Following: theory, practice, and lavender coffins

I've been thinking about my following (in a dance/Lindy hop context) a lot over the past few months. I reached a certain level round about September where I had taken all the classes in the normal series from the Jam Cellar, and it had come to a point where I was responsible for my own improvement. I didn't have instructors telling me things to improve on every week, and I had to figure out on my own where I wanted to take my dancing. 

I did some reading online, and decided "interesting shapes" was my missing piece between intermediate following and advanced following. I became fixated on my arms, on jutting my hips during the rock step, and on trying to develop "feminine lines." I have lots of thoughts on why that was not a good direction for me (some of which I wrote about in my "Dancestravaganzaaa" series), and those will just have to wait for another time. In the meantime, I'll just say this: fuck feminine lines, I just want to DANCE. 

(A version of this was originally posted to the r/swingdancing forum, and was mostly written between 1am and 2am after an awesome night of dancing.)

I've basically distilled my (current) overall following philosophy down into two main points:

Point 1: Mirroring (+10%)

I'm using the term mirroring here instead of matching (though they are really similar) because I learned about this concept in a non-dance context first.

Mirroring and matching are pretty basic follow tactics. Mirror the lead's frame. What does the lead do with their arms? Where does the lead want the tension to be, and how much? Where is the lead's center? Mirror the lead's musicality. How much footwork is the lead doing? How is the lead reading the music? A good follow should mirror and react to all of those things.

Also, especially in Blues, I tend to try to respect the tradition from which the lead is coming. People who feel like lindy hoppers, I'll follow more like a lindy hopper. If the lead feels like a ballroom dancer, I'll adjust my frame. Same with Tango and Salsa-- I feel like it allows me to better follow the moves they throw in and also creates a better experience for the lead.

Now the +10% part. Basically, to communicate effectively with someone, you can mirror them: smile for smile, srs business handshake for srs business handshake. This comes naturally to most people. What comes naturally to me, and is another tool for communicating even more effectively, is mirroring +10%. Other party in the conversation is smiling? Smile a little wider. Other party is telling a joke and giggling? Laugh out loud. Other person is frowning? Neutral expression. 

In the context of dance, this happens in two ways. One is energy level-- I try to always be energized in my dancing and always pushing, just a little bit beyond what the lead is giving me. I find it really amps up the dance for me, even if occasionally I'll get a comment like "Whew! Do you ever stop?"

BUT! If I'm dancing with a lead who also gives a +10% and the song is rocking, our dance can build and build on its own energy until we're whirling around on the dance floor and nothing else matters. 

The other place to use the +10% concept is skill level. If I'm dancing with a lead who is below my level, I'll try to insert a few very basic stylistic variations that won't throw the lead off, but will get them used to a follow doing a thing. A couple of minor swivels, a small kick here or there, etc. I feel like one of the reasons follows have it easier than leads is that leads rarely get the chance to learn from follows, whereas follows are led in more and more complicated moves all the time, forcing us to adapt. I try to be the best follow* I can be for every dance I dance, and sometimes that means a little bit of on the fly schoolin' for the beginners.

Oh, also, if you look thrown off by a fast swing rhythm, you best believe I'll have a strong pulse in the beginning.

*First and foremost I try to be the best dancer I can be.

Point 2: Be water.

Are you ready to get deep? Why the hell not, it's after 1am for me, I just had a great time at the dance, and I'm in the mood to ramble some more. The other day, I saw this clip: 

It was illuminating. Lee says, "If you try to remember you will lose. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless. Be water, my friend." That's how I try to follow, as best I can. I try to be water.

(There's been a lot of talk over the years about analogies for following and how they are often bankrupt. This one is no different. It's just how I think of it, and, for the record I think the same can be said of a good lead, except initially the lead is only "formless and shapeless" until he or she hears the music. Then the conversation begins and we both begin to transform ourselves into that which is not water.)

I try to be the most honest follow I can be, and that means not anticipating moves. It means interpreting the music within the structure the lead sets up. It means being able to react as quickly as possible to a new concept a lead introduces or switch directions as soon as the lead "mentions" it.

In a very basic sense, it means that I will Charleston with you for the entirety of "Lavender Coffin" even if I know that it's a terrible idea. It means that I will try to follow the rhythm you're interpreting, even if I can hear the downbeat and phrasing much better than you after a year of dancing and ten years of percussion and music instruction.

HOLY CRAP I love this song.

