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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! |
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