Learning to lead as a woman

[Joe]

Absolutely, but that's why I said generally. I will say that I've never come close to being injured because of my follow.

You haven't danced with enough follows!

 

[DL]

I responded to the "Hmm" comment sensing that you were implying something along those lines, but it got moved to the students teaching thread. In my response, I mentioned that I think that any frustration on my part comes from the fact that good dance etiquette would have me suffer an uncomfortable dance in silence because to give unsolicited feedback is rude.

Dance etiquette doesn't demand that you accept something painful or dangerous. It also doesn't demand that you dance with anyone in particular.

...And don't misunderstand me, it's not like I have some vendetta against average leaders. I just sometimes get irked with guys that have been dancing for a long time and still manhandle their follows or have zero sense of connection.

If you were commenting that you've encountered some specific cases of people with whom it isn't fun to dance and who never seem to improve, that would be one thing.

But, you're saying that *in general* you don't have patience for guys who haven't achieved certain skills in a certain amount of time. You seem to imply that this view is justified by your own experience in learning to lead. You further seem to suggest that there's no need to hold followers to such a standard.

Based on my own personal experience, I have a tough time getting on board with that.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Actually, I take this back. But, I still reject the implication that bad followers can't be dangerous.

I think that in ballroom, followers can be at least as dangerous as leaders. For example, chronic exposure to the weight that many followers put into the man's right arm can cause tendinitis - and there's no real way to avoid it while still dancing properly.

Plus, of course, followers tend to be wearing more dangerous heels than leaders, though that danger falls mostly on people other than their leader.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

That's a very subjective question, because there's the connection piece and the way your dance looks - and it's the way your dance looks that gets rewarded in competition. There are some gorgeous dancers that have been very successful in competition, that are very hard for me to lead, and there are women who don't look like anything special on the floor, but have great connection, and are super responsive to my lead.

The same applies to leaders. A leader who focuses only on how he himself looks, leaving the entire burden of the connection up to the follower, will often look much better in competition, but is still a worse leader. If you're going to judge leaders on how they lead, you should be judging those "gorgeous" lady competitors as bad follows.

I'm just talking about basic frickin' connection - compression when there needs to be compression, extension on the anchor (in WCS), NOT manhandling the follower

Did this subthread get merged in from the general dancing forum? Leading in ballroom is different from leading in west coast swing. In west coast swing, a weak or vague lead can be preferable to an overly strong lead; in ballroom, not so much.

 

[jennyisdancing]

...And don't misunderstand me, it's not like I have some vendetta against average leaders. I just sometimes get irked with guys that have been dancing for a long time and still manhandle their follows or have zero sense of connection.

If I understand you right, your frustration is really not because of their skill/experience level per se, more the idea that these people have chosen not to improve their skills, that they just keep dancing badly and don't seem to care that they are.

 

[DL]

I think that in ballroom, followers can be at least as dangerous as leaders. For example, chronic exposure to the weight that many followers put into the man's right arm can cause tendinitis - and there's no real way to avoid it while still dancing properly.

Plus, of course, followers tend to be wearing more dangerous heels than leaders, though that danger falls mostly on people other than their leader.

Perhaps in the long run the dangers are roughly equal; but I imagine that it's more likely for a leader to twist a follower's arm out of its socket than vice-versa. So perhaps the danger of acute injury is lopsided in that sense.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Perhaps in the long run the dangers are roughly equal; but I imagine that it's more likely for a leader to twist a follower's arm out of its socket than vice-versa. So perhaps the danger of acute injury is lopsided in that sense.

I think that's right - leaders are more likely to inflict acute injuries that take seconds to inflict, while followers are more likely to inflict chronic injuries that take decades to recover from.

 

[Terpsichorean Clod]

Did this subthread get merged in from the general dancing forum?

No. Aside from the few posts that were split off, this thread has always been in the ballroom forum.

 

[megeliz]

If I understand you right, your frustration is really not because of their skill/experience level per se, more the idea that these people have chosen not to improve their skills, that they just keep dancing badly and don't seem to care that they are.

