Online Workshop: Moves, moves, moves

[Gadget]

Workshop: Moves, moves, moves.

Aims: This workshop is aimed at showing you how to get the most out of your existing moves and how to create new ones “on the fly”.

Content:

• Introduction
• What you already know
• Modifying moves
• Putting it together
• Screw-ups
• Summary

Conclusion: By the end of this workshop, you should have a better understanding of how to make the most of your moves, how to surprise the ladies and how to avoid stagnation in your repertoire.

Format: 10 page MSWord document (.doc) or Adobe'PDF

{the idea of an on-line workshop is that people can take it away and look it over, practice with a partner on their own, do as much or little as they feel ready for and move at a pace that suits them.}

Please leave feedback

[El Salsero Gringo]

Hurrah for Gadget! Lots of rep!

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by Gadget

{the idea of an on-line workshop is that people can take it away and look it over, practice with a partner on their own, do as much or little as they feel ready for and move at a pace that suits them.}

This would be useful for our little group of 'regulars' here in Belfast for when we next meet to practise (hopefully soon) - is it OK to make copies and share with them? (with all credit to you of course!)

[Gadget]

Feel free

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by Gadget

Feel free

[MartinHarper]

I'm accustomed to giving feedback for these things, and I sometimes miss out the customary positive stuff. So. Wow. Super. Cool. Funky. Thanks. Have some rep. (etc)

Note that all of these points are debatable, feel free to ignore all of them, or just the ones you think are particularly stupid. I'm sticking to writing style, spelling and grammar stuff.

Intro

"I think", "hopefully", etc - Marks of good humility, but bad form in this kind of material. Be bold, and drop the qualifiers.

"you have probably figured out" - again, just state it. Talking about what I or other dances might or might not have figured out gets in the way.

First person writing. Some folks do first person well. Given the above point, I'd recommend rewriting it in third person, and then getting rid of anything that looks stupid (eg, "the author thinks that..." looks stupid).

"most people just collect moves" - your aim should be to discuss dancing, not dancers.

"The author" - I'm interested in: Dancing experience, dances known, teaching experience, competition experience. Your self-descibed style (again, less humility).
I'm not interested in: the forum (ick - advert), what other people describe your style as, general self-puffery.

"Loose" is what you do to chained animals: you set them loose. "Lose" is what you do when you no longer have something you used to have, such as chained animals.

Pages 3-4

Vastly improved on the first couple pages. You seem to have warmed up by this point. Good.

Different colours and indenting for exercises - good. Looks like you've thought about how it'll work when printed in black and white, which is very good.

"Think about it" - fluff. Delete.

"air piston" - I liked this.

"board" is what you play monopoly on. "bored" is what pedants make you feel.

Pages 5-6

Three exercises in a row. Ick. Space 'em out.

As an online tutorial, you should be linking to a site with fuller descriptions of existing moves (eg catapult), pref. with diagrams. This will reduce name confusion (eg, JazzJive catapult is different to Ceroc catapult, etc).

"Man spin variant, fixed man" is a "slow man spin" in Ceroc, if you care.

Dips and seducers... no, I think you're wandering off core material here.

The rest

"Personally", "I would recommend" - confidence, man, confidence!

"help the m" - Equal rights for all letters of the alphabet!

"the ma only has hold of the left" - good nod towards female leaders. Also, left what?

"Well, that's it" - too apologetic.

Good recap at the end. Good style.

Weird extra para breaks (in PDF, anyway)

Don't need your email - it's at the bottom of every page

"This document is not copyright" - you mean "this document is not copyrighted". Would be good to say instead/as well "this document is public domain" and link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

----

All in all, a nice piece of work. Lots to think about.

[drathzel]

Originally Posted by Lynn

This would be useful for our little group of 'regulars' here in Belfast for when we next meet to practise (hopefully soon) - is it OK to make copies and share with them? (with all credit to you of course!)

i was going to suggest this!

[Gadget]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

I'm accustomed to giving feedback for these things, and I sometimes miss out the customary positive stuff. So. Wow. Super. Cool. Funky. Thanks. Have some rep. (etc)

I would much rather this feedback than any sycophantic stuff Thank you.

The spelling - well, spell check can only correct so much

First person writing. Some folks do first person well. Given the above point, I'd recommend rewriting it in third person, and then getting rid of anything that looks stupid (eg, "the author thinks that..." looks stupid).

