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.

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!

I won!! I won.

Winning a game that basically combines the simplicity of Pong with the hypnotic beauty of the MSPaint color wheel should not make me feel quite this accomplished.

But you know what? IT DOES.