Yes. Exactly.

And I honestly think this is being blown WAY out of proportion. I mean, seriously, is it REALLY that much to ask of a guy that's been dancing a particular dance for at least 2 years for decent BASICS? I'd expect a leader WOULD be frustrated dancing with a girl who's been dancing as long and has equally bad basic technique. For ME, it's not so much a frustration, because I seek to lead all levels and feel all types of connections in followers so that I can learn how a follow effects the lead, and thus I learn to follow better even from poor followers.

 

[megeliz]

Did this subthread get merged in from the general dancing forum? Leading in ballroom is different from leading in west coast swing. In west coast swing, a weak or vague lead can be preferable to an overly strong lead; in ballroom, not so much.

Sorry, no, it didn't. My original post in this thread just relayed that in my experience of having learned to lead, the "having more empathy for the lead" aspect unfortunately backfired on me a bit in the case of experienced leads (in number of years) that still lead badly.

I think that in ballroom, followers can be at least as dangerous as leaders. For example, chronic exposure to the weight that many followers put into the man's right arm can cause tendinitis - and there's no real way to avoid it while still dancing properly.

Plus, of course, followers tend to be wearing more dangerous heels than leaders, though that danger falls mostly on people other than their leader.

You guys definitely have a point there, then.

 

[Josh]

is it REALLY that much to ask of a guy that's been dancing a particular dance for at least 2 years for decent BASICS?

I'm with you--but it's part of life unfortunately. We each have the right to choose what level of dancing we wish to attain, and some are happy to make no improvement, and that's their prerogative, just as it's yours to choose to say "no" when asked to dance

 

[Warren J. Dew]

I'd expect a leader WOULD be frustrated dancing with a girl who's been dancing as long and has equally bad basic technique.

We'd spend a lot of time frustrated. Very few ladies have as good a follow as a complete beginner; as soon as they learn some figures, their follow gets worse.

For ME, it's not so much a frustration, because I seek to lead all levels and feel all types of connections in followers so that I can learn how a follow effects the lead, and thus I learn to follow [lead?] better even from poor followers.

Why not apply the same philosophy when dancing as follower? Your follow can benefit even more from learning to dance with poor leads than your lead can from dancing with poor follows.

 

[megeliz]

We'd spend a lot of time frustrated. Very few ladies have as good a follow as a complete beginner; as soon as they learn some figures, their follow gets worse.

That's really a shame, and kind of surprising, considering the amount of time and money I hear about invested in private instruction in ballroom - I would expect that a lot of it would focus on following technique.

Why not apply the same philosophy when dancing as follower? Your follow can benefit even more from learning to dance with poor leads than your lead can from dancing with poor follows.

For the most part, I do. I'd rather reserve my patience for new dancers, though, than the guys that have been dancing for a long time, suck, don't care that they suck, and are uncomfortable and/or dangerous to dance with.

 

[tanya_the_dancer]

Your follow can benefit even more from learning to dance with poor leads than your lead can from dancing with poor follows.

Are you sure about this? The way I see it, the way to improve following is to follow what one feels is being lead instead of anticipating the next move, or second-guessing things. This is the way to go when dancing with a good leader. But with a guy, who's giving a messy or non-existent lead, how exactly is it helping a follower <not to mention that this can cause some negative fallout for her, ime>?

 

[megeliz]

Are you sure about this? The way I see it, the way to improve following is to follow what one feels is being lead instead of anticipating the next move, or second-guessing things. This is the way to go when dancing with a good leader. But with a guy, who's giving a messy or non-existent lead, how exactly is it helping a follower <not to mention that this can cause some negative fallout for her, ime>?

Actually, he is right, especially in my dance (WCS), and our J&J competitions, where leads and follows are judged individually in prelims. In my competition level, the guys SUCK, I could tell you the horror stories of some of the leads I've been paired with in comps. But the thing is, I'm expected to dance well in spite of my lead regardless, which means a pure follow isn't always possible if I want to own and hold my own dance. So yea, in order to practice holding my own dance, I *do* need to dance with guys that don't lead well.