The Pain of Close Embrace dancing...

Light Sleeper said:
Yes, it cuts both ways, I wonder if you've only learnt shared axis if you wouldn't find it hard to be on your own axis?... assuming you've not done any other kinds of dancing previously where you've learnt to be balanced and on your own axis.

And I don't know about you, OD, but my partner and I vary our hold throughout the dance and it works well. Granted we don't go into strong apilado but we do go from shared axis to open, to more of a v frame and out again.
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LS if you're ever over in the backwoods of the UK let me know I'd love to dance with you...

liquido...... love it.

Gollum: We wants it, we needs it. Must have the axis’s. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!
Smeagol: No. Not master!
Gollum: Yes, precious, false! They will cheat you, hurt you, make you do apilado.
Smeagol: Master is our friend!
Gollum: You don't have any friends; nobody likes you!
Smeagol: I'm not listening... I'm not listening...
Gollum: You can only do “open”.
Smeagol: No!
Gollum: *Nuevo-er*.
Smeagol: Go away!
Gollum: "Go away?"
[Gollum laughs as Smeagol begins crying]
Smeagol: I hate you, I hate you.
Gollum: Where would you be without me, gollum, gollum? I saved us! It was me! We danced traditional because of me!
Smeagol: [stops crying] Not anymore.
Gollum: What did you say?
Smeagol: Master looks after us now. We don't need you anymore.
Gollum: What?
Smeagol: Leave now, and never come back!
Gollum: No!
Smeagol: Leave now, and never come back. I can dance like a fish; open or closed!
[Gollum screams in frustration]
Smeagol: LEAVE! NOW! AND NEVER COME BACK!
[Gollum is silent]
Smeagol: [looks around] We told him to go away... and away he goes, Precious! Gone, gone, gone! Smeagol is free!
 
Zoopsia59 said:
What do you do when dancing with leaders who vary the embrace? Or does that not happen much in your area? I admit that few leaders I know are adept at moving in and out of a close embrace during a dance, (most dance one or the other) but I have danced with a few who vary the embrace well. My personal opinion is that a varied embrace is harder than dancing open OR closed as a fixed embrace. It is especially difficult if the close embrace when used is a shared axis embrace.
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I think you may have answered your own question. :)

The leaders who tend to move back and forth have a certain "feel" to them in whatever it is they are calling closed (even the full contact one with no weight sharing), and you can usually tell when they want to go open. They generally already have their weight and posture further back so I don't try to initiate something where "sharing" would be necessary.

I'm not going to call close embrace off axis, or off balance, because IMO it is not so I kind of wish people would not call it out of balance. You are in balance with each other and in fact if your own balance isn't good, sharing weight isn't going to make it better so you still aren't depending on your partner to balance you- you have to have good balance anyway, just like in open. You try to match. The posture is slightly different from full open. You have to remember to bring your ribcage further back (change your posture) to move to open or even almost open.

Even in open you are in balance with each other. It just happens that your weight is centered somewhere else in open. You have to match and balance each others energy and posture or you still end up with the same problems we are talking about.

And you are right Zoopsia- it's quite hard. Probably they hardest thing I could think of doing. I tend to prefer one or the other and so do most of the leads I dance with.

Aside from it actually being physically difficult to go from a true closed to a full open, there's a mental aspect for me as well. Close embrace is more like a "zen" thing, with a certain flow to it, and I find being moved to open from it disturbs that "zen" connection. So that's another reason if I am in a full closed, I probably want to stay there.

Open has it's own feel, and I am fine with that too...but they are different for me and I don't like combining them.
 
Ditto. I hate it when you get into that "very close open" thing - neither open nor closed. This can happen when the woman stands close to you but doesnt actually offer a close embrace. I usually give it half a dance before I either close the gap or push her away to a comfortable distance...
 
I hate it when you get into that "very close open" thing - neither open nor closed. This can happen when the woman stands close to you but doesnt actually offer a close embrace. I usually give it half a dance before I either close the gap or push her away to a comfortable distance...
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Sounds a whole lot like something I would write with the qualifier that I usually give it
the majority of a tanda before making the switch. With the wide variety of what is taught and danced, it can take a while to zone in on soemone. Isn't that one of the reasons we dance tandas?
 