I didn't really want to write it as third person - it comes out as instructions rather than recommendations. Personally I am more willing to take up a suggestion to do something than a command... but I understand this is meant to be a workshop: are people expecting to be sat down told 'do this, do that'? I don't know: more feedback on this please

I'll edit for more conviction I think.

"The author" - I'm interested in: Dancing experience, dances known, teaching experience, competition experience. Your self-descibed style (again, less humility).
I'm not interested in: the forum (ick - advert), what other people describe your style as, general self-puffery.

yea, I wrote the header thinking that most people would want to know about my dance experioance to make sure I wasn't just spouting guff.. then I realised in filling it "I am spouting guff!"

I think I'll remove it completley and just put in a breif link here as an 'inspiration source'

Three exercises in a row. Ick. Space 'em out.

Yea, I thought about that one - but they are all related and variations on a theme. Perhaps just drop the last one and put a 'figure it out yourself' bit.(?) Or drop the easiest one.

As an online tutorial, you should be linking to a site with fuller descriptions of existing moves (eg catapult), pref. with diagrams. This will reduce name confusion (eg, JazzJive catapult is different to Ceroc catapult, etc).

If it was a true "online" tutorial I would have written it in HTML and had roll-overs describing the moves or pop-up windows; it was an option I considered, then disgarded - I want to let people print it and take it away; hard to do with links. However I think I do need to add a disclaimer about the naming of moves.

"Man spin variant, fixed man" is a "slow man spin" in Ceroc, if you care.

really? never seen it taught. (or if I have, it's been as part of one of these "slow man spin with back handed flick into cross-lead lunge" moves. )

Dips and seducers... no, I think you're wandering off core material here.

I know, but there are a couple of reasons I inserted them:
- popularity
- opening the mind to using the same concepts with non-basic moves
- demonstration of using this technique in combination with musicality
- I like them
Note that I tried to make this section a demonstration rather than a practical example. If it were a 'real' workshop I would probably time this as a 'show-off' last item before breaking for lunch/refreshments.

"the ma only has hold of the left" - good nod towards female leaders.

good point - I think I mix up the terms "lead" and "man" (& "follow/lady") it would be better with some consistancy.


Thanks again for the feedback (...revision 0.1 shortly...)

[Gadget]

Revised:
Re-worded the introduction, changed the wording of a couple of sections, replaced "man" and "lady" with "lead" and "follower", reduced it to two excercises where there were three, minor re-wording of the summary.

[drathzel]

Originally Posted by Gadget

Revised:
Re-worded the introduction, changed the wording of a couple of sections, replaced "man" and "lady" with "lead" and "follower", reduced it to two excercises where there were three, minor re-wording of the summary.

Thank you...

from a lady lead!!

[Trish]

I've read this now, but haven't tried it out - so the girls in Peterborough better look out!

Sounds really good actually, and I think it could produce some very interesting moves.

The only thing I would say is that several times in the Word version "them" seems to have been replaced by "their" which makes it a bit confusing. In the version I got there seemed to be a lot of rogue spaces in the middle of words, but that might have been because I copied it over so I could save it.

Excellent idea though! And despite the fact that I haven't yet tried them, the exercises look fairly clear in the main.

Have some rep!

[Gadget]

Originally Posted by Trish

The only thing I would say is that several times in the Word version "them" seems to have been replaced by "their" which makes it a bit confusing. In the version I got there seemed to be a lot of rogue spaces in the middle of words, but that might have been because I copied it over so I could save it.

...hmmm need to check that out (I was being lazy and using the "replace" feature -I confess that I scan-read the results instead of actually going through it ).

Thank you for the feedback.

[Gadget]

{I found five minor typo's... for me, that's as close to perfection in spelling and grammer as I have ever been! I've changed them on my master copy, but I won't re-release it just for these.}

[Yogi_Bear]

Originally Posted by Gadget

{I found five minor typo's... for me, that's as close to perfection in spelling and grammer as I have ever been! I've changed them on my master copy, but I won't re-release it just for these.}

Gadget, if there were a prize for the Forum's worst speller.....('grammer')..!!

[TheTramp]

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bear

Gadget, if there were a prize for the Forum's worst speller.....('grammer')..!!

There was. And he won it!!

[Yogi_Bear]

Originally Posted by TheTramp

There was. And he won it!!

...no contest!...

[bigdjiver]

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bear

Gadget, if there were a prize for the Forum's worst speller.....('grammer')..!!

I value Gadgets contributions here, and hope he will never be deterred.

Eye half dun hay cheque Hon hall off fees whirred.