Category: WCS General

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and Then She Elbowed Me In the Face

Have you ever considered dancing a contact sport? I didn’t until I was elbowed in my right eye by my follower and as the spectrum of colors exploded over my field of vision I was first filled with an understandable amount of rage at my partner. But, as the flood of tears gushed over my eye a sense of personal responsibility also washed over me…

“I am so sorry” she said.

“No, no, I was my fault” It was all I could do to come to terms with the fact that my instructor was right.

“Its almost always the leader’s fault!” she would say and she was so right!

I as a leader did not follow the golden rule of West Coast Swing…Each Partner must have a default setting of “Stretch”.

West Coast Swing as a dance is built on the premiss that when in doubt each partner will default to an away energy. I had gotten off time with my partner and took a step toward her. Had I stepped away I could have eaten the steak instead of having to put it on my eye.

This week we are working on a couple of patterns that involve some serious stretching!

This Friday  (Pizza Party)

$10

Lesson 7:30-8:15 

Dance 8:15-?

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St.

Chelmsford, Ma

Sunday Night

$10

6-6:45 2-Step lesson

6:45-7:30pm WCS

7:30-? California Mixer

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA

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Robert Royston and Mr. Jonathan Tag Team

We had so many newbies last week that I am splitting the class into 2 parts. Part 1 is basics. Part 2 is what to do with them. During last week’s pattern we learned that good footwork in our whip is important when we step out of the basics and get into something a little more challenging. The people that had never done whips before seemed to perform the intermediate version of the basic more consistently as I watched the class. My guess is that they only knew the one way to do the whip and stuck to what I had shown them 15 minutes prior. Without the time to develop bad habits these beginners seemed to not struggle as much. 

Could a dancer wipe the slate clean and start over from scratch? Lets find out this Friday! 

This Friday  (Pizza Party)

$10

Lesson 7:30-8:15 

Dance 8:15-?

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St.

Chelmsford, Ma

Saturday night 

I am teaching the Beginner Class

Robert Royston Is teaching the Intermediate (here he is in action)

8-9 pm Workshop $20 cash per person (includes dance)

Dance only is $10 per person (admission after 9 pm)

9-? WCS Dance with DJ Un-Known

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA

Sunday Night

$10

6-6:45 2-Step lesson

6:45-7:30pm WCS

7:30-? California Mixer

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA

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50 Shades of Swing

 It never fails…When I am teaching a private lesson and give a correction. There is something in our minds that make it difficult to take criticism, even though you are paying me to give it to you. I know that I am guilty of it as well…”My friend, so and so, took a lesson from “X Teacher” and they told him to do it this way.” Now I am all for talking about dance and bouncing theories off of my friends that dance. Lots of good comes from talking about something and then doing that very thing…However, I am always very careful when the information they are sharing with me comes by way of a private lesson they just had.

A good coach in any sport will tailor their guidance to the student in question. The most extreme example of this happened to me while teaching a wedding couple. The groom kept switching his feet to the bride’s footwork. If I said right he stepped left…In order to get these two set up with a first dance in a timely manner I actually had to say the wrong foot to get him on the correct foot. How would my reputation fair if he started naming names? What if he started telling everyone that his teacher ALWAYS said left when he meant right and that is how every teacher does it?

Dancing is 50 Shades of Grey…There really are only a few rules that are hard and fast (moving from your center, moving from Point A to Point B…) and the rest becomes instructor preference (don’t tell anyone I said it like that either). Although the best way to learn is in a private one on one setting, because the instructor can tailor the instruction to your needs, but you must take what your coach says to YOU as instruction to YOU alone. You may be that guy or girl that needs the wrong thing said to you to get the right result. Also only hire a coach if you like their dancing and not because they are “supposed” to be the best. 

This Friday  (Pizza Party)

$10

Lesson 7:30-8:15 

Dance 8:15-?

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St.

