Breaking sides?

B

ben

Member
How should sway be created in Standard?

After lessons with various coaches, I have heard some coaches tell me to never break sides, and that all sway comes from the hip down. Whereas other coaches encourage shortening the area between the shoulder and the hip, as long is this is done in conjunction with swing and rotation . . ..

I'm confused as to what to do . . .

Anybody have any ideas?
Chris?
 
I think it comes from the hips, but the idea of shortening one side while stretching the other seems plausible... as long as you don't collapse the side you shorten...

Chris...
 
From Luca Baricchi's Art in Motion series of video tapes, he advocates shortening the back muscles on one side, in order to create the illusion of stretch on the other side.
 
I've heard that idea before.. I think you can shorten the side but not collapse it... important thing is maintaining tone in the body so the energy is still up.. I like to think of hips rather than sides when thinking of sway thoug... I heard Luca has a lot of ideas that most teachers don't agree with. don't know
 
Don't know much about his teaching. I was just recently around a conversation about Luca. People were saying that he has a very unique styly, and his idea differ from most other people. The main point from the conversation was that if you want to make his ideas work, you have to train only with him or using only his technique... Supposedly his technique isn't compatible with other styles... you can't mix and match... I never saw any of his lectures and never had a lesson, so I can't say it this is correct.
 
I tend to think of sway of the hips originating in the angle of the knees and sometimes ankles.

But there is a also a small stretch of the longer side - in that you can still have a head to toe curve even as you reach the point of maximum leg straightness and foot rise.

Calling it a stretch of the long side rather than a contraction of the short side may be as much semantics as it is physical reality, but it's important because so many students tend to want to contract the shorter side severely, without showing sway in any of the more usefull ways. This also tends to be sway for its own sake, rather than the usefull kind of sway which is a result of (and potential for) swing.
 
That's a shame. . . I'd like to dance like him, but most people in NY don't teach his style . . .
 
I don't think anybody here does... I love his dancing as well. I think Ieva studied with him a bit, no? and so did Erminio?
 
ben said:
That's a shame. . . I'd like to dance like him, but most people in NY don't teach his style . . .
Click to expand...

Could be informative to try to find video clips of a feather, natural, etc and look at them frame by frame... see if the description matches what he'd doing, and if you can figure out how to do it from one or the other.
 
I think Alessandro dances very Luca-esque, and teaches a little bit of that style. If only he weren't in italy every other month.
 
I also heard that Alessandro used to dance like Pino, but he danced with Luca's sister (or someone) and Luca tried to change his style to his own.. I heard it didn't work too well, but don't know...
 
Not sure about his style. Not sure if he's trying to go back to his original style, or to what Luca trained him to be..
 
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