Question For Leaders in WCS . . .

Leaders, if you are WCS dancing with a follower who is very good, and she is off in her own little world of syncopations, or she disconnects from the connection on her own . . . What do you do???

For the disconnect, I personally put her into multiple spins, which should make her think about the connection a little more, but for the unlimited footwork . . . hmmmmmmm??? More tucks, whips, locks, dips???

Help.

Gotta let em go, Vince. Try to sense when they finish a move, then lead what you want. But that's the challenge of dancing with a really advanced follow ... sure they can do a lot, but you often feel as if you've got a tiger by the tail.

For goodness sakes, don't try to impose your will by locking her down.

Vince A said:

Leaders, if you are WCS dancing with a follower who is very good, and she is off in her own little world of syncopations, or she disconnects from the connection on her own . . . What do you do???

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I have no desire to get into a struggle for control with a dance partner. If she asks nicely for space to do her own thing, up to a reasonable point she'll get it. If she's clearly better than I am then she'll probably get as much space as she's willing to make use of, and I'll try to cue off her improvisations to learn something new and suggest it back to her.

For example, if I lead something and the follow doesn't react as expected, it may be because I screwed up the lead; it may be because she doesn't know how to react to the lead; or it may be that I led something more sophisticated than I know. It is usually pretty clear from context which case it is: if the follower looks confused it's the first or second, while if I'm looking on with dropped jaw and admiration, it's the last. In that case I'll try to repeat that lead in the hope she'll do it again and I'll understand what happened; and if I now recognize what I've led and do it more cleanly, that may give her room to move up a step in interpretation.

But if she just does her own thing and ignores my lead, she's not a very good follower. Likewise if she drops the connection of her own volition. Once that happens I may do more patterns that start and end in closed position, and I may shorten up the slot a bit, but generally speaking I just let the follower do as she pleases while leading lots of push breaks and side passes. If she's a beginner this problem tends to go away in time; if she's not a beginner and just doesn't like to follow, I'm unlikely to ask her to dance again in the future.