Sagitta said:
All very true, but in that case the leader can only do it with follows who he knows can do their part as well. If the leader has good technique, but the follow is lacking, then strength comes into play. N'est pas?
Firstly, if the follow doesn't know the move, then the leader shouldn't be doing it with her (outside of a teaching/practice situation).
When teaching or learning it, you can make a judgement between "let her know what the move feels like, even though we haven't got the technique down", and "make sure we have the technique before we start". Often it's a bit of both - learn how to get to point A, find out what the problem is in getting from A to B, then work on that bit of technique etc... It's rarely as simple as you think, so you may end up breaking one move into many pieces!
When it comes to strength, what I've found is that lifts take much more strength when you're learning the technique than when you've got it right. I often need to "brute force" a move when learning it - the general issue being that many moves need strength to do slowly.
As far as weight goes, if you are only talking about lifts at or below the man's shoulder, weight shouldn't be an issue. Even 200lbs isn't impossible for many such lifts - what becomes a limiting factor more quickly is size - you want the woman's center to be close to the man, and if she's very large, that's going to be a problem.
IMHO, overhead lifts are a different matter. It might not be politically correct, but size does matter here. If you look at the top pair skaters, Jamie Sale is one of the largest at around 105 lbs. You do find adagio pairs with the woman weighing > 140 lbs, but they are very much the exception.
Oh, and particularly for overhead weights, be aware that being able to lift a barbell and being able to lift a woman are
very different things. Don't assume you'll be able to do the latter with anything like the weight of the former without a lot of practice!
Dave
go you!
