Teaching partner connection to a beginner

The worst thing about about this arm-jerking thing is that its often interpreted as a bad sense of rhythm - when its the opposite.
 
Albanaich said:
I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying Samina - but that's an issue to be dealt with after she's learnt to isolate her arms from the rhythm she feels in her body.

Nothing much can been done if she's randomly pushing and pulling her arms trying to keep time with the music. That's got to be fixed first before you can attempt developing any kind of connection.
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yep, i agree with that. too much rhythm in the arms will definitely obstruct the "hearing" that needs to occur for her at this point.
 
In my beginning salsa classes, I often see this problem. And especially in trying to smooth out their weight transfer, I find this really helpful: I will just dance the basic step with them with us holding hands in an open position and will change my movement to imitate and overemphasize what they are doing (in a respectful way of course, not mocking) or give them examples of what I have seen done by other beginners. I ask them to think about how they can feel the movement of my body, the music, and the floor through their connection with just my hands. Then I immediately switch to how I normally dance, and they are usually amazed at how different the feeling is just through that hand connection. They can immediately feel the rhythm of my body and my groundedness in the floor and the smoothness of my weight transfer just through a very relaxed connection of the hands. I do this all the time, and it doesn't fix the problem right away because of course this often takes time and practice, but I have yet to find someone who did not notice the obvious difference between the two and find it helpful in getting the concept. You can also ask them to close their eyes and have them focus on feeling the connection/music/ground with you or with different partners. It is very simple to do, but I find it so effective to get the point across before starting to fine-tune everything else. And although this is something I do often in classes with individuals, it is essentially something that I do all the time when I am social dancing (and probably what most of us do or should do) - I use my partner as my shared connection to the music and the ground and use that to build communication, sharing, improvisation, etc. in the dance. So cool! And to open this up to beginners right away is sooo valuable. They start to see right off the bat that there is so much to the dance, that's it's not just about learning a bunch of fancy moves but that there is a deeper layer that is really the foundation of everything else that follows.
 
For closed position I tell the guys be the perverts that they are... pull the girl in close. But I tell the girls not to be easy... push the guy away. That naturally creates a tension between them that automatically creates a decent connection, for closed position dancing.
 
PsychoSalsaGuy said:
For closed position I tell the guys be the perverts that they are... pull the girl in close. But I tell the girls not to be easy... push the guy away. That naturally creates a tension between them that automatically creates a decent connection, for closed position dancing.
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My instinct upon reading this - the deliberate pulling from the guy and the pushing from the girl - is that this would create a very unnatural tension. I believe the proper tension and push/pull is very subtle (at least from the perspective of a beginner). Consciously making an effort to do this would, I think, make most beginners overdo it to the point that they are difficult to dance with. I find that it is better to err on the side of being softer and more pliable and gradually adding in more tension as required. If a lady wants to learn how to follow more advanced moves - or a guy lead more advanced moves - they will be required to learn how to become more firm and responsive and over time can develop a happier medium. I generally find that when an individual dances socially often enough they start to feel what works and what doesn't. Each person will of course have certain habits and tendencies that may need direct attention, but I find they will at least be able to lead and follow the basics as they gradually develop knowledge and experience. But when it comes to finding that happy medium when it comes to tension, I would much rather have a loose beginner than a very tense one. There are some dancers out there who are taught tension (or do it naturally on their own), and these dancers can actually make you hurt physically because of their hold. I would rather start with a looser dance and build up the appropriate tension from there.
 
Yes Joy in Motion, I have reverted to just having her be relaxed in her arms at all times. Rather than overwhelming her, I have told her that she will develop an understanding of a more dynamic tone in her arms as she gains experience in partner dancing. I feel that this will work well with her.

Thanks for all the good comments everyone!
 
What you're looking for is the idea of 'connection with isolation' ; Isolating the movement of her body from her arms and hands so that you don't feel every movement of her body.

The thing is that if all her movements and timing were correct in the first place then she probably wouldn't need to isolate her arms at all most of the time. What you are feeling from her is pushing and pulling rather than smooth movement due to lack of control ; common in many beginner/intermediate dancers.

During lead/follow you usually want connection from one body to the other via the arms, not isolation. You need a good connection so that she can hear your lead signals. You may want to isolate your arms from your body a little when you dance with her (or other beginners) so that you don't feel the full brunt of her wild movements. This is basically the difference between body leading and arm leading.

When I dance with a beginner I may do more arm leading than body leading. When I dance with a better dancer I may do more body leading than arm leading because the connection and timing is smoother.

I would suggest getting her to take a private lesson with a teacher who is good at teaching connection and lead/follow technique. The reason is that even if you knew these techniques well and knew how to teach them to followers to improve their connection it's always damn hard to teach a girl you have a relationship with.

Bad news and critique is best coming from outside your partnership, that way no feelings are hurt.
 
Joy In Motion said:
My instinct upon reading this - the deliberate pulling from the guy and the pushing from the girl - is that this would create a very unnatural tension. I believe the proper tension and push/pull is very subtle (at least from the perspective of a beginner). Consciously making an effort to do this would, I think, make most beginners overdo it to the point that they are difficult to dance with. I find that it is better to err on the side of being softer and more pliable and gradually adding in more tension as required.
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I don't know. In my experience girls that have noodly arms when they first learn to dance have a hard time picking up good tone later on. I can't tell you how many girls I see in the advanced class with noodly arms. They just can't learn, no matter how often the teachers explain it to them.

I feel the opposite of you actually. I feel that it's better to be a smidge too stiff. At least they can feel the lead then. And eventually they will get tired and start to soften up anyway, then they will discover what a proper frame feels like. As to them hurting you, most of the girls that hurt me do it because they jerk their arms. They go soft and then they PULL. They do that because they can't feel the lead and they learned to dance with guys who lead with a lot of strength. They're usually intermediate level too. Beginning girls don't reallly hurt me. I don't do crazy moves that will result in them jerking me around.

All of that said, I do agree that it should be a subtle tension. The "be a pervert" and "don't be easy" thing is just a way to make a joke out of the whole thing. Makes it memorable and easy to understand.
 
PsychoSalsaGuy said:
I don't know. In my experience girls that have noodly arms when they first learn to dance have a hard time picking up good tone later on. I can't tell you how many girls I see in the advanced class with noodly arms. They just can't learn, no matter how often the teachers explain it to them.

I feel the opposite of you actually. I feel that it's better to be a smidge too stiff. At least they can feel the lead then. And eventually they will get tired and start to soften up anyway, then they will discover what a proper frame feels like. As to them hurting you, most of the girls that hurt me do it because they jerk their arms. They go soft and then they PULL. They do that because they can't feel the lead and they learned to dance with guys who lead with a lot of strength. They're usually intermediate level too. Beginning girls don't reallly hurt me. I don't do crazy moves that will result in them jerking me around.

All of that said, I do agree that it should be a subtle tension. The "be a pervert" and "don't be easy" thing is just a way to make a joke out of the whole thing. Makes it memorable and easy to understand.
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I suppose I'm looking at it from the perspective of a follower, so to me less tension would be the better of two undesireables. I think I see your point that more tension might be more desireable for a leader. So that makes sense. I immediately had flashbacks to leaders who left me with the desire to see a massage therapist. :)

So maybe a happy medium would be emphasizing to Ms. Noodly Arms the need for tension. And for Mrs. Stiffy emphasizing the need for relaxation. So actually you make a good point. I think I can agree on that!
 
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