Close Embrace clinic-the leads responsibility on the women's left.
- Thread starter Mario7
- Start date
Mario7
Member
Yes, the few times that I tried parallel with a partner, on her left, the hips, legs seemed to clash on that closed side.
Ricardo Vidort is THE master at this. Here he goes there at 24 sec into the song.
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Its kinda hard to tell with the fuzzy focus and the angles and the suit jacket, but I do believe he is rotating his shoulders as I described. I am basing this on the angle of his left arm to the direction of his travel. It appears that his left side is slightly back.
Hmm... I'm having trouble working this out in my head without a partner. I'll have to report back as well. My feeling is that by turning your head more to your left, she has to turn hers and that makes her want to walk backwards on a curve...which would work well if you are TRYING to curve (to your left.. ie:CCW) But if you are trying to go straight down LOD, it will make it harder (or at least less likely) for her to step straight back... I think... need a partner to try it out..
I'm wondering if it is more awakward at least in part because so many leaders are not in the habit of looking in the direction they are going. If one is in the habit of looking more at the follower, or not into the floor but OFF the floor, then yes, suddenly being completely unable to look off towards the outside of the room would seem pretty awkward! When walking straight forward or on the followers right, the leader can "cheat" and look down at the floor or sorta at the partner and still see in the direction he is going through peripheral vision. When walking on her left, her head is in the way of the accustomed view.
I think the biggest thing making it awkward though is just that so many people dance with the follower offset to the leader's right. Its a lot harder to get around her on that side if she's already further to your right than you are!
Peaches
Well-Known Member
Well, actually, not really. It is the follower's responsibility to dissociate just as much as it is the lead's responsibility to do the same. She's got to keep her orientation towards the leader the same, and if he's walking outside partner than in order to do that she's got to change the angle of her shoulders/upper body relative to her hips. She's also got to be flexible enough in the embrace to allow for any sorts of shifts that do happen. And, she needs to understand how to follow when his-n-hers shoulders are angled differently than the direction she's being asked to step.
Like you said, however, this should not be a drastic difference.
Not true in the least. I have had leaders walk outside partner to my left, while in a V embrace, plenty of times. It takes lots of dissociation, and a slight adjustment of our positions relative to each other (I "slide" slightly to my right/his left.), but it is extremely possible. Granted, I suppose it also depends on how open the right side is in your idea of a V embrace...JohnEm said:
Angel HI
Well-Known Member
Mario, Follow these 2 posts, you will be fine. http://www.dance-forums.com/showpost.php?p=787751&postcount=7 and http://www.dance-forums.com/showpost.php?p=787826&postcount=13
I would have thought that the followers dissociation comes about as a result of the leaders and the follower is following normally.
I have always found that the followers greater concentration is to maintain her walk as normal as possible to give the leader as much statbility as she can because he is in the more unstable positon.
Peaches
Well-Known Member
I have no idea what you mean by "stable" versus "unstable" positions. In theory, both should be pretty stable over their feet and balanced in their actions, regardless of what's going on. (Exceptions being made, of course, for times when that is very deliberately not the case--colgadas, volcadas and the like.)
Both partners have to dissociate. He can twist his torso all he likes, but if she doesn't...it's going to get real difficult real fast. Same if she dissociates but he does not. On a level, that is following normally. We have got to know how to keep our alignment to our leader, regardless of where he's pointing his chest, and keep our walk going where he's sending us.
Time to report back!
Firstly let me make it clear that I never (well not yet) walk on the
right/closed side in parallel which is probably the most awkward walk of all.
Mario is right to show Ricardo Vidort as an example of walking in parallel
on the closed side in which he was quite unusual as far as I know.
So all of these observations are about walking in the cross feet system -
right with right, left & left.
When I change walking on the open side to the closed side it is accompanied
by a disassociating rotation of both upper bodies approximately 90deg anticlockwise
or to the left. There is no significant change in the chest to chest relationship
nor in the relationship of the heads.
So the missing information is that the heads only move with the torso/chest
and no more. The leader's vision is obviously more restricted but it remains possible
to see down the direction of travel. It's rather more difficult if your head naturally
looks downwards and/or is poked forwards. If it does, it's now time to do
something about it, and I speak from experience!
Oh yes!
Peaches says it works though she qualifies that by saying the embrace
has to be loosened/changed. I would add, changed a lot so I don't attempt
it with people who dance like that. I often find too that V-embrace people
have strong arms and that rigidity can be uncomfortable and restricting.
It is not a rule, it's matter of teacher they learn from.
Mario7
Member
Thanks for reporting back. Ok, one cannot practice this walk alone but, in my case, I have to. So, when I move onto the woman's left side I rotate my chest (and head) to the left and mentally picture her's as following the disassociation. I had heretofore been holding my left shoulder back while keeping my head looking down the LOD..I guess I have to turn it with my chest as a unit and sort of peek out the right corner of my eyes?
As a coincidence, this morning I was thinking that my head may be unconsciously tilting forward when I walk. I realize that this does not look good but how else does this flaw hurt in this situation? thks
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I was this badly by someone who could dont it but didnt understand what was required;
it is impossible to walk outside the woman's left in a straight line; you have to make a curve CCW on each second step; You have to sort out your relative head positions; if you have temple to temple contact some problems are going to arise.
I watched other people and it seems they would step then lead a back ocho to creat the curve for the next step.
In VU style I was shown how to take each step with my left foot with a dissocaiation and weight change in each step;
watch Alejandro on Youtube for examples of this;