(I wish) every beginner follow would be taught these on day one

T

ticolora

Member
I've been dancing for almost 3 months now and believe I have enough expertise and sense of undeserved confidence to start making suggestions to follows (an activity I have no proficiency in). In no particular order:

  1. Do not pinch with your thumb. Thumb often gets in a way of my lead.
  2. Keep your pinky with other fingers.
  3. Default basic step is in-place, rather than back or forward, or even better - step in the direction the lead leads you in.
  4. Do not duck on under arm turn (or comb). It makes me feel as if I make you feel unsafe.
  5. A lead decides when to offer the hand, and when to let go.
  6. Follows don't get to request a hand, or decide when to let go (unless it gets too uncomfortable).
  7. Please maintain hand-to-hand connection until I let go.
  8. Follows, if I put your hand on my body - maintain the connection for at least 1 bar (3 seconds).
  9. Do not apologize if you feel you made a mistake - everything that goes wrong in a dance - is my fault. Your apology makes my mistake known to the world and deprives me of an option to pretend that I meant you to elbow me in the chest.
  10. Imagine we are holding a quail egg between our hands, there should be enough pressure to keep it from falling but not so much as to crack it.
  11. Do not try to guess what happens next and do it on your own.
  12. Let me make mistakes so I can learn from them. If you are not sure I want you to do something - don't do it. If you are moving and I am not stopping you - keep moving.
  13. Keep your hands in listening mode, you should maintain constant pressure and respond to the lead.
  14. Do not fix hand grip - I might be building to something that requires an awkward grip to start with.
  15. If hand hold or grip gets too uncomfortable - let go.
  16. Do not dip further than I lead.
 
Have you done any following yourself? Give it a try sometime (perhaps in a lesson, with an experienced leader who can give you feedback afterwards) and see what it is like. It may change your perspective on what your followers are doing, or trying to do, and give you some appreciation for their role. Good luck!
 
Yes, I have done following myself - made me a better lead. I know that the following is not a trivial matter. These statements of mine were not intended to express my annoyance or to diminish follow's role. These are the things, I believe, that make the experience better for everybody, and unfortunately are not taught [often enough] in a group-class setting, however, group-class is how most new follows enter the dance scene.
 
Thanks for the clarification. Glad you've tried following. Were you able to remember all 16 of those things as a new follower??? When I was a brand new follower, I was trying to figure out the hand holds, count the music and figure out how soon to change my weight to the next foot, and in what direction. That was plenty. Meanwhile, some newish leading student would be telling me to relax, or smile, or turn sooner, or turn later, or "just follow" or ....

Your post says you've been dancing for about 3 months. You joined this forum in 2016. Did you mean to say you've been dancing almost 3 years, by any chance?
 
No, I meant to say 3 months, to lower expectations and, therefore, any possible criticism that might come my way.
I do not remember all 16, however, these 16 are the ones that I am occasionally tempted to correct (which is something I try to avoid doing). Note that most of these (if not all) encourage the follow to do less, not more. Like "correcting the hand grip", which beginner follows are tempted to do (reasonably so) to help the lead out, but are, in-actuallity, counter-productive.
It seems to me that simply reading this list can improve one's technique [even if slightly], because they address some common misconceptions and because most of these are about doing (and thinking about) less, not more.
I also wanted it to be something I could link in my communication with my friends, because, as we all know, anything written on the internet must be true, or, at least, be more credible than my words alone.
 
A long time ago I was given the three rules of following:
1. Don't hold on.
2. Don't let go.
3. Don't think.
These are really smart aleck ways to say that the leader should define the connection and the follower should stay with it, and the follower should not anticipate.

So your points 5, 6, & 7 relate to rules 1 &2. Your points 11, 12, & 16 relate to rule 3.

Your points 1, 10, 14, 15 relate to the quality of the connection. I would put it as the connection should be clear enough that the lead gets transmitted to the follow (and the response of the follow felt by the lead). But the connection should never be so strong that the leader yanks or pushes the follower around. Nor should the follower use the connection as an anchor to push and pull herself around by her arms.

