Standard dancer adding smooth?

[wahoo_foxtrot]

it’s also possible that he’s giving you this level of detail because he’s assuming you’re craving it- hence why you wanted to do standard with a someone who loves standard. What you’re describing is part of the reason they love it.

I thought that is what PNP wants so I am confused too ...

It is completely normal not feeling visible progress within two lessons. I had a coaching session entirely on count 1 of natural actions (in Am. style right-turn actions). We used natural turn and impetus as an example and we were only fixing my hip on count 1 (not even rib, shoulder, head, etc). The entire session is about hip-work (is that even a word?) on count 1, maybe a split of a second before and after count 1. I am still trying to feel it. Over time I had a few ah-ha moments related to this session but it takes time.

If you find out in a few weeks you don't like it, you can always reallocate your valuable time and energy to a style(s) that you love and suit you

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

Two lessons already and I haven’t learned everything????

But seriously, I DO wonder if his is the right approach for me. At my first lesson, I thought I appreciated the level of detail/technique he included. Now I’m overwhelmed by it.

In that first sentence, I was being sarcastic. Of course I do not expect to learn everything (or anything) in two lessons.

And I do love technique, and that is one of the reasons I want to study Standard. But maybe I need to take smaller bites instead of trying to eat the entire apple in one mouthful.

 

[blackswan]

(I originally posted this in the “how are your lessons going thread,” but felt it belongs here more.)

Had second standard lesson with SP. Very frustrating. Worked on three of the steps he introduced me to the previous week, but I haven’t gotten any better. Two lessons already and I haven’t learned everything????

But seriously, I DO wonder if his is the right approach for me. At my first lesson, I thought I appreciated the level of detail/technique he included. Now I’m overwhelmed by it.

Teaching Style A (what I’m used to bcs this is what my regular pro does): introduce some steps. Gradually improve familiarity with and execution of those steps. Introduce some technical detail. Gradually increase level of technical detail. Eventually student is comfortable doing those steps with a basic level of proficiency in technique. Continue to slowly add more technical detail

Teaching Style B (this is SP’s approach so far): introduce some steps, and from the very first lesson, simultaneously include technical details like amount of body turn, how far to turn head, where eyes should be looking, CBM of upper & lower body, sway, partner connection, hand and wrist and elbow position, angle of torso on forward steps vs side steps, whether every step is T v H v TH v HT, backwards extension of legs, don’t “break” neck or collapse side.....

I suspect he’s trying to scare me off. Probably he doesn’t want to teach Standard any more than the other teachers in my studio do.

Welcome to the joys and frustrations of Standard! I can't really compare my experiences directly to yours, of course, but what I can tell you is that I competed Smooth for about 2 years before trying Standard. It was *extremely* disorienting to find out how much more complex these dances I thought I knew actually were than the way I had been dancing them. I think that in many ways it is more difficult to dance Smooth well, because of the freedom that needs to be managed, but at the same time Smooth is more forgiving of imprecision. If you love watching Standard, maybe stick with trying it a bit longer Seriously, if not danced correctly, people trip, fall, end up with bruises and hopping up and down with banged funny bones - Pro B may be trying to save you from that with overly detailed instruction. Some of that will probably still happen tho, lol

 

[Joe]

I wonder if the loud noise is part also of the business model for the reason that it's harder to understand words, which means you may need more time to grasp a concept.

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

I wonder if the loud noise is part also of the business model for the reason that it's harder to understand words, which means you may need more time to grasp a concept.

You’re more cynical even than I am!

 

[fascination]

@ProgressNotPerfection If your list of topics was not hyperbole, then SP is overdoing it. Studying only three steps in an hour is normal, but I'd expect to limit initial exposure to foot alignment, footwork, rise-and-fall, and partner position.

As you gain experience, you can add more topics at once, because you gain an intuition for certain shapes. But what you describe would be way too much for me in one go, and I'm a reasonably experienced amateur.

not sure I agree...or, to be more precise, not sure this pro is taking an uncommon approach....I danced with a very proficient and well known pro and this was his approach all of the time...while overwhelming, I will say that it stretched me in terms of my capacity to integrate a great deal of info in a very short time and as I got used to it, it made me better

 

[Cal]

As a person who always needs to look at a map and see the route I’m taking before I travel anywhere:

In learning Standard, I need to know first what the whole figure does spatially – “where” it goes on the floor, alignments, what kind of “route” does it take down the floor; is it meant to travel, or is it meant to be used when there is no space, etc. THEN, step-by-step, add in all the dance-y stuff with as much detail as they want: footwork, CBM, rise and fall, swing, and sway – all those things that help me complete the route of the figure.

