joy
Forum Master
Your posture looks nice!
How Are Your Lessons Going? Thread 3
- Thread starter ProgressNotPerfection
- Start date
I can very much relate to these thoughts. Bronze was so exciting because there were leaps in skill. Silver slowed and now it is even slower. Yes, we break everything down to the minutiae. I love it, and as I am slowly able to add these tiny bits, pro gets more and more free to dance and not "care for me". It looks much more like a team and I keep striding to keep improving. We have a lot of conversations around how "pro lady" would handle this or that. Such a long term and impossible goal, but I keep working toward it.
DoWrongRight
Well-Known Member
I think this can said of a lot of learning. The deeper you get into a subject you make incremental steps because the material becomes denser. Sometimes you will make a Great Leap Forward (just not the way Mao did) and most of time you are stuck in milieu.
It is great to have an instructor that enjoys teaching in a way that you enjoy learning. That is really not something you can guarantee when you start. I wonder if it is better to have a personal belief of capability greater or lesser than an instructors belief?
Happyhorsie
Well-Known Member
back to rumba today. videoed myself for the first time in a while and omg reality check I still have a long ways to go lol. Need to be more consistent about maintaining good footwork and my shoulders and arms need lots of work lol. Broad shoulder problems, honestly; so difficult keeping my shoulders back. More practice it is! (Honestly idk why my brain goes blank every time coach starts doing full out routines)
Warren J. Dew
Forum Master
Unfortunately sometimes you make a leap the Mao way, too, and then you have to do damage control.
In dance, think it's more than just the incremental steps. I think that in order to make a step forward, one has to unlearn some of the habits one already has. The more advanced one's level, the more has to be unlearned to take the next step forward.
For sure. The past year I've been "unlearning" while "learning". Part of the problem was some bad habits were fossilized due to the "low energy" before my thyroid issue was identified. It did somewhat contribute to being getting in the habit of keeping posture, or moving vigorously etc. I then established habits of doing lots of things a "low energy" way. I now can do and sustain some new things, so I need to get those nailed down as habits.
(I did learn some stuff while in my "low energy" state. I could do things if I really truly marshalled myself to do-- and then do things once. It's just the situation did encourage the habit of just slumping almost immediately.... doing every dang thing split weight... not doing things "vigorously".)
I'm still sort of lazy though.... so I can't blame it all on "that which came before April 2023".
Happyhorsie
Well-Known Member
As suspected, need to work on upper body more. Shoulders back/back engagement probably is the missing link to my connection issues. Having a good partner really helps with figuring this out tbh. Also the hip connection is starting to make more sense I think going back to rumba was a good idea. Hip twist is still my kryptonite when it comes to following a lead.
At lessons today, my first hour was with Pro2, with me as Standard Lead. We’re still dissecting my problems with the Double Reverse Spin, At least, now, the use of the “trailing” leg with a more flexed knee is allowing me to get an appropriate placement of the RF. Oh goody - that means that I’ve graduated on to the next problem with the actual Toe Pivot, where more often than not, I wind up “paddling” a little bit. (“Some Leads use a small ronde action when closing the LF to the RF – try that”; “Some Leads do this with their head – try that”, “Some Leads do that with their head – try that”. Well, isn’t that just wonderful (sarcasm)? SO many more ways for me to screw up the Toe Pivot action.
Finally we moved on to a question that I had about the Follow’s part in the Rumba Cross in Quickstep. Apparently, I need to pay more attention to the Note in the Grey Book. It seems that I’m often so late on the sway of step 5 of the Natural Turn, that instead of holding it for step 1 of the Rumba Cross, I’m instead only just getting to the sway on that first step. And then I’m either late with the rise or backweighted.
Then I moved on to Pro1 for the second hour, with me as Standard Follow. He continued with the discussion of the Rumba Cross in Quickstep. After that, we switched to Foxtrot to continue last week’s work on the Outside Swivel. I’m still miss-timing the initiation of the “internal” body rotation and sometimes start the rotation before I’ve got all the way over the ball of my RF. We spent the last few minutes reviewing the tips he’d given me last week on the Continuing Hover Cross, and it seems that I managed to incorporate that pretty well.
Finally we moved on to a question that I had about the Follow’s part in the Rumba Cross in Quickstep. Apparently, I need to pay more attention to the Note in the Grey Book. It seems that I’m often so late on the sway of step 5 of the Natural Turn, that instead of holding it for step 1 of the Rumba Cross, I’m instead only just getting to the sway on that first step. And then I’m either late with the rise or backweighted.
Then I moved on to Pro1 for the second hour, with me as Standard Follow. He continued with the discussion of the Rumba Cross in Quickstep. After that, we switched to Foxtrot to continue last week’s work on the Outside Swivel. I’m still miss-timing the initiation of the “internal” body rotation and sometimes start the rotation before I’ve got all the way over the ball of my RF. We spent the last few minutes reviewing the tips he’d given me last week on the Continuing Hover Cross, and it seems that I managed to incorporate that pretty well.
scullystwin42
Forum Master
Lessons have been sporadic due to me being laid off and some family and personal medical things. I have to say that I am so so so glad that I spent the money and the time on dancing a lot and dancing hard when I was younger! I would be waaaay frustrated if I was trying to focus on it now while dealing with all this health and personal crap.
fatherdowling
Well-Known Member
I had my 5th lesson, i usually have them on Thursdays but my teacher was in the UK. 10 days is really stretching my memory.