At its best, social dancing is a conversation between two people and the music. Each one brings different philosophies, styles, and ideas to the table, and hopefully each one comes away satisfied. When a dance feels like it clicks (for me, at least), it's usually because the way we interpreted the music was similar, our dancing styles lent themselves to each other and improved our conversation, and, here's the kicker, I didn't have to work very hard to make sure that happened. I didn't have to think about interpreting the lead's frame-- it was obvious. I didn't have to worry about my stylings messing the lead up; it was clear that they wouldn't. I didn't have to figure out a discrepancy between the musical phrasing that I was hearing and what the lead was telling me to do.

One last point: for me, a dance clicking is a different feeling between blues and lindy. With blues, it feels a little bit like neither of us is actually leading-- we're letting our bodies and our connection create the interpretation of the space and it's all kinds of counterbalance goodness. With lindy, a dance clicking is like the most fun day at the carnival ever. It's me getting to really grind into my swivels during the exact right chorus, it's us being playful with the music, and it involves a ton of movement and motion and preparation and followthrough. I laugh a lot when I dance lindy, and it's because of the energy and playfulness and just plain delight I find inherent.

Dancing is life. Good Lindy hop is indistinguishable from sheer joy.

Soundtrack for the week of October 21-October 27

These be my jams this week.

First: Asaf Avidan - One day / Reckoning Song (Wankelmut Remix)

Holy Moses, this is a brilliant remix of a song whose original was, truth be told, a tiny bit whiny. This treatment feels like a simple marking of the passage of time. It's a bit frantic, a bit sad, and incredibly hopeful. "I don't think about you all the time, but when I do I wonder why. One day, baby, we'll be old; think of all the stories that we could have told."

Second: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes - Man on Fire

I feel like Edward Sharpe and his Attractive Null Sets actually just sings the songs in my heart. Maybe it's because I heard somewhere that his first album is based on a southwestern roadtrip the lead singer took when he was a child, maybe it's because the music feels like music I loved as a kid: the soul sounds of the hippies and Motown combined with upbeat parables. Maybe it's because he describes himself as a man on fire and then invites the world to dance with him. It's probably all of the above. Whatever it is, I do love it.

Third: Michael Jackson - Thriller

Thanks to the Jam Cellar, I'm learning to dance this. It has honestly taken 6 cumulative hours of instruction to learn the dance between 8:02 and 10:35. For those of you playing at home, that's two minutes and thirty-three seconds of dancing. Unlike Michael, we are not naturals.

Fourth: Logan Afyouni and Drunk Guy (Clark Chamberlin) - Caroline

I love this story. A gal with a guitar walks by, a super drunk guy begs her to stay and teach him a song. Their voices just... belong together. I love her face when she realizes what's happening and how special it is. And now they have plans to make music together. I love people.

Fifth: Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Shake That Thing

Last song of the night for me at the Jam Cellar this week. Whenever this song comes on, I try to strategically get one of the leads that will allow me to actually shake that thing. I try to dance with all levels of dancers and, as a follow, that means that I sometimes have to just chill out and do some triple-triple-rock step without too much distraction for the leads. Dancing is a ton of fun no matter what, but there are some folks with whom it's just... more fun. This week I grabbed Omar and we shook our things like nobody's business. It was awesome.

DANCESTRAVAGANZAAAAA Part 3: Following is not the lamer pursuit

I attended the Lindustrial Revolution Lindy hop exchange in Charlottesville, VA on Memorial Day weekend. I had more fun than should be legal and gathered a lot to think about. In my somewhat obsessive thoughts about the experience, I wrote several emails to friends (mostly Emily). These entries are culled from those.

It's important to remember that I am an Intermediate Lindy hopper. I've really only been dancing and trying to improve consistently for about a year, although I learned about five years ago and have been dancing sporadically since 2007. All of my comments are tempered by that relative inexperience.

To read all the posts in this series, click on the "Dancestravaganza series" tag.

A big part of this weekend were the workshops. I was super excited about these, because I feel like I'm at a level where I don't get as much from the normal classes as I once did. We covered some new material in these workshops: new steps and the like. But as a follow, the stuff that I really got out of it was more philosophical, which was awesome.

As follows, this is generally the advice:

1. follow what the lead leads
2. don't plan ahead
3. have your stylings be convenient for the lead

Most of the time the lessons are focused almost entirely on the lead. He lead learns moves that they can use to lead us. That's fine and necessary. After all, that's how the dance, you know, works. But at a certain point, I don't know how to improve my dancing. When I'm dancing with a great lead, my dancing is on the awesome side of intermediate. When I'm dancing with a mediocre lead, my dancing is on the lower side of intermediate. My engagement in the dance was beginning to be dependent entirely on the lead's ability to engage me. Where to from here? 

