Patterns in swing

[blue]

the teacher has decided which moves we do (so we don't have as leaders to choose the moves to do, one thing less to think about

As a follower, this is exactly the kind of class I don't like. Classes that teach a pattern where the leaders don't have to think about to choose moves - seldom makes them learn how to lead the move. This leaves me two choices:
1) Not moving unless led. Many leaders will not be able to finish the pattern - if the lead of one move is missing, we are gone. They will think I am a terrible follower.
2) Doing my steps by myself. Quite a few leaders will like this. They do not know they do, though, because they do not know they are not actually leading the moves. Every now and then they realise I go by myself, though, and then they scorn me for it. The worst thing about this approach, though, is that the leaders I would very much like dancing with will probably decide for myself I am not a following follower, and so they will not ask me to dance later.

More advanced dancers are hopefully able to handle this is a better way. I don't know, I am not there yet. I feel being a follower in a pattern based class is "damned if you do, and damned if you don't". The more beginner level of the class, the less I like the pattern based way of teaching.

 

[blue]

Hmmmm...my favorite kind of class is the kind that focuses on technique, technique and more technique. I don't like learning steps, that's for the leads! I'd rather have an extra class on lead and follow instead.

I couldn't agree more.

Having said that, I think there's a value in sequence teaching classes for beginners. It's one thing to learn a move, it's something else to get used to the idea of stringing them together. Actually, I once had a class where the instructor gave possibilities of what can follow this or that step so that the students didn't have to figure it out on their own. The problem was, the newbies who were in the class got confused, and as far as they were concerned, the lesson was a waste. So it really depends on the level of the students.

I think this sounds like an excellent way of teaching beginners - if paced for beginners. Not pattern based teaching of beginners will take longer until they can dance a whole song using more than four or five moves - but when they get there, they will have understood the moves and learned how to combine them. The dance will be theirs, not just a pattern somebody taught them.

A pattern based class might be more easy to "fake" for people who are not really the level of the class. I have difficulties in seeing this as something good. Maybe it is better to realise you don't belong in this class, and go to those a level below instead.

 

[Alias]

... I don't like learning steps, that's for the leads!

In swing dances (and salsa dances) there are a few basic steps that allow to do almost all the moves (in WCS and Lindy you can learn figures with specific steps but that's another story), and as a follower you'd better know them in order to be able to follow almost any move, this is not the same concept as in Ballroom where you learn the steps for each figure.
One learns these basic steps in beginners or low intermediate class, then the moves are about the lot of combinations of arms and hands connections between the leader and the follower.

The leader is the one who has to learn the moves (with the possibilities with the arms and hands) and will have to manage them on the fly.
The follower can improve the technical execution of her own movement in some various moves in class, and in a pattern she knows what will happen so she can try footwork and movements with her body.

 

[Alias]

... my favorite kind of class is the kind that focuses on technique, technique and more technique.

I couldn't agree more.

What is meant more precisely by "technique" as focused in a class?

 

[huey]

... my favorite kind of class is the kind that focuses on technique, technique and more technique.

I couldn't agree more.

What is meant more precisely by "technique" as focused in a class?

I guess technique would focus on the "how" rather than the "what" questions. For example, how do you lead and follow a tuck turn. How do you start it, how do you end it, etc.

 

[blue]

What is meant more precisely by "technique" as focused in a class?

I like the "how" explanation.

If you focus on technique, you teach fewer moves and go into detail on them, working on whatever that make people perform them better.

 

[Swingolder]

2) Doing my steps by myself. Quite a few leaders will like this. They do not know they do, though, because they do not know they are not actually leading the moves.

This is it exactly! In the class, all the leaders thought -and the instructor thought-they had the moves!!!!!! But the followers were doing the steps. We knew what would be next and did it.

What is meant more precisely by "technique" as focused in a class?

I like the "how" explanation.

If you focus on technique, you teach fewer moves and go into detail on them, working on whatever that make people perform them better.

I would like to (and I would like my dh to) learn more technique. I suppose the only way to do that is to do it in private lessons. In the original post, I did say that this was an intermediate ec class and I guess that is what I thought we would be doing. Not just learning patterns.

 

[blue]

In swing dances (and salsa dances) there are a few basic steps that allow to do almost all the moves (in WCS and Lindy you can learn figures with specific steps but that's another story), and as a follower you'd better know them in order to be able to follow almost any move, this is not the same concept as in Ballroom where you learn the steps for each figure.
One learns these basic steps in beginners or low intermediate class, then the moves are about the lot of combinations of arms and hands connections between the leader and the follower.

The leader is the one who has to learn the moves (with the possibilities with the arms and hands) and will have to manage them on the fly.

That was an interesting observation. I wonder if this is why swing classes often look the way they do: possibly they are originally modelled after ballroom classes. I hear people saying that in their scene, there are lots of women in the beginner classes and more women than men at the venues, but more men than women in the more advanced classes. Not strange, if what is being taught almost entirely focus on the leader's perspective.

The follower can improve the technical execution of her own movement in some various moves in class, and in a pattern she knows what will happen so she can try footwork and movements with her body.

Personally I can think of many other things of working on that, that I prefer to patterns. Patterns teach me how to do stuff without being led, and I think patterns give me bad habits.

I would like to (and I would like my dh to) learn more technique. I suppose the only way to do that is to do it in private lessons. In the original post, I did say that this was an intermediate ec class and I guess that is what I thought we would be doing. Not just learning patterns.

It depends. I have been in classes where quite a lot of technique was taught. I would search if I could find teachers that teach differently.

 

[d nice]

... I don't like learning steps, that's for the leads!

In swing dances (and salsa dances) there are a few basic steps that allow to do almost all the moves (in WCS and Lindy you can learn figures with specific steps but that's another story), and as a follower you'd better know them in order to be able to follow almost any move, this is not the same concept as in Ballroom where you learn the steps for each figure.

The follower can improve the technical execution of her own movement in some various moves in class, and in a pattern she knows what will happen so she can try footwork and movements with her body.

Um, it isn't the followers responsibility to do anything but follow. There are no social dance moves in lindy hop that require the follower to do anything other than:
1. maintain proper posture
2. keep a dynamic frame
3. let the leader begin her movement, alter her direction and increase and retard her momentum
4. keep her feet moving and under her body
5. have fun

That is it. Any move that requires the follower to know how to respond is either being lead wrong or is not a social lindy hop move.

About the only real exception to this is Charleston... but then again that is technically a different dance, even though it is included in the lindy hop lexicon.

 

[heartgrl2k]

Any move that requires the follower to know how to respond is either being lead wrong or is not a social lindy hop move.

AMEN!

 

[blue]

I wonder, are you really talking about the same thing? It is often said that to follow a dance you need certain basic elements of it. I would guess that both eight count and six count steps belong to those basic elements; the rest of the moves are the variation that Alias talks about.

Or?