Rotating or Switching Partners and the Light Touch

Got a response to my post on the IFD Partners list. Here is my reply.

-----Original Message-----
Hello J,

>> I think that the only thing that really
>> needs to be learned is the light touch.

For me, I would also add two more things. First the woman must follow. Second, both people must be willing to learn how to dance
with a partner.

1. The woman must follow.
(Principle of Partnership: the man invites and the woman follows)
http://www.partnershipdancing.com/w/w001/_web/book/p/partnership_dancing/mb/book/b00_03/03_23_partnership.aspx

2. No force.
(Law of Balance: everyone maintains their own balance)
http://www.partnershipdancing.com/w/w001/_web/book/p/partnership_dancing/mb/book/b00_03/04_10_law_of_balance.aspx

3. Willing to learn how to dance with a partner.
In my group that means the method of Partnership Dancing.
Other groups can have their own methods.
But it cannot be left up to the individual.
The group must have a consistent set of rules
that everyone knows and abides by. People do not
have to have mastered all the skills, but they must
be willing to accept the rules.

You Contra dance, right? It is a free-for-all out there. Pushing and pulling and not following. People do it and have fun. So, we
know there are no absolute requirements for changing partners.

What you and I are talking about is drawing a line. Drawing the line at no force is abritrary.

You are picking one rule that fits your expectations. As soon as you have one rule, other people are going to have other rules and
other expectations. As you rotate partners, people are going to fight with one another about how to do this or that. You would not
have solved much with the one rule.

I agree that the most important skills to aquire first are the woman follows and no use of force. These are the big bad things.

I consider the woman following more important than the avoidance of force. When the woman does not follow, the dance is a battle of
wills.

In my opinion, the woman not following is the biggest root cause of the partner dance issues.

The woman not following is what leads to the most frustration, not the use of force. The use of force is exacerbated because the
woman does not follow. If the woman follows, the use of force will be much less.

If the woman is not following, the people cannot dance together. They can dance near each other, but not with each other.

When the woman does not follow, it confuses both people and makes dancing well impossible.

When the woman does not follow, the people cannot improve.

...

I want the women to follow all the time, especially when the man is confused and does not know what to do.

For me, if people want to be in our rotation, they need to be willing to play by the rules of our rotation. That means (1) the woman
follows, (2) no force and (3) a willingness to learn the method of Partnership Dancing.

...

Principle of Universality: you use the same signals with every person in every dance.
http://www.partnershipdancing.com/w/w001/_web/book/p/partnership_dancing/mb/book/b00_03/03_22_universal.aspx

>> pulling her and it worked. I explained to her
>> how I could have gotten her to end up in the right place

"There is a name for what you are doing and it is not dancing. It is wrestling."
~ Billy Fajardo, World Champion Dancer and Instructor
http://www.partnershipdancing.com/w/w001/_web/book/p/partnership_dancing/mb/book/b00_03/03_11_safety.aspx

We want to do better than get to the right place around the right time. We are there to dance and we want to try to dance well and
have an opportunity to improve.

>> I think that I can dance in a rotation with anyone. In most cases, by
>> simply leading the best that I can the less-skilled women will improve
>> over time.

Absolutely

>> One is the woman who grasps my hand tightly. In that case, I would
>> disengage in a very obvious way, and if she did not get the message
>> after a while, I would just explain why it is important that each
>> partner can unilaterally disengage at any moment.

I do the same. If she grabs my hand at all, I disengage.
If she rocks back and tries to pull on me to help her come forward,
I let go. What I usually do is place my fingers on top of her wrist.
Most get the idea pretty fast.

>> The other is the woman who has no sense of frame and virtually no
>> dancing skills. That woman is going to need some kind of lessons. Of
>> course, that woman cannot dance with anyone so the issue is not really
>> switching or rotating partners.

If they are willing, it is possible to dance with a raw beginner,
by giving them a little quick instructions.

See the videos here of M.
http://www.israelipartnerdancing.com/w/w102/i/israelipartnerdancing_com/main/margaret.aspx

She is a new dancer. I taught her:
(1) She must follow at all times.
This is easy for beginners.
They are willing to trust you, because they do not know anything.
(2) No force. Everything she does, she does on her own.
This is easy for beginners. No force is natural.
(3) How to orient herself.
In open position, I tell her to keep her shoulders parallel to mine.
In closed position, she is to get into my arms.
(4) As we go along, I point out things, like maintain the connection,
do not reach, keep going.

