Ron Montez on West Coast Swing

I came across another pair of gems on www.youtube.com, Ron Montez speaking about West Coast Swing. His main points, from the bit that was posted:

• West Coast Swing only has 5 or 6 basic patterns*.
• The elements that define these patterns allow for a great deal of artistic creativity on the part of each of the partners. 

The patterns he had in mind are the Closed Basic, Throw Out, Sugar Push, Under Arm Turn, Left Side Pass, and Basic Whip.

Some examples he gave of variations were syncopations on the anchor steps, variations on the left side pass, such as the right side pass and the tuck turn, and different kicks and stylings that could be used in the anchor step part of the patterns.

* American style dancers typically refer to "patterns", International style to "figures", some Salsa dancers to "combinations". These all correspond to a defined set of steps and movements that occur regularly within a dance.

Some notes from Blackpool Congress

A link in a forum posting took me to video from a Blackpool Congress. Some notes from Marcus Hilton's lecture in 2007.

• "We pull our stomachs back to our spine, we don't lift them up, because that changes our weight balance, our center of gravity"
• We want to feel everything is vertically hanging. We don't want to lean left, right, forward, or back.
• Knees are always soft in standard
• Body moves first
• We time our bodies, we do not time our feet
• In Promenade figures, the man wants to feel like a gondolier, pushing off his right foot like a pole, and twisting his body right.
• "I want to stand and grow, in promenade position, not stand and go."
• In promenade position, particularly when stepping with his right foot, the man should not cut off the lady's line, there should be tension pulling his knees together in the coronal plane of the body. (That is., he should activate his hip adductors.)

Blackpool Congress 2007 Marcus Hilton

Standard: basic footwork and movement

Basic footwork:

• heel toe - toe - toe heel
• keep foot skimming across the floor, avoid picking up foot and walk.
• start with toe coming in, ball of foot, then whole of the foot, slide a few inches flat, then toe release up, then step forward.
• foot is in contact with floor at all times: whether it's stepping forward, back or closing foot from side.

Forward movement:

• Swing from hip area, keep blocks of weight line up.
• Don't use body weight early, lean forward.
• Don't tilt upper body back in order to step forward.

Backward movement:

• Keep blocks of weight lined up. Lower. Don't lean forward or fall back. Pull up ab muscle
• Extend leg back ahead of body, at mid point of stride, transfer block of weight to split weight position.
• Draw heel of front font to standing foot.
• Heel of receiving foot comes down gradually as the other foot passes by. Do not let back foot drop down to heel too quickly and too early. This need foot and ankle strength.

Four ranges of motion:

• CBM: turning body as you lower - the torquing action. Practice all four directions, stepping forward and back with left or right foot.

Sway:

• Sway is used to counterbalance the force of movement, otherwise, body will fall out of balance.
• Do not "break side" - swaying only from waist area, while hips and legs are straight. Body is broken.
• Good sway: incline the entire body, the whole body is lined up diagonally.

Preparation step:

• Prepare and give the lady wind up to get into the first figure.
• Man:
• Start stepping LF forward to invite lady. RF is in the back.
• RF to side, IE of toe heel, start winding up 1/8 to left (turning entire body 1/8 to left)
• Draw IE of LF in. (turn completes)
• Step LF forward, HT. (Lower and use range of motion.)
• Lady:
• LF to left side: ball heel. 
• IE of RF draw into LF,  and then step RF back, BH.
• Prepare the hip for backward action. Don't lock the hips.
• Keep body poised forward, left hip will relax, allow body to remain forward, then step RF back, use range of motion.

Standard: dance posture and hold

Basic posture points:

Man:

• Stand in upright position. Line up head, shoulders, ribcage and hips. The blocks weight should completely lined up, Don't pitch forward, lean back, tilt, or disconnect in strange diagonals. 
• Don't lift arm too high, a little lower than shoulder. Consider lady's height,make sure it's comfortable for the lady. 

Lady:

• Line up 4 blocks of weight, just like the Man. 
• It's particularly important that ladies internally lift up abdominal muscle, i.e. pick up central weight. There should be no arches in the back. "Lift up the hips to the Man". "Squeeze the butt cheeks." 
• Head: Natural left position along wrist watch. No other funny positions. 
• Keep the right to right connection with Man, but pickup left side, strong diagonal stretch. Don't turn right shoulder or left shoulder away from the Man. Keep body evenly balanced with Man. 
• Relax other joints, don't tense up. 

