Bouncy Men as leads

[Martin]

My advice is to ask this guy to experiment with you. Suggest he tries bouncing his hand less, try bouncing it more, try not bouncing it at all, etc.

Good call Andy, also get it videoed an watch it back with him and get his impressions.
Whenever Kylie and I were practicing (in the early days of trying to get better), we used to video ourselves and if we had a difference of opinion we would watch the video and decide together which way looked best.

I'd be amazed if anyone was sooo affected by a random strangers dance style that they booked them a private lesson to sort it out?

True with a random stranger, but with someone who dances with you locally and you have known for over 2 years, and in a pool of not many dancers... then why not a private lesson?

Not to mention that the only lesson I've seen Mr. Nathanson teach, he ignored his students and went flying past essential techniques that some people were struggling with, but which were needed for the rest of the lesson.

Good dancer? maybe, Good teacher? Not in my experience.

I am sorry that in your one viewing of a class, you gained this perception / opinion.

There are many factors to think about when teaching and people do not always get it 100% for everyone.

Hopefully you will get a chance to partake as a student in a class or workshop with Adam in the future and your view might change.

Certainly, having joined in as a customer, to some of his workshops, I have a lot of respect for his ability.

Guys
We come to the forum in search for advice becasue we can not get the help locally. We have no really great teachers to menter us.

We really appreciate your advice as its not coming from anyone in this town, so suggestions to talk to our teachers isn't one we can fall back to.

Yes we know Adam down here and funny enough, Mr Bouncy went to a musciality class of his a few years ago and it was like a major transformation in a space of an hour or so

I guess you answered your own question... You cannot get help locally, there was a major transformation after a workshop with Adam...

I hope that you gain encoragement and ideas from this forum and from DVD's.. If you want one on one help, then, like the top dancers in the UK many years ago, who's local teacher could only take them so far... They travelled, spent the money and got to be much better dancers.

Good luck

Martin

[TA Guy]

I'd just let him work it out of his system and enjoy bouncing around like Tigger for a while. He may well go to smooth of his own accord in a year or so, particularly if he was attracted to ballet in the first place. Hence my "keep bouncing, but maybe dance smooth with Kiwichook" approach

Nice idea.

Whatever you do, don't treat it as 'a problem' like so many on this board do. It's just a clash of styles, the smoother, bluesey'er style that's currently in vogue, and the more traditional MJ style influenced not a little bit by Ballroom Jive.

[Martin]

Nice idea.

Whatever you do, don't treat it as 'a problem' like so many on this board do. It's just a clash of styles, the smoother, bluesey'er style that's currently in vogue, and the more traditional MJ style influenced not a little bit by Ballroom Jive.

Yeah clash of styles.

It is not trad MJ style to be bouncy in my experience, it is more 1990's Ceroc Ltd.

I did MJ in the 90's and I did not bop. I was not taught to bop.

[Gav]

I am sorry that in your one viewing of a class, you gained this perception / opinion.
There are many factors to think about when teaching and people do not always get it 100% for everyone.
Hopefully you will get a chance to partake as a student in a class or workshop with Adam in the future and your view might change.

Well it was a half day workshop and there were quite a few people struggling who got ignored, it wasn't just me.

I'll give people plenty of chances normally, but not when it involves spending my money. Never again.

[Lory]

He called it the "wanky hand" he got everyone in the class to bop hands up and down, then got the girls to take a step back and stop bopping... Everyone then looked at the men moving thier hands up and down, he then asked people they thought it looked like... Hence the term...."Wanky hand"
There was a distinct lack of bouncy hands for the rest of the lesson...

Love it!

I know just the person I'm going to use that expression on!

[~*~Saligal~*~]

Thank you Martin for your helpful comments. I would like to hear from other girls who may have encountered this problem and hope they have the courage to speak about it or even god forbid make "a joke" about someone who pulls your arm consistently up and down. I see on this forum that some men don't like ladies that bounce, well it works both ways. Furthermore how about the concept of being chucked into a spin also at the same time the arm is "upping and downing" resulting in a falling over or coming off balance on the ladies part. And to top it off, then being taken down for "not following" to what amounts to a most disorientating and distracting lead, if it can even be called that??

Can you get one of the teachers/coaches to let him know that to improve his dancing he would do better to work on his lead arm?(if the arm thing looks so obviously wrong, surely the coaches in NZ are good enough to notice it!) it might sound better coming from them than from one of his peers. If you are indeed a teacher of ceroc, and he won't listen then you may need to mention that you've had feedback from some followers that his arm "technique" that he's happy with isn't working for them either. Maybe when he knows that he's putting people off dancing with him he might get the message (good luck on your quest btw!)

[NZ Monkey]

Yes we know Adam down here and funny enough, Mr Bouncy went to a musciality class of his a few years ago and it was like a major transformation in a space of an hour or so

Adam would be the closest "name" that anyone in the UK is likely to be familiar with, but he's far from the only respected teacher around NZ.

If for whatever reason you're near Auckland, you might try coming along to a workshop at Lorne Street. They're usually held around comp times so that might provide an excuse, although they do provide a monthly "moving up" workshop for beginners/early intermediates that covers (among other things...) exactly the issue you're describing.

Paul and Dana Tanavasa are excellent dancers and run their own MJ company up here. Sticking with Ceroc your best bet's might be Raechel Allen, or Pete Thomas and Tareza [insert last name here] in Auckland. Andre Merrigold is a good teacher about to move to Tauranga though which might be more convinient.

