What is important for ladies in a dance?

T

ticolora

Member
I ran a poll and got back interesting results I would like to share. I found the result quite surprising, I knew that repertoire is not too important however I did not realize to what extent it is not important.

To continue Sunday's conversation. Question for ladies.
Suppose you attend a "build a dance partner" workshop in Boulder. Everybody begins with the same off-the-shelf male-partner-dancer (named Eduardo). Eduardo is already pretty ok (not great though) in every respect.
Every one of you gets 3 points to enhance one or more of his attributes. Each point improves the aspect as follows:
+0 - average
+1 - pretty good
+2 - very good
+3 - exceptional
(It is understood that "everything is important", but I aim to quantify what's *really important*)
1. musicality - Eduardo's ability to adjust moves to the mood of the music, stay on beat, hit breaks and hits in music.
2. variety - number and complexity of moves he can lead
3. leading skills - timeliness and clarity of his lead, connection.
4. fun - I feel that this attribute will be expected/requested but I don't really know how to define it.
If something is missing, assume that he grades "ok" on that, however, is there something else that you would like to be able to enhance? e.g. handsomeness, or funniness.
So, your answer should be 4 numbers that correspond to the 4 categories listed above, e.g. 2 0 1 0 means you want Eduardo to be "very good" musically, and "pretty good" with his lead.
You then get to dress him using items found in a bin, but I don't care about that.
To be fair, if you buy me a drink - you get one extra point to spend on Eduardo.

-----
Here are the answers, I understand that some respondents cheated and split the points, or used 4 points instead of 3, but that still shows the priorities

0 0 2 1
0.5 0 2 0.5
1 0 1 1
0 0 3 0
2 0 1 0
2 0 1 0
0 0.5 2 0.5
 
You´ve missed it totally: what really counts is
eye contact,
corners of your mouth,
food work.

What is your problem?
 
I like the structure of your poll.

Variety is a weird thing; when I'm dancing well, am feeling the music, and am with a good partner, we can dance the same pattern several times in a row and it will feel different each time.

So to me, musicality + leading ability is a form of variety that's independent of the number of patterns danced.
 
RiseNFall said:
How come it's so hard for us to convince leaders of this???
Click to expand...

(On mobile. Apologies for typos, swypos, etc)

1. Leaders typically do not follow, and so do not know what the experience is like. This especially relates to what the follower actually pays attention to, and what the follower remembers.
2. The leader is responsible for choosing which patterns to dance, which necessarily results in remembering which patterns have been recently led. Pattern repetition is *highly* noticeable to the leader.
3. People tend to assume that everyone notices similar things. To a great deal, this is true. Most people notice the weather. Both partners notice what type of music they're dancing to. Leaders *don't* have visibility into the follower's role (above) to be able to recognize that followers don't notice patterns as much as leaders do.
4. Group lessons are often taught using a pattern or amalgamation. The follower's are usually taught the pattern, not what the lead is going to feel like. Leaders are taught the pattern *first* and the lead *second*. This naturally creates the appearance that patterns are the important thing.
5. *leaders* get bored dancing the same pattern or two over and over and over. What wouldn't the follower?
6. Most followers seen to be beginners. Beginner followers offten do focus on learning patterns, and on wanting to dance the pattern they just learned, and on *following patterns* rather than following leads.
7. Followers offten look bored when the leader dances only the basic and maybe one other pattern. This occurs at the very beginning of the Leader's journey, and creates an initial impression that "i need more patterns to make it fun for my followers."
8. Some followers lead themselves when the leader doesn't lead enough patterns. Or when the leader starts a pattern but the follower thinks it's a different pattern. This trains the leader that "i need to know more patterns"

There's people more parts of a typical Leader's dance journey that reinforce the point, which are not coming to mind.
 