Suggestions for quick warmup exercises before dance lessons

It's a really good idea to warm up before each lesson, so you don't dance "cold". These exercises will also help practice basic actions. More details are described at DanceCentral.info.

Figure out what works for you. These are just some suggestions.

Standard warm up:

1. Upper body twist
2. Hip flexor stretch
3. Leg swings
4. Stepping CBM forward and back
5. Forward and backward walk
6. Waltz Box

Latin warm up:

1. Ribcage isolation
2. Hips: twist, pendulum, lateral
3. Hips: circle and figure 8
4. Rumba walk forward and back
5. Rumba cuccaracha
6. Change of direction: forward walk turn, swivel

After this, practice whatever you've learned in previous lessons.

Dance Etiquette: Showing Off

When you are dancing with a partner, it is important to remember, and be considerate of, your partner. In particular, consider what your partner can do, and what they show they want to do. A gentleman who tries to lead his partner into steps too advanced for her (or, dare we say it, for him), will not make the partnership look good, and will probably make his partner uncomfortable. A lady who starts to improvise extensively in a West Coast Swing while her partner just keeps time waiting for her to finish is probably not making a fan. A gentleman who goes into extended salsa shines while his partner dances a basic, waiting for him to pick her up again, shows a marked lack of awareness or consideration. Partner dancing is about two people dancing together, and in these examples, the connection is missing.

Do what you both can do as well as you can. If you and your partner are both capable of showing off, and want to do so, go for it. Otherwise, be nice, make your partner happy.

Waist Flexibility for Standard

Outside Partner Position, Promenade Position, and the Contrabody Movement required for many figures demand the ability twist your spine so that your sternum is pointing in a different direction than your hips. Standard dancers can commonly be seen loosening up their spine by rotating their rib cages relative to their hips, back and forth. There is also a yoga posture that helps with this flexibility, called the Half Spine Twist, or Ardha Matsyendrasana. References for how to perform this posture may be found searching the internet. Some sources include ABC of Yoga, and yoga.about.com.

NDCA Dance Competitions 2011 - West Coast

Full NDCA dance competition calendar is at http://www.ndca.org/events/calendar/

Here's a list for West Coast competitions:

SnowBall Classic IDSF International Open  Feb 4-6, Vancouver

Jan 28 - 30, 2011	City Lights Ball	San Jose CA
Feb 17 - 20, 2011	California Open Dancesport Championships	Irvine Marriott Hotel, John Wayne Airport, Irvine CA
Mar 31 - Apr 3, 2011	San Francisco Open Dancesport Championships - 29th Annual	Marriott Hotel, San Francisco Airport, CA
Apr 27 - May 1, 2011	Emerald Ball Dancesport Championships	Los Angeles Airport Hilton Hotel, Los Angeles, CA
May 7 - 8, 2011	Columbia Star Ball	Red Lion Inn, Jantzen Beach - Portland, OR
Jun 9 - 12, 2011	San Diego Dancesport Championships	The Westin Horton Plaza - San Diego, CA
Jul 7 - 10, 2011	Desert Classic Dancesport Championships	JW Marriott Resort & Spa - Palm Desert, CA
Jul 29 - 31, 2011	International Grand Ball Championships	San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel - San Francisco, CA
Aug 5 - 7, 2011	Seattle Star Ball	Sea-Tac Hilton & Conference Center - Seattle, WA
Aug 18 - 21, 2011	Nevada Star Ball Championships	Green Valley Ranch Resort Hotel and Casino - Las Vegas, NV
Sep 1 - 4, 2011	Embassy Ball Dancesport Championships, Inc	Hyatt Regency Hotel, Jamboree Road - Irvine, CA
Oct 7 - 9, 2011	Golden State Challenge	Westin Hotel - Costa Mesa, CA
Dec 30, 2011	Holiday Ball	San Fernando Valley, CA

Cha Cha Basic Technique

More basic technique has been added to Cha Cha Technique page.

Doing figure 8 action continuously.
It's important to create time - connected actions, sudden actions.

