Standard Geekery

[vit]

That belief would explain a lot about current objectionable trends in ballroom.

I’ve found the only hard thing is realizing that the feet and knees need not line up with the hips at all times. And that realization is needed for all of CBM, side lead, and outside partner position.

I can understand you. For me, harder than that was realizing that hips and shoulders need not to line up at all times either ... actually that they go out of alignment constantly ...

 

[vit]

For me, the difference is that styling, in this sense, is optional, while technique is not - failures of technique will cause the dancing to fail, in ways ranging from forcing mild discomfort and body distortions to colliding with partner or simply falling over.

For instance, heel turn is pure ballroom styling to me. You can dance a turn without it and execute it perfectly without any discomfort ... just that it will look differently
Or you can execute the heel turn raising the toes up a lot ... will still work, just look ugly ...
etc ...

 

[Warren J. Dew]

I can understand you. For me, harder than that was realizing that hips and shoulders need not to line up at all times either ... actually that they go out of alignment constantly ...

That went the opposite way for me: learning to angle the hips toward partner and not just the shoulders came later in my development. Possibly the “shoulder lead” wording in Alex Moore had a bad influence; the change to “side lead” in the ISTD book was in my opinion a clear improvement.

 

[vit]

That went the opposite way for me: learning to angle the hips toward partner and not just the shoulders came later in my development. Possibly the “shoulder lead” wording in Alex Moore had a bad influence; the change to “side lead” in the ISTD book was in my opinion a clear improvement.

Shoulder lead indeed sounds strange ... but if you dance OP or PP step, hips are not turned towards the partner as much as shoulder area, otherwise step ends up way too short. Core is twisted between shoulder area and hips. So it's indeed more accurate description than side lead. And many dancers also move hips a bit to the side ... etc ...
Even our ex member Larinda, who was no doubt very knowledgeable, was writing about some similarities between cuban movement and how we do things in standard ... made me think about it ...

 

[j_alexandra]

Yes. That's a Smooth example, and pretty much the most blatant. A slightly more subtle Latin example would be something like the hand pressure in Open Hip Twist.

Ah. You moved the bar; I am thinking Standard, not Smooth, Latin, Rhythm.

FWIW, I am not a complete idiot; I do know what "charging" means, but it made little sense to me in terms of Standard. @flying_backwards example of full extension: this makes sense. (thank you)

 

[vit]

He's discussing an idea from physics.

First think of an actual spring you can by at Home Depot. You can compress it. (While you compress, physicists say "you do work on the spring". But while doing work, you also use "energy" in your muscles and to do this work. ( The origin of this energy comes from burning calories-- which are energy stores as things like glucose. Glucose stores "chemical potential energy". )

While the spring in compressed it "stores energy". This energy is often called "elastic potential energy "-- because springs are an elastic element.

If the spring is released, the energy in the spring can be converted into another form of energy. (Notice that one form of energy changed into another form.)

So, for example, if you had a pin ball in front of the spring, the ball could be pushed by the spring and the stored energy in the spring could become "kinetic energy"-- which is "energy in motion".

I described a linear spring-- because you are more likely to have seen that. But torsional spring exist.

In dancing, certain actions load the muscles-- which can store spring like "potential energy". So you store energy in the muscles. Later on other actions allow this energy to be released and transferred to something else. If it's done efficiently, you end up with 'kinetic energy' -- which might be moving your body rapidly across the floor, or could be rotating rapidly.

I don't know if this helps.... but it's what he's talking about.

Mostly people rarely think in this way while dancing. It can be helpful for some... but not always. I have heard of teachers talk about energy, but most only perceive what scientists call "kinetic energy"--- that's in motion. But potential energy is in the muscles.

When discussing dancing from physical standpoint, whether we do it here or a dance teacher does it on some class, it's important to always have in mind that it can be just an attempt for the audience to get a kind of idea what it's about. It's ok when just scratching the surface, but trying to go more in detail is always a dead end - things quickly become way too complex to understand for both audience and dance teacher him/herself, because dancing itself is extremely complex, involving hundreds of muscles and bones ... so trying to describe/understand it with simple physics can be about as successful as trying to land a man on the Moon that way

Yes, muscles have some natural elasticity that depends on various things, but in order to make them work like a real spring you must teach them to do it actively with dance training, because their elasticity might do 10-20% of a job and the rest is up to your body to do it by applying force ...

Sometimes we actually don't want them to work like a real spring. If I do a double action in tango progressive link or spanish drag, I actually want to place follower's head to particular position; if there were springs in her neck, her head would go there, but then just return back to neutral position ...

