Torso Technique

[latingal]

Many things may be the root cause of "stiffness" in the shoulders or upper torso; trying to "balance" by holding your weight off the floor, insufficient use of legs and grounding, trying to "hold" the upper body to create "stillness", trying to keep the shoulders facing forward through the wrong usage of the muscles, trying to connect the body with the wrong sets of muscles, etc.

In my experience, once I found the correct way to connect my body (legs, core, back, shoulder blades, and spine) and how the opposition in the body actually works and feels, the shoulders relaxed and the body produced the correct action. One hint I might also add is that the when you use the correct opposition in the body with the back, hips, core etc. it helps one to move in a connected fashion during the weight transfer; it allows flexible movement around the spine while helping with the transfer across the foot/leg.

 

[Ray Sison]

Many things may be the root cause of "stiffness" in the shoulders or upper torso; trying to "balance" by holding your weight off the floor, insufficient use of legs and grounding, trying to "hold" the upper body to create "stillness", trying to keep the shoulders facing forward through the wrong usage of the muscles, trying to connect the body with the wrong sets of muscles, etc.

In my experience, once I found the correct way to connect my body (legs, core, back, shoulder blades, and spine) and how the opposition in the body actually works and feels, the shoulders relaxed and the body produced the correct action. One hint I might also add is that the when you use the correct opposition in the body with the back, hips, core etc. it helps one to move in a connected fashion during the weight transfer; it allows flexible movement around the spine while helping with the transfer across the foot/leg.

I know and feel the body forces involved a lot better after working on this relentlessly for a few years. It's the kind of thing that is hard to describe in words (which you did well); and I learned so much of it "by feel" with our coach (as I did with so many other things in dance). For me, for part of it, I feel a wave through my back from shoulder to opposite oblique, tracing sort of an "S", if that makes sense. Working the body, using that opposition that you speak of...

And as I mentioned earlier to TinyDancer, Ron Montez' sitting exercises seem to help in the isolation of the ribcage, especially when one is first trying to get that feel that I speak of...

 

[TinyDancer109]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! i am going to let you know how my progress goes.

 

[Ray Sison]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! i am going to let you know how my progress goes.

In Funstuff, when reading the following in the the "Car Dancers Thread", I thought of you, TinyDancer109:

"Our instructor said the best way to practice each of these techniques is in the car (or sitting on the edge of a chair or sitting on the floor).

Essentially, when your sitting (like in the car) your hips and pelvis stay isolated automatically so it is easier to move only your ribs or to isolate your stomach muscles."

This is something like the Ron Montez exercise I told you about, and he even suggests (in at least one of his DVDs) of doing this while sitting in a car (while stopped, he emphasizes, if you are driving!) or on a chair.

 

[TinyDancer109]

hahahaha, great advice, Ray!!!

That's a great way to kill two birds with one stone and get the practice in during the day since i am a car dancer myself! not to mention i sit at my desk at the office all day

 

[Leonid Turetsky]

What you want to make sure is that you ARE NOT actually separating what happens on top from what happens below...you need to dance the whole body! What Toni meant was probably that you were not using back compression/rotation to finish your actions.

I think of it like this:
1. Leg action - shoot your leg out and get on it straight
2. Hip action - swing you hip into hipbone of the leg you are moving to.
3 Body action - connect your back! You have to feel a compression and then rotate that back in order for you to move into the next step... without this last step your movement from one foot to the other will feel "manufactured", instead of "seamless/fluid/connected"...
All of the action in Latin happens from a back action at the end of the day.


You will need a teacher to show you how to connect your back so you can get the feeling for it though...
Hope this helps.

 

[TinyDancer109]

Thanks Leonid! I never thought of it that way. i am going to ask my pro about this.