Of All These Things I Like You Best of All

He Goes:

When you've been dancing long enough there comes a time that familiarity with a scene or with a group of people bestows equal curses and blessings. For instance, finding that your usual class or social is busy with people you love to dance with and realising that there just isn't time to dance with all of them (or, alternatively, that your legs or lungs aren't up to the task - although of course there's something you can do about that).

Looking back on what I was like when I started swing dancing I find it hard to believe what a wall-flower I was. But as I danced more and more, though, two things happened. First of all I got more confident in my own skills. I still go to beginner's lessons, and I can now compare myself to people who're having trouble stringing together two six-count basics and think: "actually, I'm pretty competent". Secondly, I started to know people. Although it's the growing confidence that's usually associated with more dancing, the knowing people is probably much more important. After all, it's mostly fear of rejection, right? And when I know someone's name, have had a conversation with them, and they haven't rejected me offer of a dance in the past, that makes it all much more likely, right?

As your group of friendly dancers increases, you may find yourself dancing less and less with strangers and more and more with your regulars. This is good, because for one thing it almost certainly means you're dancing more, and that means you get more practise and (because you may well be in the same classes) you get to try out fancy moves you've learnt together. But it can also be bad, because you're not exposed to as many different dancers - as many different styles, as many different idiosyncrasies - as you might have been.

The extreme of this is when you have a handful of favourites - even one person that you can pretty much describe as your dance partner. When you get to that stage, you'll rarely ever have to sit out a dance you don't want to - and all the good things and bad things that come with friends will come in spades.

When you're dancing with someone you know that well, sometimes it seems like they know what you're going to lead even before you do. I've always joked that the trouble with being an ideal follow is that you need to be psychic. Well, it occasionally happens that my favourites are psychic. It's both amazing and freakish, and - I admit it - it may well have made me lazy some of the time. I find myself standing up more. I find myself relying on my follow to know that I'm about to hold a break in the music rather than giving her a firm lead not to go anywhere. If you and your follow have both attended classes together, doing two moves from a sequence learned in that class can easily go wrong - you might assume that your follow will go into the third move without you leading her, or she might assume that you're intending to go into the third move and might not wait long enough to discover that you were actually going onto something different.

On the other hand, sometimes this laxness is the space where creativity lurks. If you're with a favourite you're not afraid to try things out. You're not afraid to land on your arse (yes, this actually happened to me not too long ago - all my own fault). A concrete example is that I don't worry about screwing up what foot I put Spoon on when I'm dancing with her, because she's quick enough that I can't wrong-foot her. And if I make a complete hash of a lead, we can laugh it off. Then there's the fact that if you've danced the same dance four times in a row, there is both pressure and room to improvise and create. You can make the same moves subtly different, matching them to the song. You can try out moves you don't often attempt. If your luck is with you, you can surprise yourself and your follow.

The likelihood, then, is that having favourites won't make you a worse dancer or a better dancer, but both at once. The good news is that you'll have someone who can see the ways you're getting worse and call you out on them...

She Goes:

Favouritism. I'm all for it, actually, as long as you still make a point of dancing with at least one or two new partners. Otherwise how else will we get the newbies and out-of-towners hooked?

What I love about having a roster of regulars (if you will!) is that you get to know their style, their musicality, their favoured moves. Whether they'll say yes to dancing a fast one, whether they'll say yes to a second (or even third or fourth!) dance in a row, if they're a talker or a silent. And this list is by no means exhaustive!

There's a couple of leads that I get amazing eye contact with throughout the dance (which I am such a huge fan on, I can't stress that enough)... a lead who praises me at the end of each song (and makes me feel like an amazing follow), a lead who likes to get very close (that's salsa backgrounds for you), a couple of leads that are very musical and nail every break in the song, leads that love to give me space to show off... There's also leads that rarely make eye contact, the odd 'Mr Me', a lead that I always feel like I'm facing badly with but always says yes anyway...

Forgive me if I get a little over the top now, but I really do believe that at some point when you're familiar with your dance partner, your moves really do transcend the normal 'conversation' of signals and responses, and becomes an instinctive physical and mental dialogue between two people who know and trust each other. We've all had a taste of that as follows- you're in the zone and the lead does something you've not done before (or weren't expecting) and it works like a dream. Such an amazing feeling, and that surprised and triumphant look on their face shows they feel the same.

Did I go too far?!

Maybe I'm romanticising. By I do feel that way, not about every lead I dance with, although that would be amazing if that's what develops!

Keith and I dance together, usually, at least one night a week. We had a rapport straight away, and this has lead to our dances always being fun and intuitive. However, of late I've noticed that he's become a little lazy in certain move signals- not that it's particularly affected me, but I think keeping good habits and a clean technique is important (especially for leads) otherwise dancing outside ones social circle/ with less experienced dancers becomes rather difficult. Something we've experimented with is dancing with closed eyes/blindfolded. This is a great exercise to develop trust and to hone technique with a partner you trust. (Adding a bit of spice to your dance life, oh my!)

Like a long term relationship it can be easy to become lazy. Maybe lazy is the wrong way to describe it. Too comfortable? I'm trying to equate it...It's the dance equivalent of not bothering to shave your legs, maybe? Perhaps the metaphor is running away from me. But you get my point.

I'm not afraid to pull Keith up on a lazy tuck turn- but I couldn't do that for anyone else. (I guess that really does make him my dance husband if I'm nagging him and blindfolding him on occasion!) I would say that you notice a weak signal from your lead, as a follow, (and it may be for a variety of reasons, not just them expecting you to be psychic), then, at the end if the dance just ask for a firmer lead. Done.