Or, how I learned to stop thinking and love the dance

So after having my dancing ripped apart, here is a summary of what Bill and I worked on. A lot of what we went over was basic principles of dancing and connection. Some of it I thought I had already learned and mastered, but I quickly learned otherwise. After an hour with Bill Borgida, I wonder how anyone has been able to lead me. My concept of how dancing is supposed to feel has also dramatically changed. I have a lot of things to work on, which should keep me busy for awhile. (I'm excited!) [Emoticon not found]

Frame:

I thought that I had been using my back muscles, but instead I was tensing my arms and relying on the strength of my arms to follow, rather than using my back and shoulder muscles. I got really frustrated about fifteen minutes into the lesson, because I couldn’t break my habit. However, he was really encouraging and said that it was just muscle memory, and that it was easy to fix if I practiced enough.

Frame Concepts

*Shoulders back

*Relax

*Keep frame in turns

*Don’t pull back my right hand during swing out. Let it rest on my leader’s hand. (I was doing this annoying twitchy thing with my arm on count one.)

*Follow with back muscles, not arms

*Frame comes from back and shoulder muscles, not from arms

*Compress into muscle in front of shoulders, not into arm

Lower body:

I think that my following relied heavily on counterbalancing with my leader, and a lot of the time I would kind of backlead to force the counterbalance I thought I needed to move. Bill worked with me on really dancing into the floor, and using the floor and my legs to propel myself where I needed to go.

Lower body Concepts

*Dance into the floor

*Keep feet under hips

*Use my core to move my hips…don’t rely on lead for help

*Use the floor to move, not counterbalance

Steps and Following:

Bill showed me that I was rushing through a lot of my steps, and giving some steps more emphasis or importance than others. One thing we really focused on was my rockstep. I was rushing through count two of the rockstep in anticipation of the next move. He pointed out that I needed to take more time on my count two and wait for the lead. I also have a tendency to not commit all of my weight because I was anticipating having to move. He advised me to slow down, take my time with steps, and really wait for the next lead.

He also pointed out that I wasn’t watching my partner while dancing, so I missed any visual cues that my partner may have been giving me, that were difficult to feel through our connection.

Steps and Following Concepts

*Commit to steps

*Every step is important (rock steps into other steps)

*Take my time during steps/ don’t rush

*Wait for leads

*Watch leaders for cues

*Commit to steps

bill's been in the bay area for a bit. i guess he travels around quite a lot.

traci, i'm glad you got to learn some stuff from him. not saying that you're a bad dancer or anything, but it's always good to have someone like that to point out what we could be doing better.

great tips. virgil taught me this upper body connection when i first started dancing and it has stuck. not saying that i am perfect at at but i definatelty think about it when i am dancing. it makes everything flow better.

I thought I saw him in Austin last night, but I could be wrong. The guy I saw looked similar to the pics, but didn't look amazing on the floor.

Yeah.. Kinda like you Sunada.. Kinda sore on the eyes...ha ha ha ... Just messin dude, you look bad (meaning good) and You have infleunced a lot of people and you just keep on going

For anyone that forgot our discussion on the "reset" (esp. ryan and tommy's comments).