But the advice this weekend was more like, um, well... it's difficult to explain. But it felt freeing.

Instead of focusing so hard on connection and partnership, we follows were brought into the discussion more. We talked about direction and momentum, and about communication and interpretation. Basically the lead communicates the direction and the momentum in and with which the follow goes, and the follow does whatever she likes once she has that. "You are two dancers. You must dance together. The dancing creates the movement." We talked about things like being an active follow who has some agency, which is super awesome.

It's nice to have it reinforced that there are moments in the dance that are open to interpretation, and so long as I'm going the correct direction, I can take some liberties in what I do with myself and how I play with the rhythm. It's just so nice to hear. It's like I have permission to be creative and to mess up a bit. The lead can handle it if my styling gets in the way, probably. Ideally it wouldn't, but leads get the hell in my way all the freaking time. So there.

But wait, Lexie, you're saying. What about original rules 2 and 3? Isn't that what those are about anyway, just not as explicitly? The answer is yes. But the follow's role tends to get lost in the noise of the lead's movements. Elaboration on how one could take advantage of these rhythmic moments, and encouragement to do so, was something I was sorely missing.

Lindy hop is a dance that's built to be a bit more participatory than traditional ballroom dancing, Part of its evolution had to do with tap and solo jazz, and there are no lead/follow distinctions from there. Also, a passage on dancing in the Gail Collins book really stuck out to me. In the 1960s, women could suddenly go dancing without dependence on a man. Women could be good dancers without men. Women were free to dance however the heck they wanted. They could dance with each other or by themselves. And instead of waiting for someone to ask you to the sock hop, you could just do it your own self. 

Although I am a woman fully in charge of my own destiny thanks to the women who have come before me (what what Susan B!!), I don't always feel that way when I'm doing my favorite leisure activity. It was causing me some minor cognitive dissonance, which was no good!

Overall, even though I probably should have been, I hadn't been feeling encouraged to experiment in the same way leads are. Prior to this weekend, I had heard/decided that my next focus in the development of my dancing is to "create shapes with my body." That's fine and all, but there are a couple problems here. First, just "create shapes" doesn't have a root in rhythm. Plus I'm not the most naturally coordinated person in the world, so everything was getting a little disjointed and loose. 

Moreover, I don't want the dance to be solely about how I look. Styling is gorgeous and obviously everything in dance is related. For instance, grace is beautiful, but following the rhythm gracefully is a good goal. Attempting to be graceful only for the sake of beauty and interesting shapes is kind of, um, problematic. Dance is obviously a visual medium, but I don't want my dancing to be about being beautiful. I want it to be about being athletic and joyful and rhythmic. Screw beauty, I want to jump around and have fun!

So not to make this all "How Lexie Got Her Groove Back" (sidebar-- "How Stella Got Her Grove Back" about property disputes over an orange farm in Florida would be a really great movie), but I feel like I have been given permission to be a powerful dancer in my own right. I still need to not hurt my lead, but I can surprise him (or her) every once in a while. I can rock out if I'm feeling it. 

So thanks, Mike and Laura (and especially Laura) for an awesome workshop where I learned a lot and had a ton of fun. And you gave me back a feeling of agency.

Dancestravaganzaaaaa Part 2: Lessons and an Ego Check

I attended the Lindustrial Revolution Lindy hop exchange in Charlottesville, VA on Memorial Day weekend. I had more fun than should be legal and gathered a lot to think about. In my somewhat obsessive thoughts about the experience, I wrote several emails to friends (mostly Emily). These entries are culled from those.

It's important to remember that I am an Intermediate Lindy hopper. I've really only been dancing and trying to improve consistently for about a year, although I learned about five years ago and have been dancing sporadically since 2007. All of my comments are tempered by that relative inexperience.

To read all the posts in this series, click on the "Dancestravaganza series" tag.

After having not progressed in the Jack and Jill, I had my eyes set on the advanced track of lessons/workshops. To get into the advanced track, you attended a sort of mini audition. If you wanted to try out, you danced to several songs with different partners. The instructors watched and pulled the folks they think were advanced into the advanced track.

We did three dances and I danced as well as I could. It was a little sad, actually. As the dances progressed, the people who thought they were more advanced got more stressed by not being picked for advanced. My last dance was with my marine and we sort of looked at each other and shrugged as it ended. We were intermediate dancers. I gave him one of my We Won! high fives and said we were the winners. He looked puzzled at me, and I said, "Well, we're both here, so it has to be the winners level."