• 2: RF back, basic Latin back step.
• Different from Rumba, tighten up weight transfer, body/spine more fwd, do not put all the weight on back foot, no time to get back.
• LF is on ball of foot, proping body. there is quite a bit weight on front foot. It is ok that back heel doesn't come all the way down (to steal time).
• Still, twist R hip at the end, it still creates big action.
• 3: LF replace
• 4: RF to side, slightly fwd. Chasse is very tight, directly under shoulder. Use side step Latin technique.
• Spine moves just slightly diagonally fwd (this is simultaneous with previous step when L hip twist). Still doing figure 8 action.
• No rib cage displacement.
• &: LF closes to RF (sudden sharp action), on the ball of LF, not ball flat. Work L hip diagonally fwd (which increases circumference when it twists, it produces more power).
• 1: Twisting L hip (powerful), make sure L shoulder doesn't come up (body height doesn't change), shoulder down, compress. 
• Twist creates internal space, RF to side
• as you transfer weight, hip comes underneath the body. Don't do step, then hip, which is disconnected. Do connected actions.
• Also, for basic actions, there is no rib cage displacement, just move the whole spine over to RF, don't put R hip over foot, while rib cage goes to left. (Advanced dancer may explore rib cage displacement for effects.)
• 2: LF directly go fwd, where it needs to go (steal time). Don't close LF to RF first and then out fwd. Go directly fwd.
• LF turned out. Compression, flat foot, Pendulum action,L hip pulls knee underneath. Check happens on "&".
• Cha Cha has quick sharp check action. (Rumba has soft check action.)
• 3: R hip is diagonally fwd (yes, fwd, it's going to go to side step.) (Previous quick check created time, use the extra time to show the hip action.)
• 4&1: side slightly back. Chasse action.

For sudden, sharp, quick dynamic, practice twisting upper body and switching knee separately, then combining them will create bigger action.

Make sure adding dynamic doesn't change the basic core fundamentals (like body alignment).

Great books for dancers

Here are some great books for dancers recommended by many professional instructors.

Dynamic Alignment through Imagery by Eric Franklin
It shows how to use imaging techniques to improve posture and alignment and release excess tension. Practice the techniques using the exercises in the book, it will help to improve your alignment and movement.

Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance by Eric Franklin

It provides imagery exercises designed to improve dance technique, artistic expression, and performance.

Dance Camp at City Lights Ball 2011

The instructors and judges are City Lights Ball are no doubt top notch. Dance Camp started on Friday and here is a short summary of some of the talks. The format is "lecture", i.e. the instructor will talk about things and demonstrate with their assistant (generally their partner). Some teachers ask audience to get on to dance floor.  But don't expect too much dancing.

It appears some instructors (at least) thought about the lecturer ahead of time, while others just do it on the spot.

Victor Fung - Why We Dance

We need to dance with our heart (soul), mind and body. Our body is just a tool, it expresses the mind. Use your mind, give it warmth, give it feelings.

Victor and Anastasia demonstrated with some basic Foxtrot figures, danced multiple times with different feelings, all technically correct, but the feeling of the dance is quite different.

Anastasia Muravyeva - Music: Your Second PartnerLearn to be in harmony with music. Listen: rhythm, melody (mental emotions), and color of music (character). Different people can choose to hear different things.

Waltz: listen to the melody, phrasing. It has "Question" (stronger) 1 2 3, then "Answer" (soft) 1 2 3.

Quickstep: Strong on 1, 3. Soft on 2, 4.

Tango: 2 beats, there is still strong/soft.

Arunas Bizokas - Secrets of the Champion Some say in dancing, you don't have to care how it feels, as long as it looks good. Arunas thinks, eventually, it is important that the dance both feels good and looks good. Dancers have to be good at a lot of things (technical stuff, sensitive to partner, musicality, stamina), etc.

How we move, how to create distance: reaching with moving leg is wrong. Distance comes from releasing weight from standing leg. distance = speed * time. Practice forward and backward walks. A lot.

Katusha Demidova - Secrets of the ChampionNumber 1 question Katusha got asked when she teaches her students is how to create the shape. You create shape pretty using everything except for head. Use your feet, hips, shoulders. Movement comes from hip, hip should not get out of line, make sure tail bone is down. Head goes as much as spine allows.

The purpose of Man's shaping is to lead the lady. 

Lady can use a bit of head weight in some dynamic figures.

