Got My Arms, Got My Hands...

He Goes:

"How do you dance?" Spoon messaged me, last week.A big question, but what she meant was - what level of thing am I aware of when I'm dancing? Am I conscious of each limb? What am I thinking about? I was certainly conscious of each limb while I was thinking about the question, since having finally been laid low by the winter cold all of my limbs were like inside-out baked alaska - a freezing cold top centimetre surrounding a blob of molten muscle and bone. But when dancing? Not so much.

I guess what I'm thinking about at any one moment is all down to who I'm dancing with, and when I'm dancing. I try (not always successfully) to dance from my core, so that the lead is my whole body. Most moves in Lindy don't require particularly complicated arm movements, so the only time I think of the movement of my limbs is when I'm being told to relax by a teacher, say, or when I have a "danger limb" - that is to say, if I'm about to do something that might be dangerous for me, my follow, or someone around us, either physically or morally. Consequently my left leg (most likely to do a mule kick) and my right arm (most likely to accidentally grab something I shouldn't) get a disproportionate amount of my attention limb-wise. But I do dangerous things only very rarely, so it's not something that takes up a lot of my mind.

I think a fair bit about my weight. Not as in "does this waistcoat make me look fat", obviously, but what foot I'm on, and what foot my partner is on, in case I need to force them to change weight (or change weight myself) for a move. I'm usually not bad at it, although it helps to have a handful of regular follows who are so quick at changing their weight that I would be unable to wrong-foot them even if I tried. If I'm dancing with a beginner, particularly someone who's having trouble getting the basic footwork right, this is almost all that I'm thinking about. My mind's in the system of weight, of contraction and release in my right arm, encouraging the follow to pull away from me a little so that the rock-step can happen, transferring my own weight from left to right and taking her with me. If the follow's a little better I think about the pressure on my right arm - on the bottom of the arm when I'm travelling forward, on the top of the arm when I'm travelling backwards.

If I'm dancing with someone experienced, I think about the music. Where are we in the song? How many phrases until the next big feature? I'm not much of a counter - I don't know most songs well enough to know how many bars there are to each section, but I can remember that a song might be reaching a crescendo or a twiddly bit, and then I'm thinking about what basic moves I can do to mark time until/prepare for whatever's coming in the music. But I'm also keeping an eye on what my follow is doing in case she does something neat and I have to abort my lead to let her do it. It's sort of like a spot the difference quiz - if my follow is sufficiently experienced I assume she won't make mistakes, so anything she does which is unexpected drags my attention there instantly so that I can do something about it (either just admire it, or do the last move I did again so that she - or both of us, sometimes - can do whatever clever footwork she's proposing).

Both lead and follow are thinking about the placement of that hand!

She Goes:

Ha, Keith, I’d completely forgotten about that! So… what do I think about when dancing…?

Up until recently I had a pretty strict policy of not really thinking whilst dancing. No, seriously. Quite early on I got myself all tangled up in fretting about my following skills and a lead friend of mine told me to think less, and dance more. That’s pretty much one of my mantras now.

In some respects that it my main MO when it comes to dancing. I’d like to think I’m a reasonably intuitive follow because of it. Naturally there has been some level of physical awareness, although it seems so second nature to me now that I barely register it. Things like ensuring a good connection with my left arm, keeping any unclasped hands at waist level… It meant that I wasn’t a very grounded dancer though. I frequently back led; I think it was because I’d get caught up in having so much fun.

But there’s nothing like a plateau to make you address your level and your approach. I had a couple of conversations with a couple of leads I hold in high regard, and it lead to me looking long and hard about key element in my dancing. (Remember last week I mentioned I was pretty analytical about my dancing? That was the day I took a long hard look at myself …)

I now have a veritable array of things to think about- a smorgasbord, if you will. I am trying to be a lot more physically present in my body. I am thinking about my feet (trying to make steps smaller and keep them under me) my weight (in relation to my leads’ weight as well as in relation to my steps), my shoulders (frame, people, frame!), my fingers (listening and responsive), and my arm. (Listening)… I’m also thinking about my lead. Their tension, what they’re telling me other than the moves they’re leading. I alternate between feeling as though I am a giant ear dancing, or a bumper car that no one can control!!

Pfff, it used to be so simple! I’d just rock up, swing out and go home… But if I want to get a badass technique as standard I need to work on all of these things and plenty more so that it becomes second nature.