taught at Camber etc, we have never been asked.

As regards shifting to NZ, yes this is true, but not until November 2004. When we do move, we will ironically have more time for workshops, we will be back every 12 weeks.

Finally I would like to say that we had such a brilliant time in Aberdeen. We have never been made to feel so welcome and loved every minute of it. We were very impressed at the standard of the dancing. All credit to a great bunch of teachers and crew.

Sorry for this long posting but thought I'd get everything out the way in one go.

Adam