I'm not going to pick and chose from dchester's post(s), but, (again) I am SO glad to to read stories of similar frustration. As I continued to take lessons, it became SO frustrating to have women tell me whatever, where I was certain they were wrong, that I once told someone during the rotation that she should find someone else to practice with.
And then there is the phemon of being told I doing something wrong. A more common occurance was for me to have the teacher or assistant do a check up with us. Somehow, my partner always ended up with all of the attention. Almost as if I had it already and she still needed instruction.
This is why
I am currently mostly in the mode, after going through a "talk to them about it and see if they know something I don't phase, of listening very politely, while coming to the same resolution that dchester did.
 
Do you mean I may have let my posture go/ leant too much forward and that forced him bolt upright like an ironing board? If anything, initially the leaning in felt so foreign I wasn't doing it enough.
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Naw, just trying to share what I've learned about how to do it (create a "connection", share weight, what is "good posture", etc.)
We can't fix other people, as a general rule. So I think it's best to accept responsibility for ourselves, get the best instruction possible, and do the best we can.
 
All of this thread makes me feel a bit less out-on-a-limb when I struggle with various aspects of close embrace. Thanks everyone!
 
Madahlia said:
All of this thread makes me feel a bit less out-on-a-limb when I struggle with various aspects of close embrace. Thanks everyone!
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that's ok- everyone does for awhile.

I danced with someone the other day (I was leading) and was attempting close embrace. I got through about 3 phrases of the music and had to switch to open just to be able to match her weight placement.

I know (from experience, because my main job is following) that this can make the follower feel bad, and this is the hardest thing for me to deal with regarding close embrace, because it can lead to a little flattening of the ego but if people can't learn how to match their partner in close, someone has to make a change and what else can you do?
 
bastet said:
I danced with someone the other day (I was leading) and was attempting close embrace. I got through about 3 phrases of the music and had to switch to open just to be able to match her weight placement... if people can't learn how to match their partner in close, someone has to make a change and what else can you do?
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Yes! ..and what if you don't dance open ...then, you SUFFER and quite possibly get lower back strain. This is why the Milonguero who only dances close embrace, waits patiently and only asks to dance someone who can dance it.
Also, this is probably why almost everyone at practicas around here, (Phila) dance somewhat/open close embrace...because the odds are that one or the other member of the couple has not learned how to embrace and manage their weight (among other things).
My own solution was to find a practise and dance partner and to sit out some dances and watch for others that also may offer a good dance experience in authentic close embrace.:together:
 
Something interesting came up during my last lesson. I was asking my teacher about the difference between leading certain moves in close as opposed to open. She replied that the whole close vs open thing was something she hadn't encountered until she came to America. (She is Argentine.) To her, there is just The Embrace and good technique. If you have good technique, you adjust to whatever is comfortable for your partner at the time.

I just thought that was kind of interesting, considering we make such a big deal out of it here.
 
Mario7 said:
Yes! ..and what if you don't dance open ...then, you SUFFER and quite possible get lower back strain. This is why the Milonguero who only dances close embrace, waits patiently and only asks to dance someone who can dance it.
Also, this is probably why almost everyone at practicas around here, (Phila) dance somewhat/open close embrace...because the odds are that one or the other member of the couple has not learned how to embrace and manage their weight (among other things).
My own solution was to find a practise and dance partner and to sit out some dances and watch for others that also may offer a good dance experience in authentic close embrace.:together:
Click to expand...

if that works for you and you are ok with not being able to have as many dances as you might, then I guess that's fine.

As Madahlia said, there are people who are trying to learn close but aren't there yet, and it can be a struggle just as learning good open can...so I try to keep that in mind when I am out dancing...there's a learning curve for it all and getting it all straight in your head and body.

I think it's good to be able to adapt to people. That means more people like to dance with me (hopefully). I think it gives an added advantage over just learning open, or just learning close (full closed, not the closed that is mostly like open, just closer) and really being able to feel people's axis, weight placement and alignment and which one they prefer based on that...note I did not say balance, which is not the same thing as axis, IMO, though you'd be able to feel that better too by really delving in to the open versus close thing.
 
Fiendword - ha, like it!

"Fieldword" - phrase uttered on teh battlefield to identify friend from foe. Royalist's was "Queen Mary". Parliamentarian's was "God is our strength".
 
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