Teach movement, not moves

I had the benefit of coming to Lindy Hop with a background of different dances and a feeling that I would be successful since I was already “a dancer”. But I was in for a number of reality checks. I often got (and still get) into trouble for dancing above my level (trying to pull off random things I have no chance of pulling off, experimenting, coming off as the opposite of the ideal-to-some “person who has few basics but does them well”). At the same time, I found Lindy (and later Balboa, and to a lesser extent Blues and Tango) to be very frustrating because although I had basics that I was doing as well as I could, I wasn’t doing them particularly well. I knew what I thought dancing was about (moving in partnership to music) and I wasn’t “dancing”. What’s more, anything I did that was outside these basics felt increasingly wrong as I became entrenched in trying to stick to them.

I attribute this to the fact that many beginner classes are about “moves”¹. The idea is that these are the basics of the dance and that a) mastering those basics sets up a good foundation, b) you have to start somewhere, building up vocabulary piece by piece and c) starting with being creative and good technique is too intimidating for beginners. I would disagree on several counts and argue that instead of basics of moves, basics of movement should be taught to new dancers².

You can’t master the basics

It took a year for my swingout to have any quality. My tango walk is still iffy. My blues pulse needs rebuilding from the ground up. If you ask any “advanced” dancer, what are they working on? Their basics (both of moves, and movement). Because the rest of dance is just what you do with basics.

So basically (groan), it will take a long time to even begin to master any basics. And even then, the more you know, the more you will realise you don’t know, so you will continue working on them. And the rest of dance is what will help you understand what the basics are, what they enable you to do and in what way yours are lacking.

At the core, what you will be doing is movement and musicality. That’s what we should start with, so that dancers are working on this from day one, while working in parallel on their other basics, not waiting for some far-off time where they have “solid basics”.

But we still need to start somewhere, right?

Of course I’m not advocating a “let’s teach everything at the same time” style of teaching. Movement still needs breaking down into its component pieces; you still need to set up a curriculum. I liked what Brenda Russell once said (of Blues, paraphrased): “We don’t teach a different dance to the advanced dancers and the beginners, we teach them the same dance so everyone can dance together”. I think she added something about not teaching patterns to beginners when advanced dancers don’t believe that’s what dancing is about. This means that they teach layers of dance (e.g. in blues, axis changes without pulse - and initially without stepping), with freedom to do many things, rather than teaching a pattern which requires many movement basics (pulse, stepping, connection, isolations/polycentric rhythms).

So the question, for any dance, then becomes what the movement layers are, what basics/elements belong to each layer and how hard they are for beginners to get right.

Triple steps in Lindy are a great example. They belong to the footwork layer and are treacherous to get right. Because they are easier once you know what they ought to look like, and once you are familiar with the music, they are prime candidates for keeping for later -probably until stretch has started to be understood. In the meantime, slows, slows with a bounce, and kick steps are fine.

But you need to give moves to beginners. Asking them to be creative is frightening!

Of course. Moves incorporate movement that can be recycled and that is core to the dance. So you need them anyway if you’re going to explore the variety of a dance genre and be part of a community. But if you teach a tuck turn or a swingout to beginners, it will take a good 2 hours and all they have for all that effort are two things that they can barely do. Hardly enough to get through a whole song.

If instead you teach movement, continuing with the example of Lindy, you can teach pulsing in place, slow steps and rock steps, along with counter body pendulum (all things which everyone has prior experience with). You can then show various ways to put them together (including “step as many times as you like then do a rock step” type instructions), maybe throwing in rotational rock step to go from jockey to closed position and back. You can then demonstrate that you can totally get through a song by combining this to the music. By the time you actually get to a swingout (maybe 10 hours of classes in), learners will have footwork, movement, lead/follow chops and musicality to make it all work.

Of course, for this, you need a scene where beginners go out dancing. But maybe giving them the feeling that they have enough material to get through a dance can help with that.

But if leads are going to improvise you need to teach connection!

Not necessarily. I think we focus too much on leads “leading the follow to do something”. This thinking makes us do steps with our feet, disconnect at our core and lead with our arms (or torso if lucky). By focusing on movement, if we can get the leads to move with their whole body (already done by non-dancers when walking down the street), the connection will be there and the lead will be there too. Again, one of the reasons for not doing swingouts (or even pass bys) right away: the move is not symmetrical and the lead isn’t just dancing, they are dancing a movement that will create a different (non-symmetric) movement in the follow. This approach also gives something more interesting to do for the follow than knowing what move is expected of them in class and muddling through it side by side with the lead. Early on they will have to listen to how their body is being moved and learn to react to that³. Walks in jockey position, for example, don’t need any specific thinking to be led, or followed. You just do them.

These ideas apply to several dances I know (Blues, Lindy Hop, most partnered Bal Folk dancing, Tango to some extent, maybe even West Coast). I’m less sure about dances I’m not familiar with and which appear to lead geography, but not stepping, such as Boogie Woogie and Salsa (and maybe it’s precisely because of this that I don’t feel attracted to these dances). On the other hand, doing things this way is outside the typical beginner experience⁴ (and might lead to rather unfortunate interactions on the social dance floor). How do you think it would go down?