Chelmsford, Ma

 DNE Ballroom Dance

Saturday night 

$10 (no lesson just dancing)

Dance Starts at 8pm

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St

Chelmsford, Ma

Sunday Night

$10

6-6:45 2-Step lesson

6:45-7:30pm WCS

7:30-? California Mixer

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA
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It’s Supposed to be fun…Right?

For the last couple of weeks we have been working hard on the technical side of dancing. Leverage and Compression drills, Timing, Musicality, Basics, and Anchoring are all very important parts of West Coast Swing. Its time for us to let our hair down a bit and relax the rules. These next two weeks will be all about learning a couple of cool patterns that can be done in a variety of ways. There is something for everyone from the beginner to the more advanced, rest assured that you will find something fun and challenging to take home and practice. 

This Friday  (Pizza Party)

$10

Lesson 7:30-8:15 

Dance 8:15-?

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St.

Chelmsford, Ma

Sunday Night

$10

6-6:45 2-Step lesson

6:45-7:30pm WCS

7:30-? California Mixer

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA

Leadership is the manipulation of energy.

Following is the embodiment of energy.

Connection is the tie that binds the two together.

  

Mr. Jonathan

www.MrJonathanIsMyDJ.com

603 475 1391

 Dance on!

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Wait For it…

As a new dancer I struggled with the pulse I heard in the music and getting the pulse to happen in my dancing. The difficulty for me was (as a hip-hop and break dancer) getting my partner to pulse with me. It took forever and a day to realize that the problem lied within me and not in my partner’s anything. 

When I started playing music and practicing “solo” I found that I was able to “pulse” along with the music. Why could I not make this happen with my partner? The answer I found in control. As a newbie leader, I thought that, it was my responsibility to control my partner. I surmised that if I could think it and make my body do it, that I could produce this result in my partner. No matter how hard I tried I could not get this living breathing person on the other end of my connection to read my mind or my body.

As I developed as a dancer I realized that the better I got at giving up “control” (not easy because I am a bit of a control freak…there I said it!) the better the result was. It turns out that followers (being mostly women) do not need leaders to “make” them do anything. In fact before we think it (as men) they could see the idea develop in our brain, decided that it is wrong (because it usually is), and devised a plan to “fix” us. Which (sorry girls) is not the right approach either.

The terms “lead and “follow” are very miss leading. The leader, in a partnership, should be approaching the pattern with the mind set of “Lead to Follow”. Simply stated he should be setting out to generate direction and then follow the outcome. The follower, in this same partnership, should be “Following to Lead”. She takes the direction the leader assigns and then takes over the timing and tempo of the pattern. Is your brain fried yet?Mine is!

The point is that there is a shared responsibility in a partner ship that gets ignored when we simply apply a dictionary definition to the dance terms “Lead and Follow”. The dictionary doesn’t account for the give and take that happens in a centrally connected dance conversation. 

As we move toward our next round of musicality we are going to explore the “Lead to Follow” and “Follow to Lead” dynamic this week. Without the give and take there is no hope of being able to be on the same page with your partner when it come to the music.

Also, don’t be scared by the topic if you are a  “Beginner Dancer”…You are welcome and will feel more than comfortable as we are not dancing anything more than the basics. This class will help you more than you realize

This Friday  (Pizza Party)

$10

Lesson 7:30-8:15 

Dance 8:15-?

DNE School of Dance

78 Princeton St.

Chelmsford, Ma

Sunday Night

$10

6-6:45 2-Step lesson

6:45-7:30pm WCS

7:30-? California Mixer

Longfellow’s Club JoEllen

524 Minuteman Dr off of Boston Post RD (Rt 20)

Wayland, MA

Leadership is the manipulation of energy.

Following is the embodiment of energy.

Connection is the tie that binds the two together.

  

Mr. Jonathan

www.MrJonathanIsMyDJ.com

603 475 1391

 Dance on!