Orbiting And The Face Off On Four In The Lindy Hop

        

There are so many theories about the Lindy Hop Basic Step and on what count one does what, and what count to compress with your partner and what count to release. Where to hold the back, where to start the switches, yada yada. I can boil this down to 2 things: making sure you face off on the four count: one-two-three-and-FOUR-five-six-seven-and-eight, and just orbiting however you do it. (Remember in the Lindy Hop you are turned 180 degrees in the other direction on the 4th beat.)

You can study all the theories on this subject and you’d find that they all add up to one thing: you either orbit or you don’t orbit your partner. There are so many religious beliefs about the perfect basic and this both protects the idiom but also narrows it.

The common understanding between partners to orbit any way possible is just another symptom of how to make the big picture work in marriage and life. You either orbit or you don’t or you are working on orbiting. This last category is where dancers spend thousands of dollars being told they are “doing it” wrong. Sometimes you don’t have to spend a red cent to get that glare from your partner that you are not_dancing_lindy_the_way_the_bible_said.

Now, it is going to take both lead and follow do agree to the concept that all energy should be put into making the orbit at any expense to counts and feet position (all energy after frame is taken care of, that is). Many tourists and happy_go_lucky dancers already have agreed the second they step on the dance floor. These are my favorite type of dancers. Beware of the “Minuet Lindy Hoppers”. They are convinced that there is only one perfect way to do the Basic. They usually flock together and are in constant fear that they might run into the terrible experience of dancing for 3 minutes with someone that just_doesn’t_get_it.

You either face off on four or you don’t. You either orbit or you don’t. Planets are different sizes and running at different momentums. They still orbit.

High Speed Internet Is Run By Con Artists

I phone QWest for DSL because I see their ads for super deals. Well, it turns out I can get 5-7mbps for almost nothing. Then, all of a sudden, they say I have to pay $10 for internet(what? DSL isn’t internet? . . .no, it’s just the speed, they say). Then I say, what are your POP and SMTP sever IP’s? They say, oh we don’t have those, you have to get a business hookup for $100 a month (thank god for gmail’s POP servers). Then I say, I want the deal for the lifetime that is $27.99 and they say: oh, you have to buy the package of 3 (phone, tv, DSL) and you have to use Microsoft for your ISP. It just goes and goes. They use semantics to change what everyone thinks the internet is and they parse it out to get more money. The ads on TV and elsewhere are a bait and switch. Plus, I have never gotten over 1.5mbps downloads even though I’m paying for 5-7mbps. I know Comcast is more expensive, but I’m heading there. Idiots at Qwest can’t even speak English. So I’m trying to use Hamachi and RAdmin to login remotely and the browser is choking when I try to connect to the modem to configure it. 2 hours of “dialogue” later where I had a Qwest cowboy trying to hook up my computer using the USB port, disabling all my extra software, on and on, I find out that my BitDefender spyware detector was keeping my browser from connecting to the modem. They should have known this for all the money they make and the size of their operation. What really burns me is their “jack my price up” TV ads against Comcast. Waiting to see how miserable I will be with Comcast. High speed internet is really a monopoly out there run by 3 companies that really aren’t doing anyone a favor but themselves.

The Lindy Hop And Skiing Steep Slopes

I personally think that you aren’t dancing the Lindy Hop correctly unless you are almost falling down. After all, it is a jazz dance where both partners are expressing themselves. Kinda gets old dancing the perfect basic and other steps over and over without adding much creative embellishment. There is creative and then there is creative.  A lot of Lindy to me looks like it has  been choreographed with the dancers just gluing pieces of different choreography together and calling it creative. I went to a swing dance the other night and it felt as if I had died and gone to hell. Everyone was dancing the moves that they spent $500 to learn, but there was no edge, no rawness, no life, no mistakes-made-to-look good. 

Jazz soloists employ the trick of starting off on a bad note (not harmonically copacetic with the key the band is in) and then “squeezing”, “jumping”, or “twirling” it into a melodious display of individualistic expression(whew, I can’t believe I’m going to let you read that!)

With dancing, almost falling down breeds creativity because you are trying to save your ass and not break something, which makes your moves subservient to something else besides whatever you learned or have stored in your dictionary of moves. If I had one tip to give all the dance instructors and prof-f-f-f-f-fessional dancers (as if they would listen) it would be to practice making mistakes and to practice almost falling down. If you are always falling, you never fall. Does that makes sense to you? It does to me. It has to do with having your edges dug in, having your energy and momentum all lined up.

Same thing with skiing. When your edges are dug in (especially with the new shape skis), you aren’t going to lose control. Skiing steep stuff is a blast because you have to lean out and during the transition between edges you are free falling. At about this point in the arc most intermediates (like me) get worried and speed up and forget to finish their turn by getting up on the edges and slowing down by using the complete finished turn.