The forumnites Andreas and TheTramp are the most widely travelled MJ I know of throughout NZ. If you PM'd them I'm sure they could add something more to what I've just said.

[NZ Monkey]

Hi ya guys
Yes we know Adam down here and funny enough, Mr Bouncy went to a musciality class of his a few years ago and it was like a major transformation in a space of an hour or so - he looked to be cured, and he put out the most amazing dances ever that evening, he was pure magic! But when he got home he went straight back to bouncing and folks, yes that was 2 years ago ..I feel that we have been very patient with him, accentuated the positive things we saw he took from Adam's class, but after 2 years of this, it is time to start tackling him about the reversion back. We are 5 hours drive away from Adam so in total 10 hours all up by road to fix it and then there is costs and time out of the busy schedule to do this. We just really wanted some ideas on some things we could do here for him, hey

In light of this, I have to ask the question again - does he really want to be helped?

I'm asking this because it seems quite possible to me that he just doesn't care - which means that any effort you make to solve his problems are likely to be the well intentioned version of pushing the brown stuff uphill.

Let me put it this way:

Change requires some effort on the part of Mr Bouncy. If it's undoing a habit of many years then it'll require a lot of effort. In order for this to be worth it then there has to be some sort of pay-off for him, and at the moment there seems little reason for him to do so other than to make you* happy.

It sounds to me like you don't have much in the way of close role-models which makes it difficult to see that there is a better way. It also sounds like you don't have much in the way of decent men on the dancefloor, which pretty much means he currently has a captive audience already.

Perhaps it's just better to accept the fact that he is what he is and happy that way, and not run the risk of it affecting your friendship. You can lead a horse to water after all.....

Read: the lovliest person in the room, the pushy b*tch who tells everyone how to dance, the hopeless girl who just can't follow, the extrememly talented one who just gets it naturally every time, or anything else that might be applicable in his view

[Martin]

In light of this, I have to ask the question again - does he really want to be helped?

/snip

Perhaps it's just better to accept the fact that he is what he is and happy that way, and not run the risk of it affecting your friendship. You can lead a horse to water after all.....

If he is happy, be happy for him.

Either go with the flow, or do not dance with him, because it hurts.

I know you spend time and money to dance better, if he will not (or thinks he can not) I guess it's time to accept that.

I do not know of any top dancers in NZ, UK or Aussie, who have not put in a lot of practice time, money and travel to get where they are.

[Gadget]

Personally I wouldn't ask him not to bounce, but to 'flow' more; to shine the spotlight on his partner; make the dance more of a subtle act rather than a pantomine...

I think that he may just be 'finding the beat' with his hands, but he's hitting a big timpony drum with fists rather than a little snair with fingers.

If he likes being a "drama queen" in his dancing, then it's a simple fact that contrast provides greater drama and effect; he dosn't have to stop being bouncy - just learn how to smooth things so that he can put more into his dancing.

...of course (as has been suggested) you could always learn how to dance with a bouncy lead...

[MartinHarper]

I'm asking this because it seems quite possible to me that he just doesn't care.

By contrast, kiwichook does care. Life would work better if she put the effort in to change, as she has the appropriate motivation.

[kiwichook]

Well guys I printed off some of the stuff here, including Ghost's letter. We also put on some blues music for Mr Bouncy, showed him some moves we had learn out of town and then asked him to talk thr and demo to a few others what he had seen and oh my god, WOW!!!! This man can seriously dance when he puts his mind to it! The demo was AMAZING -it was enough to shed a tear ! The spooky part of it is that visually we could see that perhaps, dare I say it, we are harbouring a clone of the world famous Adam, except with a kiwi accent..

[Ghost]

Well guys I printed off some of the stuff here, including Ghost's letter. We also put on some blues music for Mr Bouncy, showed him some moves we had learn out of town and then asked him to talk thr and demo to a few others what he had seen and oh my god, WOW!!!!

to him for doing this

[Martin]

to him for doing this

I hope he got a lot of positive praise ... I am sure he did

[kiwichook]

I hope he got a lot of positive praise ... I am sure he did

By oath he did..he has so much potential, just unfortunately tends to get "losssst in spaaaaace" sometimes. The agreeement however that seems to be working well for us is that he bounces with teenage bouncy ladies and stops bouncing when he dances with woman of his own age, that is the old witchey poo hags. Like me for instance and a few others who count themselves in this category, and its workin'! Such an agreeable old fella aye

[Martin]

By oath he did..he has so much potential, just unfortunately tends to get "losssst in spaaaaace" sometimes. The agreeement however that seems to be working well for us is that he bounces with teenage bouncy ladies and stops bouncing when he dances with woman of his own age, that is the old witchey poo hags. Like me for instance and a few others who count themselves in this category, and its workin'! Such an agreeable old fella aye

What a great agreement, he gets to "freak out" with the youngsters and go smooth for the smooth chicks...

Only a few more sleeps to Hunter Valley now... I will be looking out for some "old witchey poo hags" from NZ

[kiwichook]

Yip started packing that witches bag already, I'm the only witch though attending from the boondocks studio. My other two cohorts have another convention to attend so sadly will not be there to conjure up sum dodgy magic

[Trouble]

Well done guys I hope he appreciates the trouble you guys have gone to, to improve his dancing.

DTS Dave logged on at Troubles.
XXX XXX

[Martin]

Yip started packing that witches bag already, I'm the only witch though attending from the boondocks studio. My other two cohorts have another convention to attend so sadly will not be there to conjure up sum dodgy magic

Did you pack your T-shirt, you know, the one that sais

"Don't bounce - or I'll turn you into a frog"