 

[fiesta0618]

Ah. You moved the bar; I am thinking Standard, not Smooth, Latin, Rhythm.

I don't think that's a fair characterization.

The first time I was introducing to the idea of charging a connection was from a Standard champion (although this is not the terminology that she used), and I had not even started studying Smooth at the time. I mentioned this in my post.

I only brought up the other styles as examples because the concept is much easier to see there, and folks are struggling with the idea.

(I myself did not understand it well before I explored it in those other styles, and it's the kind of thing where words are laughably inadequate anyway. Five minutes of show and tell would sort the whole issue, I bet)

 

[vit]

Compression in partner connection could not be practiced solo. But compression against the floor can create what some teachers call "push". My teacher suggested practicing pushing horizontally against the floor by walking in a swimming pool waist deep. The resistance of the water makes the action more obvious.

Well, pushing the floor is probably most abused dance teaching method teaching you precisely nothing ... teachers use it when they are out of other ideas how to fix your movement which doesn't look right

 

[fiesta0618]

Well, pushing the floor is probably most abused dance teaching method teaching you precisely nothing ... teachers use it when they are out of other ideas how to fix your movement

I think you're taking that condemnation too far.

"Push the floor" is a useful idea for plenty of people at plenty of times. If it were completely useless, teachers would not use it.

The problem is that it doesn't work for everyone all the time (no method does), and lots of teachers don't have an alternative strategy for attacking the same idea.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Shoulder lead indeed sounds strange ... but if you dance OP or PP step, hips are not turned towards the partner as much as shoulder area,

For promenade I would agree. Ideally the partners’ shoulders are still perfectly parallel in promenade, also parallel to the line of advance. However the leader’s right foot - follower’s left - could not step through if the hips were also parallel, so the hips need to angle away from each other slightly; angling 45 degrees from the shoulder line, creating a 90 degree V, works well, allowing the inside legs and feet to step between the outside Legs and feet without creating too wide a look. With parallel shoulders in the hold, the offset to partner’s right keeps the lady’s hip behind the man’s hip, incidentally facilitating stepping through with the inside legs by allowing the lady’s leg to follow the man’s leg through, so that space is required for only one leg at a time.

For outside partner I disagree. In a square dance frame, maximum separation between the partners is not perpendicular to their shoulders; rather, because of the partnership offset, it is along an axis at a diagonal to the shoulders. To maximize the space available for the outside partner step, this axis should be at right angles to the line of advance, meaning that the shoulders should be at an angle to the line of advance, not parallel. The ideal angle may differ somewhat from couple to couple depending on the depth of the dancers’ rib cages, but is in the range of 45 degrees for most couples.

The perfect angling of the hips may also differ from couple to couple, but in no case does the thigh of the leg stepping outside partner need to fully pass through the partnership gap, as its hip joint remains behind the other hip of the forward moving partner because of the angling of the hips toward partner. Typically the thickest part of the leg that needs to pass outside partner is closer to the knee than the hip, and this is at a point where the leg is considerably thinner than it’s thickest point.

otherwise step ends up way too short.

Any reduction in step length because of angling the body towards partner when outside partner should be fully compensated for by the increase in the length of the preceding step from the same angle.

If one is still worried about the length of the step outside partner - which most coaches teach as a small step - one can focus one’s efforts concerning step elongation on better articulation of the ankles and feet and on maximizing the swing angle at the knee, rather than at the hip.

Core is twisted between shoulder area and hips. So it's indeed more accurate description than side lead.

Since the ideal shoulder or rib cage angle is in principle different from the ideal hip angle, there may be couples where a larger shoulder angle is ideal. However, there may also be couples where the ideal is to angle the hips toward partner more than the shoulders. Angling them the same amount should be fine for syllabus dancers, and in my opinion the hip angle is more important for getting the “feel” of outside partner, and for leading it properly.

 

[vit]

I think you're taking that condemnation too far.

"Push the floor" is a useful idea for plenty of people at plenty of times. If it were completely useless, teachers would not use it.

Maybe I went to far. But I've seen it being used hundreds of times (on me included) with success rate around zero. So the fact that teachers use it doesn't prove anything more than what I said I think ...

 

[vit]

For outside partner I disagree. In a square dance frame, maximum separation between the partners is not perpendicular to their shoulders; rather, because of the partnership offset, it is along an axis at a diagonal to the shoulders. To maximize the space available for the outside partner step, this axis should be at right angles to the line of advance, meaning that the shoulders should be at an angle to the line of advance, not parallel. The ideal angle may differ somewhat from couple to couple depending on the depth of the dancers’ rib cages, but is in the range of 45 degrees for most couples.