Regarding your point 2, I understand that a traveling coach advocates the lady putting her pinky between the leader's index and middle fingers. I believe that it allows a better connection with more area in the palms. I also believe that you shouldn't force your followers to do that -- maybe try it with a regular partner but not others.

As far as the grip, if you grip the lady she may respond in kind. When it comes to thumbs that's a pet peeve of mine and there have been occasions where I'm thumb wrestling the lady while we're dancing and I doubt that she realizes that it's going on.

Regarding the lady ducking (your point 4), that's probably the leader's fault. Generally the connecting hand should be in front of the crown and maintained there. Make sure that your connection isn't stalling out before you blame the lady.
 
ticolora said:
I've been dancing for almost 3 months now and believe I have enough expertise and sense of undeserved confidence to start making suggestions to follows (an activity I have no proficiency in). In no particular order:

  1. Do not pinch with your thumb. Thumb often gets in a way of my lead.
  2. Keep your pinky with other fingers.
  3. Default basic step is in-place, rather than back or forward, or even better - step in the direction the lead leads you in.
  4. Do not duck on under arm turn (or comb). It makes me feel as if I make you feel unsafe.
  5. A lead decides when to offer the hand, and when to let go.
  6. Follows don't get to request a hand, or decide when to let go (unless it gets too uncomfortable).
  7. Please maintain hand-to-hand connection until I let go.
  8. Follows, if I put your hand on my body - maintain the connection for at least 1 bar (3 seconds).
  9. Do not apologize if you feel you made a mistake - everything that goes wrong in a dance - is my fault. Your apology makes my mistake known to the world and deprives me of an option to pretend that I meant you to elbow me in the chest.
  10. Imagine we are holding a quail egg between our hands, there should be enough pressure to keep it from falling but not so much as to crack it.
  11. Do not try to guess what happens next and do it on your own.
  12. Let me make mistakes so I can learn from them. If you are not sure I want you to do something - don't do it. If you are moving and I am not stopping you - keep moving.
  13. Keep your hands in listening mode, you should maintain constant pressure and respond to the lead.
  14. Do not fix hand grip - I might be building to something that requires an awkward grip to start with.
  15. If hand hold or grip gets too uncomfortable - let go.
  16. Do not dip further than I lead.
Click to expand...

# 16 is seldom used if at all anymore and should not be taught to a beginner . The rest is salsa 101 to a "trained " teacher .
 
Some of these are redundant; and some contradictory. But really, but (as renumbered), there really isn't any difference between 1,2 and 3. 4 admits the uncomfortable rule and is reiterating 2.

ticolora said:
  1. A lead decides when to offer the hand, and when to let go.
  2. Follows don't get to request a hand, or decide when to let go (unless it gets too uncomfortable).
  3. Please maintain hand-to-hand connection until I let go.
  4. If hand hold or grip gets too uncomfortable - let go.
Click to expand...
(Note: the numbers changed themselves!)

I'm not going to pretend followers don't have flaws. We all do. But bear in mind, sometimes a lead is not proficient and has indicated a move in a direction or speed he did not intend to indicate. So at least sometimes, when the follow "guesses", the lead actually did do something to indicate a direction or move. Also sometimes a lead does seem to stop the follow even if the lead doesn't know what he did was stop them.

I'm not sure about the "dip further than I lead". My view is that generally, I hope unless I'm pretty familiar with a particular lead I hope the lead does not try to dip me at all. In Salsa, I've been know to refuse to dip if the lead seems to be "suggesting" a dip where I can't place my legs in a position to support my own weight. I don't want to fall!
 
Sometimes follows are responding to more body parts than we leaders think, or maybe different body parts. If the body parts are giving different messages (go/don't go, etc) there may be an unexpected response.
 
tangotime said:
# 16 is seldom used if at all anymore and should not be taught to a beginner . The rest is salsa 101 to a "trained " teacher .
Click to expand...