It's possible that's not how the Marines operate.

So a couple of things I've been proud of in my dancing are my hips and my strength. I may not salsa well, but I salsad first. My hips are prominent and I can jut them like nobody's business. And my upper body strength! I can bench press my body weight. That takes some strength. I am not a weak woman.

And in the first intermediate lesson, I was called out on... both of those things. As a result of trying to "make interesting shapes," I was totally over-thinking something as simple as stepping. In my rock step I was stepping too far back, jutting a hip, and basically breaking up all of the lines and athletic body stance you might expect to see in this dance. I was crouching and jutting with all my might. The instructor walked over.

"That rock step? Try to keep it more in line with your body. It just looks a little awkward right now."

The second thing the instructor told me was that I looked like I was getting jerked around on the dance floor by a lead who was most decidedly not my Marine buddy. The lead was shorter than me and, frankly, I could bench press the heck out of him. In attempting to wait until the last possible moment to decide which direction to go ("following on a dime" was how I was thinking about it), I was allowing my shoulders to be pulled out of line with my body, and was following through my arms rather than through my body.

These criticisms are totally valid, but I couldn't help feeling silly about them. "Hey, I'm strong!" I thought, "and my hips are rocking!" But then I spent some time thinking about how I've been approaching dancing a little bit wrong: shapes and following on a dime are less important than following well and with your whole body, and being connected to all your extremities (and hips!) and to the music. 

As my understanding of how to be the best dancer I can be changes, it will be interesting to see how it will change. Something Nina Gilkenson said in a recent interview, nobody can tell you how your body moves. For the moment, though, I am very grateful to the instructor. It made me reevaluate how I do things in dancing, and I think it will make everything more awesome in general.

But it was nothing like the revelation that was to come. Stay tuned for episode 3!

Dancestravaganzaaaaa Part 1: Competing: If you're going to wear red heels, you should probably have solid footwork

I attended the Lindustrial Revolution Lindy hop exchange in Charlottesville, VA on Memorial Day weekend. I had more fun than should be legal and gathered a lot to think about. In my somewhat obsessive thoughts about the experience, I wrote several emails to friends (mostly Emily). These entries are culled from those.

It's important to remember that I am an Intermediate Lindy hopper. I've really only been dancing and trying to improve consistently for about a year, although I learned about five years ago and have been dancing sporadically since 2007. All of my comments are tempered by that relative inexperience.

To read all the posts in this series, click on the "Dancestravaganza series" tag.

I decided to compete last weekend. Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but I don't think I was an absolute embarrassment at all, and I didn't take anyone else's opportunity to shine away, so that's fine.

How it came to be:

I was dancing with my favorite lead out of the city of Richmond. This was maybe my third dance of the weekend, and I was not in fighting shape. I had left work later than I expected, ran home, and had to buy power bars and wine (because I am learning to be a classy guest) from CVS (because I'm not that classy) before I left. Then there was a ton of traffic on the way down (because Virginia). All in all, I arrived maybe two hours later than planned. The bridge leading to the venue was out, so I parked a ways away and walked in. I didn't remember to bring an extra shirt, no no.

And lo, the lead asked me if I was going to compete in the Jack and Jill.* And I said no and laughed it off. And then I sat the next one out and chatted with a follow from DC. She was going to compete, she said, and asked if I was going to as well. I said I hadn't been planning on it, but... 

And then, in the way of two people trying to talk themselves into doing something, suddenly I had written my name on the list. I was wearing my bright red dance shoes. 

I have a weird relationship with competitions. I both want to shy away but have everyone look at me at the same time. I kept fantasizing both about missing the competitor's meeting and about advancing to the finals.

What actually happened, however, was completely predictable. I did not advance to the finals; neither did I die. I had a moderate amount of fun. I flailed my legs as much as possible, and I messed up my basic steps. I tried to cover my inadequacies with jutting my hips out, placing my arms in the air, and generally creating interesting shapes with my body. [Please note: this phrase will take on too much importance over the next couple entries.]

Walking off the dance floor, I thought about a few things.

1. A couple of my favorite dance moves are ones I've discovered from basically first principles. One is to kick while rock stepping, and one is to do a kick-and-step instead of a triple step. Both can be great in certain contexts, but I felt like they got away from me during the competition. My footwork could have easily been improved by not doing those steps.
2. The floor was absurdly sticky, as the organizers had not busted out the baby powder. I couldn't do any swivels whatsoever, and that's kind of a big deal in following. If you can't do swivels, you best be doing some interesting steps.
3. I was still wearing my bright red dance shoes.
4. ... See title of this post.

