Going Along for the Ride?

[Greybeard]

And is the person I'm dancing with so used to carrying people that when I require a little less carrying than some of their other partners, do they think I'm holding my own?

No. They just think you're a great dancer. (A pro might think differently.)

This is a hard pill for this ballroom newbie to swallow. I practice like crazy alone but when someone is in front of me (in hold) - everything feels so different. My balance has to adjust from my imaginary partner to someone real. I can't place my feet where I trained them. I have to modify my imagined connection points to their body. Nothing about it feels the same as solo practice to me. I feel like my best training happens with a person.

Maybe something to talk to one of your pros about.

When I lead a develope (kick), my partner should have her own balance. I will provide some back up support, but some partners trust me to support them enough to lean back to get a bigger kick and they can pull me off balance. So I prefer you keep your solo balance.

The compression and stretch of your frame could be impacting your balance, and probably should have at least an impression of impact.

You might want to review your solo practice with your pro. Are you training your feet to go where the pro wants them to go?

Confession time*: I have a very hard time motivating myself to solo practice. It's so much more rewarding emotionally with a partner.

*I'm not going to figure out how to spoiler this because you'd all click it anyway.

 

[opendoor]

Solo practice is good for balance and reach (movement distance). It also helps with remembering what is possible (a follower can freeze up if lead something she has no concept of). When getting more advanced it helps with precision.

I completely agree with you. However, the question wasn't how to overcome the existing gap between two dancers, but rather how to deal with it practically on the dance floor.

 

[Pryn]

You might want to review your solo practice with your pro. Are you training your feet to go where the pro wants them to go?

Short answer - yes.

Long answer... I'm an unusual case. I take lessons with up 5 different instructors. Two instructors are for regular lessons (but which two instructors change based on my dance goals that month) - and they have a wide range of body builds/heights.

For example... how I have to move my body to place my foot in the diagonal back position can vary slightly. The foot position is the same. However, how I move myself while maintaining connection points to get there can feel quite different, especially when they don't all have the same hold preferences (contact vs close vs extended) - and that takes practice to get it right for each instructor.

My solo work outside of the studio is usually my best approximation between them, or I might just have 1 specific instructor in mind. In lesson, though, I have to adjust to whomever I am dancing with, their build and their preferences - and it just feels different for each one.

 

[Brummbaer]

The molinete traditionally belongs to the learned stuff, I referred to the leadable vocabulary. But of course, I can entirely lead a molinete as well.

Even walking well (caminata) needs to be 'learned'. But molinete has an associated question of whether they're on auto-pilot or responding to a lead - so you learn something about their skills. And, of course it can be led.

My focus was slightly different: it was, "make her look good!" Looking good is the crucial prerequisite for dances to eventually "feel good", later on

Interesting. I was going to write: make partner look good, but that's primarily in the area of competition, exams, etc - and a past life. A great dance seems to be more appropriate to social dance - where there is still an audience watching, whether we admit it or not.

I don't like the phrase 'along for the ride'. Of course there's the whole area of taxi-dancers again...

Perhaps you should also switch to whispering instead of talking loudly to her on the dance floor

Generally I don't talk on the dancefloor when dancing. I have a few partners, frequently with an Argentine background, who sometimes talk of other subjects than dance when on the dancefloor. And one who hums, or sings along, quietly.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

The topic of "going along for the ride" has come up in another thread within this forum and has spurred a few questions for me.

Based on my current understanding, this phenomenon seems to occur most often when - in partner dance - a more skillful dancer does their part (either lead or follow) and concurrently helps their less experienced partner by dancing in a way that fills their partner's skill gaps so that the couple can dance closer to the higher dancer's level.

I'm curious...
- How do you define "going along for the ride"?

I haven’t really heard that specific term, but it could mean one of two different things to me.

In a social dance context, what I normally try to do with a less experienced partner is dance the lady to the limits of her ability - maybe to the very edges of it allowing her to use me for balance - so the experience for her is that she’s dancing as well as she can dance, maybe a tiny bit better. For me, I’m just leading her as well as I can.

However, it’s also possible to “carry” your partner in some cases. For example, a few years ago, when we took my younger son and his then partner to rounds for the first time, I think they only knew how to dance quickstep. When the Viennese rolled around, I danced with then 8 (I think, at the time) year old partner and my wife with 10 year old son, and we basically did everything for them - they still had their weight on their own feet, but we were leading / back leading their foot placements, “leading”/placing their body rotations and translations, holding them up if they lost balance, etc. I’m pretty sure it’s obvious if you’re being carried - it was obvious to me the once or twice I was carried through a figure.

I used to know a pro, who used to beat the Gleaves regularly when he competed professional, who I’m pretty sure carried his students through competitions. I knew one other pro who might also have done this to some extent.

- What does "going along for the ride" look like and feel like to you in your dance stye of choice?
- How does someone recognize if they are being taken for a ride vs dancing on their own merit?
- What tips can you give to help someone be able to dance their part better so that this form of assistive dancing (borrowing language from @fiesta0618) isn't necessary?

That’s equivalent to asking how to improve your dancing. Take lessons, practice your dancing, and do your exercises if you do any. In the meantime, relax and enjoy it.