(My Pros realize that there's no point in even mentioning dance-y things to me, until I've figured out if I'm lined up "Magnetic North" or "True North"!)

 

[fiesta0618]

not sure I agree...or, to be more precise, not sure this pro is taking an uncommon approach....I danced with a very proficient and well known pro and this was his approach all of the time...while overwhelming, I will say that it stretched me in terms of my capacity to integrate a great deal of info in a very short time and as I got used to it, it made me better

I acknowledge that, as an Am-Am dancer,
the learning velocity of my lessons will be slower, because there are two people who need to learn subtly different things and who are being distracted by the inconsistency and errors of their partner. In a Pro-Am environment, by contrast, only one person needs to learn something new, and their partner is perfectly reliable. So my prescription for what can be feasibly learned in an hour could very well be a bit small.

But I will stand pretty firm on the general point that overwhelming the student with data is an ineffective teaching strategy. It is indeed incredibly common, but that doesn't make it any less of a mistake. A strong student can learn in spite of it, though, which means that such a teacher doesn't receive clear feedback that their methodology is not very good. The weaker students, who cannot cope, can be dismissed as "not dedicated enough."

When the teacher is also someone with a high profile as a practitioner, most people are probably afraid to give that feedback even if they're thinking it.

 

[fascination]

I acknowledge that, as an Am-Am dancer,
the learning velocity of my lessons will be slower, because there are two people who need to learn subtly different things and who are being distracted by the inconsistency and errors of their partner. In a Pro-Am environment, by contrast, only one person needs to learn something new, and their partner is perfectly reliable. So my prescription for what can be feasibly learned in an hour could very well be a bit small.

But I will stand pretty firm on the general point that overwhelming the student with data is an ineffective teaching strategy. It is indeed incredibly common, but that doesn't make it any less of a mistake. A strong student can learn in spite of it, though, which means that such a teacher doesn't receive clear feedback that their methodology is not very good. The weaker students, who cannot cope, can be dismissed as "not dedicated enough."

When the teacher is also someone with a high profile as a practitioner, most people are probably afraid to give that feedback even if they're thinking it.

agree

 

[jjLA]

Everyone has different teaching methods, but in talking with some eastern European professionals, the teaching approach might be a consequence of how they learned it. Most of these pro's start as children. As children, they don't really have the capacity to delve into a well organized technical building blocks approach (think teaching a 5 - 8 year old), but instead are told to do things. Do this footwork. Do this sway. Stand up straight. Etc. And then the details are added as they mature (as teens and young adults). When these young learners start to teach later in life, they then have a bias toward teaching in these way (because that's how they initially learned) rather then realizing adults and children learn differently.

Too me, smooth seems designed for teaching adults outright and although changing (i.e. Global Smooth System), not really taught to children. As a result, most pro's learn to teach smooth through a training program at a chain studio or equivalent (i.e. DanceVision). In this case, the teachers are taught how to introduce and build up the concepts.

As someone in STEM. I personally love the technical aspects of standard. I have had lessons with *no* steps taken. Coach: "Show me your waltz." Me: Extend arm to get into frame and bring lady in. Coach: "Stop right there. Let's fix your frame and position." 45min later . . . Coach: "Show me a natural". Me: Side / side to prep step. Coach: "Stop right there, let's fix your frame / position / spine / head as you move side and then forward". 43min later . . . Coach: "Okay show me the natural". Get to natural. Coach: "Very good. Much improvement, but we'll need to work on your natural next time."