I'm not surprised variety of steps ranked low. I'm just surprised it didn't rank lower. If his leading skills are not well developed, then more "variety" of badly lead steps warrants negative points. It's not so bad to dance with a lead who can't lead who tries only two basic patterns. It's absolutely torture to dance with a lead who can't lead but tries 20 different patterns. If poor leads stick to a few steps, at least you aren't guessing wildly, getting your arm twisted off and feeling like you might twist your ankles any minute. The second or third time they try to lead the same thing, you figure out what they want. The same can't be said of the more "ambigious" lead who doesn't know how to lead.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ticolora said:
I ran a poll and got back interesting results I would like to share. I found the result quite surprising, I knew that repertoire is not too important however I did not realize to what extent it is not important.
Click to expand...

Any sufficiently experienced dancer will not be surprised by this fact. Only people who care about pattern repertoire of a leader are beginner and intermediate leads.

Of all dances, the beginner/intermediate salsa leaders are most notorious about adding to their repertoire arsenal. The leaders in other social dances get quickly disabuse of this notion. There is something fundamentally wrong in how salsa gets taught to the beginners.
 
atk said:
8. Some followers lead themselves when the leader doesn't lead enough patterns. Or when the leader starts a pattern but the follower thinks it's a different pattern. This trains the leader that "i need to know more patterns"
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd say that leaders may have the impression that the follower is leading themselves, but this happens (in my experience anyway) when the lead is unclear or delivered late. It has absolutely nothing to do with the follow wanting more variety.

Speaking as an advanced follow, I don't want to be leading myself or guessing, but sometimes you have to fake it a bit to make a dance work. A social is not the time to stop dead and say "WTF. I have no idea what you are trying to get me to do."
 
Multidancer said:
There is something fundamentally wrong in how salsa gets taught to the beginners.
Click to expand...

There is a very simple answer to that. I would venture to say at least 90% of salsa ; ' teachers?' have little or no formal dance training . One only needs to check the techn. of salsa dancers in general.

The foundational aspects are often absent .
True story. I was asked if I would take an advanced class by a local school whose normal salsa teacher ( a Cuban ) could not make it.

I was told the class was Interm to advanced . 8 people attended which comprised of 2 beginners ( man and lady not a couple ), 2 couples and one Interm .
As usual when teaching a new class I play music to see what level they are , NOT what they think they are .

Other than the beginners the rest had danced for at least 3 years .
The techn was sadly lacking and I spent the 1st hour in basic foundation, also correcting partnership problems.

When the 2nd hour began I noticed one lady was missing. Shortly after the owner told me that she quit because there were NO patterns !!. and he said and I quote " They don't want a techn class ". I had to bite my tongue..

Bottom line, the 3 single ladies said that was the best class they had ever attended . They told the owner , suffice it to say, I was never invited back

The Cuban teacher had never mentioned the word Cl;ave once in 3 years .
 
I too have experienced a lack of enthusiasm for technique among salsa dancers. I find Blues dancers place great emphasis on lead/follow skills. Blues leaders develop a clear lead early in their dance journey. It's why the genre is one of my favorites. Sadly Blues dancing opportunities are limited in my area.
 
FancyFeet said:
Actually, I'd say that leaders may have the impression that the follower is leading themselves, but this happens (in my experience anyway) when the lead is unclear or delivered late. It has absolutely nothing to do with the follow wanting more variety.

Speaking as an advanced follow, I don't want to be leading myself or guessing, but sometimes you have to fake it a bit to make a dance work. A social is not the time to stop dead and say "WTF. I have no idea what you are trying to get me to do."
Click to expand...

First off, I am not at all disagreeing that what you describe happens. Just offering *additional* information.

I have danced with several newcomer women, led only basics for several measures while tying to get us together (e.g. either match her timing or see if she can find the music or match my timing) and have had my follower literally decide entirely on her own that she wanted to do something different, like an underarm turn.

I have also danced with certain women who of a more intermediate skill level, but who, literally, choose the patters we will dance, even though they are the follower and I am the leader. They step before I step. They move their body before I move my body. They raise their arm or adjust position before I do so. In these cases, I follow instead of lead.

It happens.
 
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