Donnie Burns

Latin American Dance with a partner. All part of this is important. You want technique + artistic + partner all go in the same direction.

Body weight is used to lead. Practice with partner, doing weight change. Close your eyes. 

Cuban rock: upper body action, hip reaction. Don't just do hips on its own.

Efficiency: An efficient way is the beautiful way. Think of what you need to pick up heavy suitcase, vs. picking up a tooth brush. You don't have to try too hard.

Focus learning the right thing, stop analyzing what's wrong with what you are doing. You will practice differently at different stage. You go from one position to another position. The quality is defined in between the beats - how you get from first position to next.

You can't learn how to dance from other instructors' videos. You can learn from your own videos!

Michael Chapman - How to Create a Masterpiece, Part 1

Michael talked about choreography - that shows creativity, fundamentals and dynamics. Arunas and Katusha are Michael's assistants. In the session, Michael went through first part of Foxtrot choreography with Arunas and Katusha. He explained how choreography fits with the music; where he would put lifts, etc.

Much of this part is open work. Arunas and Katusha appeared much relieved when finally they are put in Standard hold at end of this part 1.

Johan Eftedal - Dynamics 1

Lead: tells the lady to go, stop and change direction.

Follow: lady never stop dancing!

Lead into basic: down and forward. Forward checked walk.

Cucaracha: partial weight, don't put full weight. Can be danced slow, evenly to music; or really twist (when feet are together, like twisting wet towel) and then do very fast foot to the side.

Welcome Party - a Q&A forum with these champions

Q: What's your favorite dance?

A: Heather Smith likes them all, but Slow Foxtrot would be her favorite.

Anastasia also likes them all, Tango is her favorite.

Q: For judges, you have a few seconds to judge, what are you looking for?

A: Donnie Burn looks for how the dancers express music in beautiful and efficient ways. Approach with simplicity.

Q: How do you practice and balance what to work on?

A: Normal practice generally starts with warm up, work on what's taught in a lesson, run through your routine. The length on each part depends. Before a competition, you may want to increase the time to run through routines.

Q: For Anastasia and Victor, what do you appreciate each other?

A: Anastasia appreciates that Victor listens "The first partner who actually listens." Victor says Anastasia is very patient.

Q: For judges: what mistakes do dancers make? What annoys you most?

A: Walk to the floor with your number facing judges, please. You want to capture (good) attention.

Ladies: what annoys Heather Smith the most is when lady dancers got on the floor with most beautiful costume, then she would pull her costume down (pulling built-in panties).

Donnie Burns: C

ut those "elephant ears" (ladies shoe strap sticks out too much)

Wear  age appropriate costume. When a pre-teen girl, shakes her hips and then winks at an 70-80 year old judge, that's wrong.

Annoying things: no floor craft, dance on top of people. 

Wash your costumes. 

we see everything. 

Don't chew gum.

Q: What's your goal of dancing & goal of life?

A: Victor: Right now, for dancing, I'd like to beat that guy (pointing to Arunas) :)

For life, oh, well, a beautiful wife, a big house, ...

Anastasia: keep improving, meet someone, stay happy....

Q: Advice for dancers?

A: Look at right now, improve 1 thing now. 

Practice double time (than the competition time). Judges judge from round to round. Need to keep that energy.

Q: When do you advice dancers do when there is collision?

A: Heather: we judge student differently from pros. We don't  mark down for students in collisions. For professionals, you can show floor craft, show musicality, you don't need to run faster than others. We see anger, it shows. 

Rules for head movement in Standard dances

Four rules of head movement

1. In Natural turning figures going forward (e.g. 2nd half of Natural Spin Turn, or Closed Impetus), think of extending the nose past the left elbow
2. In Natural turning figures going backwards, the body turns first, and the head stays behind
3. In Reverse turning figures going backwards, the head starts and leads the turn. Otherwise, after the turn, the body will be too straight. Examples: Double Reverse Spin.
4. When there is body tilt, the body sways, but the head stays still. (e.g. Basic Weave with Promenade Finish.)

After every extension, the head returns to neutral at the end of a figure, except in rule #4 above, where you are usually going into promenade position.

How to choose a dance teacher?

It is not easy to find a dance teacher who is "just right" for you. As your dance level progresses, the "ideal" teacher would mostly likely change as well. Here are a few points to keep in mind when trying out new teachers.