 

[Well Rounded]

It took me a while to adjust to my Standard instructor's teaching method. In the beginning, I had serious doubts that it would work for me. I planned to give it about 4 lessons, then start giving him some feedback. By the time we had 4 lessons, I still had issues, but not as many. Some of them had resolved themselves one way or another.
One of the things I did talk to him about was the feeling that I wasn't making progress. His method had been to work on one step. At some point, he moved on to the next step without letting me know we were moving on or why. Then he would continue until the lesson was over and then just stop while we were right in the middle of something. Consequently, I was disoriented about everything. I felt I was accomplishing nothing. I left every lesson feeling I had made zero progress. After we talked about this, he explained to me that his moving on to the next step without saying anything meant that he was satisfied with my progress on the first step. He also started trying to wrap up the lesson at a point where I had grasped something. He would acknowledge what I had learned and we would enjoy a final "just for fun" dance. Otherwise, he didn't really change very much.
I don't know that I learned any faster but I felt better about. I wasn't so discouraged.
As my knowledge foundation grew, the process was much less painstaking. We would cover 1 or 2 concepts instead of 10.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Teaching Style B (this is SP’s approach so far): introduce some steps, and from the very first lesson, simultaneously include technical details like amount of body turn, how far to turn head, where eyes should be looking, CBM of upper & lower body, sway, partner connection, hand and wrist and elbow position, angle of torso on forward steps vs side steps, whether every step is T v H v TH v HT, backwards extension of legs, don’t “break” neck or collapse side.....

He's trying to teach you the minimum amount of technique needed to dance in proper constant body contact without carrying you around the dance floor.

Amount of body turn: Standard has relatively rigorous rules on amounts of turn on each figure; if you don't get the right amount of turn, you'll end up going off the line of dance and running into people or into the wall. If your body doesn't get the right amount of turn, and your pro does, it will break up the body relationship and you won't have proper body contact.

How far to turn the head: too much or too little head turn affects the shoulder positioning and the frame, and thus body contact.

CBM of upper & lower body: the feet need to be in a particular orientation to support moving in the correct direction. The upper body needs to be facing in a different direction to maintain proper body contact with your partner. The lower body may need to face in a third direction to prepare for the direction of the next step, or to distribute the total difference between the upper body and the feet in a way that won't hurt your body. CBM and side lead are fundamentally ways to describe the difference in the amount of turn between the feet and the body.

Sway: in some figures, like 123 of the natural turn in waltz, sway is needed to avoid falling off your feet in places. In my opinion it doesn't need to be taught at this point if the footwork is learned properly - it will just happen - but I can see how it might be mentioned since it's related to all the other things being discussed.

Partner connection: and contact are the point of much of this stuff.

Hand and wrist and elbow position: critical to prevent the lady from leaning on the gentleman's right arm.

Angle of torso on forward steps versus side steps: this is important for the same reasons amount of body turn and CBM are important; they are really all about the same thing.

Whether every step is T v H v TH v HT: absolutely critical to taking the step properly, getting the proper rise and fall, and closing or positioning the feet properly, all of which are needed to maintain proper body positioning and contact with your partner.

Backwards extension of legs: this is needed to keep your legs out of your partner's way when dancing with body contact.

Don’t “break” neck or collapse side: collapsing the left side will put painful weight into the gentleman's right arm. Collapsing the right side will put your hips and legs out of position, making it difficult to go in the right direction. A break in the neck position is a sign of mispositioning the body.

Rise and fall: wait, he didn't mention rise and fall?

Many of these are different aspects of the same things. Your job is to get the whole of the figure right so these things fall into place. Thinking of them as separate things is probably not the best way to learn them.

The other way to get to body contact - start out of body contact, probably similar to what you are doing in Smooth, then gradually move in to body contact as your feet strengthen and your technique improves - isn't taught or, I suspect, even known on the Continent, so Eastern European teachers won't teach that way.

Edit: subsequent posts remind me that there's a third way to learn body contact: start out by forcing body contact, then fix the distortions and introduce technique so it gradually becomes proper body contact rather than forced body contact. However, this only really works when teaching body contact to both partners at the same time; if one person already knows body contact, as with your instructor, they're not going to want or necessarily be able to distort their body positioning to dance in body contact with someone who doesn't know how yet, so this method doesn't work well for pro-am.

If you wanted, you could ask him to break these up and not plan to dance with you for a few lessons. In this case, he might spend a lesson on posture and hold, then a lesson on getting the figure and footwork while keeping the proper posture and hold, then a lesson on getting the proper anount of rise and fall and sway, then a lesson on fixing any issues with body positioning, including CBM, side lead, etc. At that point you might be ready to dance the figure together. That might work better for you, but it might not.

On the plus side, his teaching is very much in the direction of getting you to do things correctly from the start so you won't practice bad habits. Once you get this stuff, adding most figures will be easy.