The perfect angling of the hips may also differ from couple to couple, but in no case does the thigh of the leg stepping outside partner need to fully pass through the partnership gap, as its hip joint remains behind the other hip of the forward moving partner because of the angling of the hips toward partner. Typically the thickest part of the leg that needs to pass outside partner is closer to the knee than the hip, and this is at a point where the leg is considerably thinner than it’s thickest point.

Any reduction in step length because of angling the body towards partner when outside partner should be fully compensated for by the increase in the length of the preceding step from the same angle.

If one is still worried about the length of the step outside partner - which most coaches teach as a small step - one can focus one’s efforts concerning step elongation on better articulation of the ankles and feet and on maximizing the swing angle at the knee, rather than at the hip.

From you a bit lengthy description I didn't get where you disagree with my sentence "but if you dance OP (or PP) step, hips are not turned towards the partner as much as shoulder area", though I agree with you that both angle of hips and shoulders to line of progress depend on individual couple (width of shoulders, hips etc)

Yeah, my previous teacher (US pro finalist guy) obviously wasn't from the group of coaches teaching small OP steps. When I tried dancing waltz wave from PP with me being leader and him follower first time, my 4th step (ok, it was with partner OP for me) was only about 2/3 as long as it should have been for him, while my other steps were fine ...

 

[lucia_l]

When discussing dancing from physical standpoint, whether we do it here or a dance teacher does it on some class, it's important to always have in mind that it can be just an attempt for the audience to get a kind of idea what it's about.

Sure. I'm not saying it's unimportant to understand things from a physical point. Your body is storing elastic potential energy-- which is a function of the position of your body elements.( Just like elastic potential energy is a function of the relative position of the ends of a spring, and gravitational potential energy the result of the relative position of the center of mass of two objects.)

In some instances-- the one being discussed, the position allows the energy to be stored, and since it correspondes to internal torque, it can transform into rotational kinetic energy.

This discussion may or may not help anyone. And terms like "torque", "kinetic energy", "rotational kinetic energy" aren't entirely necessary for anyone.

It can be useful for people to know that you have "stored energy"-- in muscles, joints tendons.. whatever and it can transform into "energy in motion"-- i.e. kinetic energy. This is often the "why" of certain "set ups" like "wind up" etc.

 

[vit]

Sure. I'm not saying it's unimportant to understand things from a physical point. Your body is storing elastic potential energy-- which is a function of the position of your body elements.( Just like elastic potential energy is a function of the relative position of the ends of a spring, and gravitational potential energy the result of the relative position of the center of mass of two objects.)

In some instances-- the one being discussed, the position allows the energy to be stored, and since it correspondes to internal torque, it can transform into rotational kinetic energy.

This discussion may or may not help anyone. And terms like "torque", "kinetic energy", "rotational kinetic energy" aren't entirely necessary for anyone.

It can be useful for people to know that you have "stored energy"-- in muscles, joints tendons.. whatever and it can transform into "energy in motion"-- i.e. kinetic energy. This is often the "why" of certain "set ups" like "wind up" etc.

Wind up is actually mostly storing rotational kinetic energy - you start rotating one part of the body with active use of the muscles while other part of the body isn't rotating yet, which in turn helps you to make that other part rotating as well. For instance you start doing waltz natural turn forward: you upper body starts rotating first, while your RF isn't rotating when you make 1st step. Then at some point while closing the feet, hips and feet end up turned more (backing LOD) than upper body. But most of that turn of the hips and feet came from core muscles actively working opposite side and very little from energy being stored into them (like in a kind of spring) during windup

It's similar when doing spins (latin, salsa, WCS ...). And you also use that principle to stop the spin in controlled fashion, just opposite way (it's where most teachers will tell you to push the floor to stop )

 

[lucia_l]

Maybe I went to far. But I've seen it being used hundreds of times (on me included) with success rate around zero. So the fact that teachers use it doesn't prove anything more than what I said I think ...

I think teaching needs multiple ways of doing things and different ways work with different people. I suspect "pushing (anything)" can be useful and it can be counter productive.

If I'm thinking of getting into a stance to make a vertical jump for a demonstration, the idea of "pushing the floor" (the way I would push a leg machine) can help me think of how to arrange my ankles, knees and hips. This is helpful if I want to "understand" more.

In other instances it might either help or hinder me from doing something. If lots of teachers say push in some situation, it can't always be wrong. It also might still be counter productive at some stages in a students development. You usually do multiple things at once and being over focused on "push" with legs can certainly result in a student forgetting to bring their upper body along. If that's the case, push is not the right focus. But if they are "forgetting to actively use their legs", push is probably helpful.