Teacher's qualifications to teach the dance
A good teacher does not necessarily have certifications. A certification means the teacher has passed tests on their dancing knowledge. That knowledge does not necessarily translate into dancing and/or teaching well. Placing well in a significant competition is a much stronger indicator of dancing well. Having their students do well in competitions is an indicator of their skill in teaching. But there are also excellent teachers that haven't competed, and do not have students that compete.

An excellent way to evaluate a teacher is to watch them dance and see if you like how they dance. If you go to a local competition, you will have the opportunity to find out who the local teachers are that participate in Pro/Am events with their students, and see how well they and their students dance.

A lot of teachers could teach many different types of dances, they often have their "specialty" as well, being Standard, Latin, Smooth, Rhythm, Salsa, Swing, Argentine Tango, Hustle, etc. If you are looking to learn WC Swing, it's probably better to learn it from a really good WC Swing dancer who may not complete, instead of learning from a Smooth competitor.

Ability to teach - chemistry
Ability covers many areas. A great dancer may not necessarily be a great teacher. A good teacher is able to communicate with the student clearly and precisely and adjust his/her teaching method for different types of students. Some very basic check points:

• Does the teacher make you feel comfortable?
• Do you truly understand what he/she is trying to explain?
• Do they adjust their way of explaining if seems like you are just not getting it?
• Do they dance enough with you in the lesson?
• Do they address your questions?

Price
Some teachers just charge by hour and you pay each time. Other teachers have packaged deals that give you discount for more lessons. A lot of teachers have an "Intro package" which is discounted and it gives you an opportunity to check out a teacher in a real private lesson setting. Make sure the "Intro package" doesn't get you locked in too many lessons, in case you don't think it will work. Generally 2 or 3 lessons is good for an intro package.


A fine point is to check how long is "a lesson". It could mean 45 min, 50 min, or 1 hour. Also get an idea if a teacher really teaches that full length. It is very common that a teacher schedule lesson back to back 1 hour lesson with students, in those cases, it's not possible to have full hour lesson in those cases. Keep that in mind when you compare prices.

Professionalism

It is important for a teacher to be professional. If they constantly fail on the checks below, maybe it's time to switch teachers.

• Arrive on time and ready to teach at scheduled time and finish on time?
• Do they give you their undivided attention during the lesson? (After all, you are paying for it.)
• Is there the right balance of chit-chat and real instruction? 
• Do they show genuine interest in helping you improve your dancing? (or do they just say things to make you feel better and keep getting you signed up for more lessons?)
• Do they respond to your emails/phone calls promptly?

It all boils down to: Are you comfortable and are you learning? And be prepared that as you go along, your standards of what you want out of your teacher may change, so if your teacher's interaction with you doesn't change to accommodate that, you may need to change teachers periodically. In that vein, you will want to test out the results of the teaching. If you are social dancing, are you improving and getting more comfortable with your lead or follow? If you are competing, are your results improving? When looking at videos of yourself dancing, is it getting better than before? (Ask someone who can be more objective.)

Have fun dancing!

Basic Latin Actions

Basic position of body: head, shoulders, ribcage, hip, leg, stacked up and connected, not tight, legs moves like scissors.

Spine transfers between positions:

1. Spine split between 2 feet.
2. Spine stacked over whole foot.
3. Spine over front of foot.

Leg actions:

1. Horizontal action: release back leg, track, move to front horizontally, front ankle directly below front knee.
2. Vertical action: Contract thighs, pushing knee down and backwards to create lengthening of the leg. Common mistakes: reach from knee outwards.

Feet:

1. Whole foot (or Flat): feet lined up with knees (do not turn out foot, turn out is from hip socket).
2. Demi-pointe position (arch) - common mistake is missing this step and go directly to pointe position. Also, note that feet causes spine to move.
3. Pointe: Feet is causing spine to move more.

"Working from floor on and up" - it's the feet causing spine to move. Common mistake: gravity causing spine to move.

Practice: demi - pointe - demi - flat.

Combing Spine movement with leg and feet:

1. Spine over whole front foot, back foot demi-pointe (not turned out, which will cause instability).
2. Spine over front of foot, back foot pointe.
3. Release leg, track, ankle below knee,
4. Split, front leg straight (all same time), Demi-pointe position.
5. Flat (both foot) 

Repeat: Demi, pointe, release, demi, flat, [demi, pointe, release, demi, flat...]

