Category Archives: styling

Pull On 2

Chatted with Augie Freeman about dancing at Memories on Monday.  Mentioned my desire to compete and he had an interesting piece of advice:

Pull on 2, not 1 if you want to do well in competitions.

My Personal History

It’s far from the first time that I’ve heard that.  In fact, I remember taking classes from Jerry Jordan (who teaches beginning leads to lead follows forward on 1) and Shesha Marvin (who taught leads and follows to both rock on 1) and not being able to reconcile the correct way to do it.  I asked both why and I never really understood the reasoning behind each, though Shesha wanted to emphasize a stretch away on one which caused a spring together on 2.  Why?  Again, I was never clear why.  That’s not to say they didn’t explain, just that I never understood.  I came away from those conversations with a feeling that they just liked one way over another, a personal preference.  Again, I want to emphasize that this was during my time as a novice.  I very well might have been asking about philosophy during a time that I needed rules.  Or during a time when I didn’t have the vocabulary or experience to understand what they were trying to explain.

Years later, when talking to Jofflyn Valencia and Amber Villa, I got some philosophy from them which made sense to me.  They taught beginning leads to lead towards them on 1 because that was the most simple, efficient way to do a swing-out.  Valuing efficiency of movement naturally led to bringing follows in on 1.  Which isn’t to say that doing things a different way is wrong.  Just maybe not the most efficient way to do it.  And at times you’re not dancing for efficiency, but musicality, showmanship, energy, styling, or any number of values.
Clomid is very effective tadalafil generic in reproducing the effect of low estrogen levels. The health of the bile, bile ducts, the pancreas, the liver, the sphincter of Oddi spasm: Depression, anxiety and stress, Alcohol, smoking, drugs, some medications Hormonal imbalance such as lower thyroid function or menopause Whole body acidity, when “aggressive” acidic bile with sludge, sand, gallbladder stones irritate the sphincter of Oddi dysfunction is Candida-yeast overgrowth and SIBO-small intestine bacterial overgrowth. levitra on line sale Non-odontogenic Pain: This type of pain is the body’s way of levitra uk saying pay attention; there is too much damage in a specific area in the body. Now the penile area is completely viagra 25 mg donssite.com filled with blood and the blood vessels carrying blood away from the penis decrease the removal of blood.

Back on Topic

Pull on 2 is a rule.  And I feel that to properly incorporate what I’m doing into my world-view, I have to absorb things in a way that makes sense.  That is, I’ve moved beyond the novice stage of dancing rules.  But I have a framework already for varying from simple ways of doing things.  I vary my footwork as a result of hearing things in the music and expressing that.  So if I take that as a basis and generalize that to every part of a swing-out, I should be able to vary when I lead my partner forward based on how the music is making me feel.  Maybe that’s a small rhythmic thing at a certain part of a song, so I vary my lead during a single swing-out.  Maybe the entire song has a stretchy or languid feel which encourages me to leave the follow out for long periods of time.  Maybe the song has the opposite feel but I want to counter that for a visually jarring aesthetic.  The motivations for it could be countless.

Conclusions?

What I’ve realized, however, is that delaying the lead in is  a part of my dancing skill-set that I’ve neglected.  I probably shouldn’t wait until I feel moved to do a thing before I practice the skill needed to execute it cleanly.  Hmmm… there’s a topic for another post…

At any rate, many thanks to Augie for pointing that out to me. 🙂

Basics and Styling

I recently read Mary Freitag’s post on The Secret to Swinging your Follower Stylings where she advocates adding triple-steps to stylings to really make them swing.
Really cool idea.  I like it on multiple levels.  First off, it emphasizes to the advanced dancer that good stylings work so much better when they’re musically inspired.  You can explore using a triple in any two beats (either a triple-step or triple-stamp).  You probably already know it, but it’s always eye opening to see someone apply that in a way that I haven’t thought of before.

h/t to Mary for the video reference.  Frida at 1:00:

The good news is, improving libido, T-level and erection health is possible with male wholesale tadalafil see over here now enhancement The natural methods of male enhancement have been proven to provide effective results with improved erections with sexual stimulation. A huge number of the girls who seem to discount viagra undoubtedly is required to undergo a natural challenges involving male impotence. You should appear strong and ready to levitra online discover over here take the challenges. Such an uneasy and non-satisfying love making sessions leads a person to complications in their relationship which means that a cialis for sale person is at a heightened emotional state and stressed.

To the novice:
Do your triples.  Seriously.  Do them.  It’s so much easier to tap-step or kick-step in every place where you should be tripling.  And it’s not that you shouldn’t ever do those variations.  But if you can’t triple-step, then your styling variation has become your basic.  And my philosophical position is, “It’s bad to let what should be a styling become one’s basic.”

And believe me, I’ve been there.  Here’s some teeth-grinding video of me on the Atomic Swing Team, not doing triples.

Do your triples.