 

[jjLA]

Edit: subsequent posts remind me that there's a third way to learn body contact: start out by forcing body contact, then fix the distortions and introduce technique so it gradually becomes proper body contact rather than forced body contact.

This is the approach I've seen most young new eastern European pro's use until they burn out their bodies and choose a different approach.

If you wanted, you could ask him to break these up and not plan to dance with you for a few lessons. In this case, he might spend a lesson on posture and hold, then a lesson on getting the figure and footwork while keeping the proper posture and hold, then a lesson on getting the proper anount of rise and fall and sway, then a lesson on fixing any issues with body positioning, including CBM, side lead, etc. At that point you might be ready to dance the figure together.

This is what I've seen more experienced pro's do and the approach I learned by. They will also do the figure with the student but not full contact so student can feel the movement and direction without taxing the instructor too much. As the student gets better, contact becomes tighter. As Warren mentioned certain aspects can be ignored initially like swing and sway. They might be discussed, though, to make sure they are not forced in an incorrect manner. It needs to be there, but if footwork / posture / CBM (rotation) is not there then having swing / sway is useless and just causes more problems.

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

He's trying to teach you the minimum amount of technique needed to dance in proper constant body contact without carrying you around the dance floor.

I think you’re absolutely right about that.

Rise and fall: wait, he didn't mention rise and fall?

Hahaha! He did! I knew I hadn’t remembered everything he said. And once again, Standard waltz’s rise and fall is juuuuuust different enough from the American Smooth Bronze version that it trips me up mentally (my understanding thus far is that in Standard, you stay up on 2 all the way through 3, and don’t fall until slightly after 3, in the tiny space between 3 and 1; whereas in Smooth Bronze, you fall on/during 3, as your leg begins moving on the next step. I think in the higher levels of Smooth it’s more like - or the same as? - Standard rise and fall, but idk that for sure).

Many of these are different aspects of the same things. Your job is to get the whole of the figure right so these things fall into place. Thinking of them as separate things is probably not the best way to learn them.

Again, I think you’re exactly right. Thinking of them as separate parts, instead of a whole piece with connected moving parts, is a tendency that has caused problems for me in rhythm and smooth too. All 3 of my teachers (Pro, IFP, SP) have tried to explain this to me - and it’s finally making sense to my determined-to-segment-and-compartmentalize-everything brain. So now I have to figure out how to modify my usual learning style.

At my third Standard lesson yesterday, I started off telling SP that while I do love technique, and that’s one of the main reasons I want to study Standard, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the detail (I listed it like I had done in this thread), and it was hard for me to practice it all on my own since I couldn’t remember every nuance. He was nice about it, but basically said what Warren did - you can’t really learn it in “parts.” Maybe the polish on a few things, such as better neck extension and the amount of “tone” in my fingers, could be delayed slightly, but pretty much it’s all connected - and that’s just the way it is.

He also seemed puzzled at my concern, because his view is that I am doing very well and catching on very fast. He gave me a huge compliment by saying “I didn’t know you didn’t understand that. You followed me and did it correctly, so I thought you knew it.”

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

On the plus side, his teaching is very much in the direction of getting you to do things correctly from the start so you won't practice bad habits.

And I love this approach! I realize in a studio that caters to social dancers, and advertises that “you’ll be dancing in your very first lesson,” the teachers have to start off with a very different approach. I mean, heck, DH and I were “dancing” the salsa basic step and rumba box after our first rhythm lesson. But I wasn’t introduced to any hip movement whatsoever until WELL into my private lessons...nor knee action nor toe action...and it wasn’t until I got fairly good (for a beginner) at those things that I was shown the next thing, then the next thing, etc....and that’s still how I’m progressing in rhythm and smooth.

From the posts I’ve read here, it seems that the difference in approach is not necessarily tied to teaching Standard vs Smooth. But it does seem to me that SP’s approach is the better one for teaching Standard, since that style is so inherently technique-heavy. I feel like one can sometimes get away with sloppier technique in Smooth, at least in the lower levels; so maybe it’s not as critical to focus on technique with a beginner. That said, however, part of me wishes that Pro had taken the same approach in my smooth & rhythm lessons...although who knows if it would have turned me off if he had emphasized technique so heavily from the beginning. Maybe a student has to get “hooked” before she becomes willing to drill a single hip motion for an hour.

Maybe Smooth is the gateway drug to the hardcore addiction of Standard.