So, leaning out and downhill, although counter intuitive, is an important aspect of skiing steep slopes successfully. Like in the Lindy Hop, to almost fall but not, besides keeping you healthy, also liberates the true creativity in you. You will go home happy no matter how much of a Lazy Dancer you are.

An old Lindy Hop adage is you learn and learn and get better and better but you always come home to the basic. The basic can always be improved on. The same during dancing the Lindy Hop, you can get way out there, slipping and sliding and almost falling, but you wanna come home every once and a while. Another aspect that embellishes your creativity and gives it context is the dancing on the edge and then dancing safely back home, tension release, contrast, whatever.

Skiing has a lot in common to this concept. Well executed short, tight turns, is the bases to steep skiing. You may feel like you are falling, but you are always bringing it back home to the short tight turn to slow you down and get your bearings back.

I’m really not that great a skier, by the way, and I consider myself just another dancing slob having the time of his life. His only life.

Dancing Shoe Soles, Chrome Suede

You are really going to beat up your knees and hips by dancing in those cross-trainers. If you plan to dance more than once in your life, take those shoes to your nearest shoe repair guy and ask him to put some “chrome suede” leather on the bottom. I think the name has to do with either the color (gray) or the way the suede is tanned. You can also buy chrome suede in bulk from The Oregon Leather Company and you can glue it on with Barge Cement. I think Oregon Leather also sells Barge Cement. All shoe repair shops use Barge Cement. It holds very strong, takes a while to dry, but can be removed with a little effort. Trace your shoe on the suede, glue both surfaces, and stick them together and use a one edged razor to trim. Your cross trainers or whatever comfortable shoes you are dancing in might have an irregular bottom to glue the suede to. The shoe repair guy can grind that down flat in a heart beat.

Chrome suede allows the dancing to have a grip yet spin and turn effortlessly. Most dance shoes come with it already applied. Some people are sold on Dansneakers to dance in but they are rubber soled (I think for Ballet dancers). My girlfriend had me put on some chrome suede on the bottom and fell in love with the way it helped her dancing.

I personally think Dansneakers look corny to dance in. Kinda like half man half goat looking

 I myself like to dance in vintage 40’s Lindy Hop shoes that have smooth leather on both the sole and heal. I like heel sliding  ala Leon James in movie II of The Spirit Moves and these are the only shoes made that can do this.
 I’m not half as good as Leon. Not even a 10th. Not even a 100th.

Some people might find these smooth leather soled shoes too slippery, but if that is a problem, just go outside and walk on the pavement with them for a while. Or course, most dancers would consider that a blasphemy. And Chrome Suede shoes DEFINITELY will go bad very quick if you use them anywhere but the dance floor. So . . . that being said. . . .get your soles fixed . . . . and get your shoe bag . . . and get out there, you Lazy Dancer!

Tango Like No One Is Watching

Today’s blog is by Polly McBride of Paradise Studios. Since I’ve been comparing dancing and skiing lately, I figure I’ll post her comparisons of Tango and Romance.

SOME WAYS THAT TANGO IS LIKE ROMANCE

We consider our partner’s pleasure and comfort before our own.

We pay close attention to each other’s responses.

We send and receive silent messages.

We nurture joy in the journey as well as in the destination.

We ask for feedback and take it seriously.

We create magic, mush and all things between.

We are united in spirit as well and mind and body.

We pause to savor.

We share humor that ranges from silly to subtle to sublime.

We forgive easily and accept responsibility for our missteps.

We invite rather than obligate.

We earn each other’s trust.

We share triumphs, disappointments and intimacy.

We allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

We experience emotions that enrich our soul.

We respect and enjoy our partner’s uniqueness.

We never openly compare our partner to others.

We tend carefully to hygiene.

We continually adjust and adapt for each other.

We compliment and complement.

We become as one.

From the book,

Tango With Mars and Venus

Polly McBride

Keep Moving, Dancer and Skier!

An airplane that stalls essentially is flying so slow that the wings can’t create any lift. To get out of a stall, the airplane drops it’s nose and speeds up until it is flying again.

I used to be a hanglider pilot and stalling on take off or just above the ground was deadly because you didn’t have enough room to pick up speed and resume flying. You could try to loop your glider with no problem if you were high enough off the ground to recover from a stall (and your spars were re-enforced in case you got turned upside down).

The same thing is true with skiing. If you have no speed, you have no ability to control your skis. The edges don’t work. It is important, when skiing steeper slopes, to aim your skis downhill if you start to lose control. You need just enough extra speed to be able to steer your skis again. This is a very generalized explanaion for the purpose of illustration.