So the competition went exactly as you'd expect it to go for an intermediate dancer. I decided that this weekend was about learning and about broadening my horizons, and competing did basically exactly that.

There seem to be some unwritten rules closely around the dance scene. Out of respect, you shouldn't compete in things you know you can't win. You should reach a certain level before asking the experienced dancers to dance, only the instructors dance in the jam circles... the list goes on. Breaking these rules seems arrogant. 

Well, screw it. At this point i'll learn best and fastest by exiting my comfort zone and daring to break the rules a little (or maybe bread the rules, as I first typed. Then deep fry them). Also, at this point, I don't really know where I fit in as a dancer and how to get better. Maybe I am/was unfairly discounting myself.

Oh yeah, that was the other thing I was going to get a handle on this weekend. I was going to try to master that making interesting shapes with my body thing.

*Open and unchoreographed swing dance competitions are called Jack and Jills. The first round is open to all comers. They randomly match leads and follows, and dancing happens. An equal number of leads and follows progress to the final round. They randomly pair people up again and then each couple competes as a team. I probably should have mentioned this in part one.

How weight training has made me a better dancer

Those of you who know me know that I have, over the past year, become what some call a "gym rat" and what others call "in the top 2,000 on Fitocracy's leaderboard." I lift weights. Frequently. Passionately.

Because lifting weights isn't really something that most 5'2" 26-year-old women tend to do with any frequency, I get some questions about it. These have included the following:

• "Isn't that dangerous?"
• "Are you trying to look like a body builder?"
• "Won't you bulk up?"
• "But what do you lift?"
• "Why?"
• "Yoga is so much better for you."
• "Running is so much better for you."
• "Do you actually like it?"
• No, really, why?"

The answers to these questions follow thus:  no, maybe, no, weights, we're getting to that, nah, nah, absolutely, and OKAY FINE I'LL TELL YOU WHY.

Simply put, lifting weights makes me better. At EVERYTHING.* I can open jars of salsa! I can rescue a kitten from under a fridge! I can carry more groceries in a single trip! I can lift a box of paper without grunting! I have better balance in the Metro! I can run faster for longer! But what it's really improved is my dancing.

I am a lindyhopping swing dancer. At my best, I look a little like this:

...I mean, those are the instructors from whom I take lessons. So I am significantly less good. But yes! Lindy hopping! It's the best!

Weightlifting has helped me out in a number of ways to improve my lindy. I'll outline how:

1. Balance-- Thanks in large part to weightlifting, my balance is much improved. I used to be so clumsy and unsteady that my feet would routinely go out from under me if my center of gravity was a bit off. All that has changed! I now have a much better innate sense of where my center is, due in no small part to lifting heavy things over my head and not falling over
2. Stamina-- True, this could have come from running, biking, or simply dancing more often. But being more active and weight-training have helped improve my stamina. After four hours of dancing, I'm usually still wanting more!
3. Brute leg strength-- There are times, as a follow, when I have no idea what to expect next. Nowadays, I can literally just hop up and down on one leg indefinitely while the other person pulls me around.
4. Better tension matching-- Something a lot of beginner lindyhoppers get wrong is tension. Basically, you need it at all times. Any time you're connected, you need to match the lead's tension and be ready to follow through with whatever move he (or she) outlines for you.
5. Better able to hold my own with difficult leads-- Occasionally you'll encounter a leader who is less interested in dancing with you and more interested in wrestling. In these situations, I'm always grateful I can match the strength with which I'm being pushed around AND have the muscles protecting my shoulder joints.
6. And last but not least... I have the confidence to just go up and ask someone to dance. This is true in a lot of areas of life. Once you've bench pressed 95% of your body weight, little things like asking someone to dance are not as harrowing any more.

Honorable mention: Someday I'll be doing aerials, probably both as a lead and a follow, and when that time comes you can be sure I'll be pleased with my strength. Also, in part thanks to weightlifting, I look damn good in a dress.

Things weightlifting has NOT made me better at: The Backwards Charleston. Seriously, how the hell does that work?

So yes, weightlifting is awesome. It makes me better at dancing and at life. You should do it too!

*Also it is the easiest way for me to make a bad mood better and to prove to myself that I am a hugely strong and powerful woman and to challenge myself within the bounds of my own physical presence and it makes me feel both lighter and heavier on this earth and I have a better knowledge of how my joints and my muscles and my bones interact and... I just really, really, really like it.