My point exactly. I wish every beginner follow would be trained by a trained teacher, alas most of the follows, at least in my area, begin with group lessons and never get personal attention from a trained teacher.

I am very reluctant to correct a follow (never during the social, and rarely at a group lesson), but, in my experience, mentioning a point from the list even once, usually quickly improves the issue.
 
ticolora,
Of course most beginner dancers start with group lessons. Beginners do not yet know if they will enjoy dancing. Group lessons are less expensive.

Both leaders and beginners start with group lessons, and unless the lessons are truly aimed for beginners (most aren't), this results in some people mastering "step patterns" or "figures" and little technique. This is happens even if technique is covered. The beginners can only process a finite amount of new information, and inevitably, that will be the patterns or figures.

I'm pretty sure for every new follow who grips your hand, there is, equally a new lead who also grips the woman's hand while he tries to twist her arm around. Needless to say, the turn is uncomfortable. For every new follow who ducks her head on a turn, there is a lead who insists on putting the arm on the waist rather than back and pulls the new follow in tightly so she had to arch in her lower back. For every new follow who doesn't understand the "quail egg" rule there is a new lead who doesn't understand that leads merely suggest. They don't actually pull the follow into a dip, they should not actually push or pull her into a turn or spin and so on.

Now, I know there are plenty of follows who correct leads inexcusably. But occasionally, the motivation for the correction of a lead by a follow is that what the lead is doing is literally pulling her arm out of the socket, straining her lower back or flinging her into a spin she does not control so she feels she is going to turn an ankle. For every follow who dips further than you want, there is a lead who yanks a woman into a dip and makes her feel she should fall. (Honestly, the rule for new leads should be: never dip!)

The danger with bad leads is that the follow can potentially actually find herself injured or at least physically uncomfortable. Bad follows mostly just result in bad dancing. This is especially true if the lead figures out she is a poor follow and elects to stick to simple patterns for that reason. He's in control of the choice of steps and has better ability to manage this than the follow.

Yes. Everyone benefits from individual lessons especially early on. Especially leads. But that's not going to happen.

It would be nice if there were more group lessons that focussed on absolute beginners and emphasized that people should see themselves as absolute beginners for several lessons.

I suspect the current balance of group lessons that focus on someone learning "another figure" will tend to continue because, like it or not, new dancers don't yet know the importance of leads learning to lead and follows learning to follow. Even people who sign up for individual lessons don't know this. So sadly, teachers who spend to much time on this relative to teaching a few figures will find they don't retain students!
 
<< still sometimes dips her head (and occasionally also lets go) when she dances an underarm turn, and is absolutely not a beginner.

(I'm tall. Shorter leads often can't get their hand high enough to give me the necessary clearance while maintaining hold, and beginner leads often forget to adjust for my height. After multiple incidents during socials - including with very experienced dancers - I learned to take steps to protect my head/brain/face.)

And I think there are some good points in the OP, but if I had been told all that on day 1, it would have been extremely off-putting. Too much information, and too many "don't"s when I was still busy trying to figure out my "do"s :)
 
There are some local "teachers", who present lots of patterns and have lots of students who can execute these patterns while the "teacher" is calling them out.

But no technique is presented, and a trivial few of his students graduate to actual social dancing. The ones who do are noticeably bad.

I think the newbies should be given 3 or 4 simple patterns that will get them around the floor. Before they are given more patterns, they should be taught how to actually dance those 3 or 4 beginning patterns.
 
snapdancer said:
There are some local "teachers", who present lots of patterns and have lots of students who can execute these patterns while the "teacher" is calling them out.
Click to expand...

This practice is common .For an even worst problem, watch some of the workshops given by so called ' Prof.' . I have yet to see one where they break down a variation. Counting the usual numbers has ZERO to do with dancing unless one adds the technical aspects. But there again, many of these so called super stars are often technically flawed. Spinning on their heels is a favourite.. !!!
 
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