The same concept is true for many forms of dancing. Just keep moving! A lead has a hard enough time pushing a follow around and thinking ahead of the beat. If a follow is just a dead weight, waiting to be pushed around, it will never happen. There isn’t enough energy to start a follow from zero in time to reach the beat. But if a follow is rolling around on wheels, has their momentum loaded up, and is sensitive enough to the lead’s input,  2 things happen: connection and dancing (it even looks like dancing!). So keep moving, precise movements are less important than the dynamics of energy and time and space. (I think this makes sense).

So, to be a good and Lazy Dancer, just keep moving!

Quarter Between The Butt Cheeks

I have no idea how to relate this skiing trick/tip to dancing. It has to do with something I found in the book, The All Mountain Skier by R. Mark Elling. He says that in order to get your legs to tip your shape skies up on edge, instead of your whole body, one must keep the stanch of a “rounded” back. How to do this? Why, a pelvic thrust of course! His 2 ways of doing this were to do an “Elvis Presley push” or pretend you are holding a coin between your butt cheeks. I figure a quarter is a good size of coin to pretend you are holding, but some people look like they could hold a whole roll of quarters. I wouldn’t try holding 2 dimes and a nickel, either.

Does this work? Yes. Because shape skis are either on one edge, in transition, or on the other edge, it is important how you get them on edge. Most skiers at my level have a “hollow” back. This means that your back is arched and your pelvic whatever is not forward. So, the whole body has to tilt and lean to get the skis up on edge. When the coin is clenched correctly, the body stays upright and doesn’t lean or swerve side to side and the legs go back and forth under the skier, applying the edges. Try it you’ll like it.

Not sure, but I don’t think dancers have to practice this same pelvic thrust unless they are dancing like Elvis Presley or around a brass pole (not into either of these). The Ballroom dance crowd are famous for the “broomstick up the you know what” posture. The Swing, Zydeco, and Lindy Hoppers, might be clenching coins. Be fun to go on a date and sit with your date and analyze who is clenching coins and who isn’t. . . . . never mind.

Just Wanna Dance

Dancing Is Cheap, Skiing Can Be Sometimes

Right now, if I go to PortlandDancing.com, I can filter by Free for dance events this week and return about 16 dance events that are free. 2 Balkan, 1 Cajun/Zydeco, 2 Country, 2 Irish, 2 Misc/Variety, 3 Salsa (free with drink purchase), 2 Scandinavian, 1 Swing /Lindy Hop, and 1 Waltz. If I don’t search on free, I probably will return 30+ dance events that are under $6. Now, this is pretty cheap. You can go out on the town and for the price of admission get a drop-in lesson for free and get to dance with 100+ other people like your self. Maybe that is why social dancing is coming back into style. It’s cheap, cheap enough that you can leave early if you are having one of those “days”. It’s also very social and very non-committal. Speed dating, or speed exercise, or just somewhere to go to watch or to dance. Another nice thing is that most social dancers don’t drink or smoke. We’re talking partner dancing right? With the whole frame thing. There is social dancing that you just stand around in a bar, get drunk, and wiggle. There is a place for that, but for me, it was a past lifetime. Don’t want to pay for private lesssons? Just go to a bunch of dances early enough to get the free drop-in lesson. Usually aimed at beginners, everyone rotates so you meet everyone at your level, and they vary enough day to day that you can pick up a good understanding how to dance that style. Then, also, you’ve just danced with beginners like yourself that are more than willing to dance with you now when the music starts after the lesson.

 Now, I just bought a “spring season” ticket for $99 at Mt. Hood Meadows. I’ve already used it twice, am going to use it this weekend, so I am coming in at $25 for a whole day of skiing. If they stay open as advertised until April 22, that is going to amortize into some very cheap skiing! Normally day tickets are $50+, by the way. Now to pray for snow, haha, in March/April. It could happen. Again, why do I ski? It’s like dancing the Lindy Hop Zydeco to a fast slide guitar solo in a boogie woogie song. And with proper attention spent on deals, I can get in a pretty good season for less than what it costs to go to an evening movie with popcorn (around here).

If you have a city you would like listed on LazyDancer drop us an email and we will add you to the list. Right now, we are under growth pains and figuring out how to make LazyDancer run itself. Huge task, with lots of programming still to go. Anyway, support this Global Social Dance Community that is run by non-professional dancers. We are going to start accepting $1.50 donations (you heard that right, no more, no less). This money will be divided between the list “custodians”. Or “Not-So-Lazy-Dancers”.

Just Wanna Dance
And remember, any suggestions, comments, or advice is always welcome!

Frame: Skiing and Dancing Compared

Yesterday, in between plugs for my website, LazyDancer.com, I posted a long and rambling explanation of frame and how it applies to skiing and dancing (stopping short of saying there are similarities with many physical things that we do with our bodies and frame).