What is Competitive Ballroom Really Like

Ballroom Dancing is Nothing like Strictly Come Dancing? This piece by a competitive amateur in the UK seems to do its level best to tell you how awful the world of competitive dance is. And it is certainly informative, but rather one-sided. The key point that is only alluded to is that not many people make their passion their career. If dancing weren't worth all the negative things she puts up with, she would likely have become a lawyer as her parents would have liked.

To save you the research effort, she is a competitive amateur, and has good results in England, but does not appear to have competed outside of England, and has indeed gone through a lot of partners, as she describes in the article.

I don't know what SCD is like, but at least some of what she complains about is in the American version, Dancing with the Stars.

Natural Turning Figures in Foxtrot

On the difference between Natural Turn, Natural Weave, and Hover Cross:

• Natural Turn: On second step, hips and frame are square to line of dance. 
• Natural Weave: On second step, hips stay square, frame continues to turn to left side leading so lady can step OP on step 4, hips stay square to LOD
• Hover Cross: Between step 2 and 3, both hips and frame turn to face center. Then frame stays square to center, while hips turn to step OP wrongside  position, and then back to normal OP.

Competition, Costume, Makeup

Some interesting points (for Ladies) from a talk with a world class professional competitor:

• As soon as a couple walks on to the floor, judge already started to put them into buckets, couple A and C are in 1st/2nd; couple B and D are in 3rd/4th; etc. (A lot of judges judge this way, of course, some don't.) 
• At Bronze level, costume, makeup and hair are important. It tells judge if "you've done it before" and the commitment level.
• Costume: it should fit and look good for that person. Something that looks good on one person does not necessarily look good on someone else.
• Hair: general preference - bun shouldn't be flat, no bangs, pull hair back. Nothing on head should be moving.
• Makeup: big and bold to make the face noticeable.
• All is designed to catch judge's eyes. For 90 seconds, 6 couples, each couple probably just have about 10 seconds of judge's time.
• After judge has initial buckets, the difference in footwork, technique etc will help the judge make the final mark. 

Of course, technique is ultimately most important. But, in competition, "looking good" will help your marks a lot. (Tall couples definitely have advantage here.) One coach thinks her student could gain 2 positions up simply by having better costume,  hairdo and makeup.

Heel Turn Exercise

Heel turns are found in Waltz, Quickstep, and Foxtrot

Heel Turn Exercise

Start facing diagonal wall, weight on RF

1. Lower and drive back onto LF, dragging right heel (S)
2. Straighten knees, and start turn 1/4 right on left heel (Q)
3. Rise on feet, absorbing the rise with the knees (&)
4. Drive off RF, straightening knees, step toe on LF (Q)
5. Drive back onto RF, dragging LF (S)
6. Straighten knees, and start 1/4 left on right heel (Q)
7. Rise on feet, absorbing the rise with the knees (&)
8. Drive off LF, straightening knees, step on toe of RF (Q)

Jive syllabus figures on website

Finally, Jive Newcomer and Bronze figures are now available on web site. As with other dances, each dance figure is complete with timing, footwork, technique notes and a list of other steps that can precede or follow the figure.

Dance routines are on the choreography page. More routines will be added over time.

You can always build your own routine using the Connecting Figures page. Here's a quick start on how to use the page:

• Click on "Routine: Start New" on Connecting Figures page.
• Pick a starting figure name on left hand side. The figure name will appear on the right. If you want, add a custom note, then hit "Return" on your keyboard or click on "Add!". That figure is now in the routine list.
• At this point, the left hand side will show your selected figure and what can follow it. Pick one of the patterns on the "Following figures" list, click on "Add!" (or hit "Return").  Keep building your routine.
• If you changed your mind at any time, you can always either click "delete last step" or start over.
• When you are done with the routine, copy/paste the routine to your own document or email.

Comments and suggestions for the website? Let us know!

Interview of Mirko and Edita

Very interesting interview of Mirko and Edita. Of particular interest is Mirko's perspective on floorcraft in competitions. In summary, even at professional championship levels, it appears there isn't much of it, at least from his point of view, and he takes pride in making his floorcraft look like it was choreographed in advance.