I know this is such beginner beginner stuff that everyone is long past but I’m having a lot of fun learning. My teacher is really great. We reviewed the waltz stuff I’ve learned and some tango. My teacher is starting to introduce rotation. Once again it’s something I can kind of understand in relation to my years of riding horses. Shoulders and torso turn to help tell the horse which way to go and your legs kind of follow to shape the horses body.
Then we worked on a little quickstep. I really need to practice, I don’t know what it’s properly called but the heel to toe to cross over in lock step. For whatever reason my brain and feet don’t get it. Also need to practice during the week more in my heels. 
I know this is such beginner beginner stuff that everyone is long past but I’m having a lot of fun learning. My teacher is really great. We reviewed the waltz stuff I’ve learned and some tango. My teacher is starting to introduce rotation. Once again it’s something I can kind of understand in relation to my years of riding horses. Shoulders and torso turn to help tell the horse which way to go and your legs kind of follow to shape the horses body.
Then we worked on a little quickstep. I really need to practice, I don’t know what it’s properly called but the heel to toe to cross over in lock step. For whatever reason my brain and feet don’t get it. Also need to practice during the week more in my heels.
Wow, it's been exactly a month since I posted.
Still taking a couple lessons a week with each pro, still refusing to make a choice, still trying to stuff my brain with probably more content than I can reasonably handle.
So I'm doing bronze Standard/Latin with one, and Silver Smooth/Rhythm with the other. International pro is highly effective at presenting material in a clear and understandable fashion at a pace I find comfortable (not that I'm not challenged). We've focused mostly on Standard and I'd say overall we are probably about 70-75% of the way to having a complete set of comp routines there. Less so on Latin, we've got some samba and rumba but I still think it might be doable for a summer comp. I really enjoy these lessons.
The other pro is silver Smooth/Rhythm. I like him too, but he throws stuff hard and fast and I'm way out of my comfort zone (a feature, not a bug, I believe) and I'm a little overwhelmed trying to learn the choreo. He keeps saying this is just intro, joshing me that OMG I haven't mastered something after trying it twice, wow, imagine that. We're missing some lessons this week while he is sick. I'm a little less confident about the possiblility of competing two styles, I may have to say just Smooth for the first comp since that's where most of our focus has been.
Random things that are popping up as topics in the lessons (from both pros, who are completely different and separate and independent of each other) .... side leads, pushing off back foot to move center, staying low especially during heel turns, elbows up/frame, presenting the legs/ankles. I think I have potential to flourish if I can stop trying so hard sometimes and just trust the foundation I have from my previous training to attempt the new stuff.
Happyhorsie
Well-Known Member
Group class today. Samba is a bit rusty, but all the things discussed, I already had a sense of, so I guess those private lessons paid off. IDK I feel like I'm doing good, but I suppose we shall see at comp soon. Foxtrot was def wayyy rusty. Wore shoes to try and wear them in a little and promptly rubbed off a piece of skin rip. Oh well, I suppose better I do it now than at comp. Need to communicate basic routine to partner: Feather, Reverse turn, Feather finish, 3 Step, natural turn, Heel pull, repeat (possibly add weave in).
Smooth pro is trying to get me to adopt an acceptable facial expression while dancing. In waltz-- smile to avoid looking terrified. In tango, just neutral to avoid looking terrified. I'm not entirely sure how you intentionally adopt "neutral" but "not terrified".
So continuing to work details. My current challenge is that I can execute lots of nice movement at slower speeds, but move that up to full speed and some of it gets lost. Pro and I chatted and there are some adjustments that need to be made when moving at full speed. We need to work on those parts and that is the plan going forward.
I also need to figure out how to believe in my skills. I see in my comp videos that I don't look confident. I am executing well, but my face doesn't show that I believe in my dancing.
I also need to figure out how to believe in my skills. I see in my comp videos that I don't look confident. I am executing well, but my face doesn't show that I believe in my dancing.
ProgressNotPerfection
Forum Master
Worked on tango in today's lesson...the first time since early November! Ouch. We've been spending all my lesson time on W and VW...then back into FT...and finally today restarted tango from (what felt like) the ground up.
But it doesn't feel quite as difficult this time as it felt before. Maybe my mindset is better; maybe some of what I've been learning in W/VW/FT is transferring over; maybe the "tango seed" finally took root; maybe it's a full moon and Gemini Rising is in the Sixth House of Aquarius; whatever.
I wonder if we'll ever go into this much detail in any rhythm dances. For that matter, I wonder if we'll ever even do rhythm again.
But it doesn't feel quite as difficult this time as it felt before. Maybe my mindset is better; maybe some of what I've been learning in W/VW/FT is transferring over; maybe the "tango seed" finally took root; maybe it's a full moon and Gemini Rising is in the Sixth House of Aquarius; whatever.
I wonder if we'll ever go into this much detail in any rhythm dances. For that matter, I wonder if we'll ever even do rhythm again.