 So, today I will make the same comparison, but more succinctly and in short order.
There is a very BIG dividing line going from beginner to intermediate skier. I has to do with always pointing your torso and arms down the fall line. It doesn’t matter if you are traversing the hill slowly,  x-country skiing, tel-marking, or taking the kamakaze express down the black. It is the single one thing that will advance one’s skiing ability in a quantum leap. I told a friend of mine on the chair lift the other day to just imagine she was choking her husband and he was always out in front of here, downhill. (Her husband has a way of making learning more difficult by over lecturing). My advice to her, “just pay attention to where you arms and torso is pointing as you ski, and thinking about pointing them down the fall line, always. There is no reason, EVER, to not being doing this at all times.” One simple concept that will create gobs of improvement for the skier wanting to transition to higher abilities.

Well, the same thing with frame in dancing. Over and over I dance with a “tourist” or a “happy go lucky” and they are overjoyed when I show them how easy it is to improve ones dancing with the simple concept of “Not Collapsing Frame”. Again, all it involves is not letting your elbow go behind your back. This is hard to do at first because someone probably told you that there are a lot of other things that are important that should all sync up to provide a pleasant dance experience. Forget that. Forget the $1,000 you spent on lessons, they want to keep you coming back, so they sentence you to a life of “intermediate” or “beginner”. Just be an expert at one thing only, one thing at a time: don’t collapse your frame. Do that perfectly and you will realize that your ability to follow (or lead) will improve greatly.

Coming next: How I Classify Dancers

Spitting Out Ping Pong Balls

Today is all about frame, well, a little of today because I am planning on going skiing this weekend at the Mt. Hood Snowboarders Weekend for the Bergie ski club. Only costing $20 for 2-nights lodging at the Little Trail Lodge.

It is getting to be spring skiing but what the heck, I love skiing these days. The best way to explain this to someone else is that skiing is like dancing. Especially when you are wired into all the correct ergonomic moves. It’s even more fun when you are skiing under the chair lift thinking someone is admiring your style (or NOT).

I think skiing and dancing are like ping pong. Everyone thinks they are an expert. Everyone needs to think they are an expert or they end up  falling, stumbling, or pulling a ping-pong ball out of their mouth. That said, I would have to say my biggest mistakes in skiing where when I was skiing under the chairlift and not paying attention. A couple weekends ago this was the case when I went out to Mt. Bachelor to help work on the Special Olympics races. Went a day early and thought I was skiing on powder (just learning powder) and was skiing fast to let the skis float and it turns out I wasn’t on powder I was on groomed light garbage and when I hit the powder I went flying and bumped my head and had people come by and ask if I was OK. Spent the rest of my off-slope hours that weekend shopping for a helmet. Got back to Portland, OR and found that I had a separated rib joint oh boy.

Skiing is always good when I have my “frame” working. Like dancing there are certain positions and angles that one’s body should not be doing in order to ski well. You know, feet correctly distance apart, back angle matches lower leg angle, stand up straighter on shape skis, always point your torso downhill. It’s actually a little more elaborate for skiing than it is for social dancing. Social dancing the main aspect of frame is never let your elbow go back behind your side. That’s pretty much the case with all dancing. It’s called “collapsing the frame” and what it does is destroy the unity between the partners. How can I communicate with the follow if I have no connections? Some relationships are like this, where the follow collapses the frame, thus gaining control of the move (or just ruining the move). This happens in real life in relationships Some relationships work that way successfully, but not for me. To me, collapsing the frame is like swearing or slamming the door. It destroys communication between people and between dancers. The New York Lindy Hop dancers call someone who collapses their frame  a “whore” and someone who holds their frame too tight “virtuous” (not sure if I speled that right. . . .). Is it hard to learn frame in dancing? Not at all. A lot easier than skiing “frame”. Probably because in skiing you have the potential of careening out of control down the hill at 50+ miles per hour.

All one has to do to learn frame is to stiffen the upper arm and never let it get pushed back past the side of their waist. This is true for pretty much every type of partner dancing (we are talking about partner dancing, right? Definitely not talking about the Boogaloo or the dancing that Rapture Addicts do). One must exaggerate at first, but with time, any attempt leads to positive results. It doesn’t matter, Waltz, Ballroom, Zydeco, Swing, all require a good frame to dance. Now, since I am a dancing slob, and I am not a dictionary of moves, I’d have to say that just by keeping frame I can create all sorts of moves that normally would take too much time to explain to the follow. This is especially true for a follow. How does this work? IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR FEET DO as long as you can keep your frame (OK, and be balanced so you can move in whatever direction is “requested”).