There are eight or nine videos of her doing advanced Israeli partner dances with no instruction in the choreography, never having
seen the dance, not knowing how to dance.

She was fun to dance with, even though she had trouble taking any steps properly.

All she needed to know to be danceable with was the three items above.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Andy

-----Original Message-----
From: J

Andy,

You mention in your post that it may be difficult to rotate partners
when we have not learned how to dance together.

I think that the only thing that really needs to be learned is the light
touch. If everyone uses a light touch, and nobody dances with their
thumbs (thumb holds, that is), I think that rotation works fine.

Do you remember our recent discussion about the "pull her" step? D
told me that, even though they laughed everytime P said that, her
husband was really pulling her and it worked. I explained to her
how I could have gotten her to end up in the right place without pulling
her and she seemed to agree. If we could just get people to understand
that pushing and pulling is never the best option, then there would be
no reason to ever do it.

I think that I can dance in a rotation with anyone. In most cases, by
simply leading the best that I can the less-skilled women will improve
over time.

There are two exceptions.

One is the woman who grasps my hand tightly. In that case, I would
disengage in a very obvious way, and if she did not get the message
after a while, I would just explain why it is important that each
partner can unilaterally disengage at any moment.

The other is the woman who has no sense of frame and virtually no
dancing skills. That woman is going to need some kind of lessons. Of
course, that woman cannot dance with anyone so the issue is not really
switching or rotating partners.

J

One root cause of the Israeli partner dance problems

Contributed this article today to the IFD Partners group on Yahoo.

Hello IFD Partners,

Believe one root cause of our Israeli partner dance problems is that we do not know how to dance with a partner.

Getting people to rotate partners without first teaching them how to dance with a partner may not be helpful.

One result could be making people even more frustrated.

One of the reasons people have regular partners is because it is so hard to dance with different people. With a regular partner, two
people can work out some way to dance together.

With non-regular partners, a lot of the time dancing is a wrestling match. That is not enjoyable.

Think we have solved the partner dance problem with our little group in Gainesville, at least for those that are willing to learn.
We rotate partners every dance so everyone dances the same amount. We do dances more than once so everyone gets to do them. Everyone
dances, whether they know the steps or not, regardless of their skill level.

I have been working on this problem for a decade. This is a link to an article I wrote about Choreographed Partner Dancing problems
and solutions.

http://www.partnershipdancing.com/w/w102/p/partnershipdancing_com/main_article/20090106_choreographed_partner_dances.aspx

The article is from the Appendix in my book Partnership Dancing.

Shalom,
Andrew

Method for Teaching or Learning Choreography

Jeff Subeck shared his method for teaching choreography.

I added the acronym, follow your NOSE:

N - Notate the dance
O - Observe people doing the dance
S - Style
E - Educate someone

From Jeff:

You can prepare to teach [a dance] as a learning tool, even though you have no intent of actually teaching it. I do that all the
time. Then, when I am doing the dance, I remember the words that I would use to teach it, and that helps me remember the dance
better.

1. I write out the steps in my notation. If I think that I probably know all the steps, then I do this without consulting any video
or outside sources. If I am pretty sure that I do not know a sequence, then I use the video to do the notation. I play small parts
over and over until I can record all the steps in my notation.

2. I watch the video and compare it to my notes, looking for any discrepencies. If I find discrepencies, I make a judgement call as
to whether the video is right or if I am right. If I am not sure, I look for another video and/or ask someone like Jim.

3. Once I am confident that my notes are correct, I look at the video to see if there are any stylistic things that I should add to
my notes. Again, there is judgement here as to whether a particular stylistic thing is the choreography or just how the particular
dancers are doing it. Keep in mind that people sometimes do things incorrectly on the video. Also, sometimes a stylistic thing is
specific to the dance and sometimes it is just the way the choreographer dances in general.

4. I teach an imaginary person the dance. You may want to try a real person like Brian if this is your first teach, but I generally
find that it works fine with an imaginary partner. At this stage I decide details
such as how I want to call out the steps and whether I want to do anything untraditional such as teaching the hardest part first.