Tipsy Tipsy Tumble Turn

spinningsteps @ 2007-04-03T13:06:00

2007-04-03T20:07:14Z

x-posted to <lj user="spinningsteps">

The "digital revolution" as it's called started in the office and has worked its way into every aspect of life, including, apparently, ballroom competitions. It began its entry with scrutineering software; Software that eliminated the need for hand scrutineering resulted in much faster turnaround of recalls and awards. It also made publishing marks easier. Then came the incorporation of the PDA to competition judging. Judges have a list of numbers for the event being danced before them and simply check off the numbers they wish to recall (or write in the placement value in the case of the final). Instantaneous scoring. This is convenient for competitors who are then able to know right away if they are to dance the next round, and speeds up the efficiency of awards presentation as awards can be given immediately after a final is danced.

The revolution has now spread to trophies. The "trophies" for SF Open this year were silver-coloured plaques containing the equivalent of a travel alarm clock with a window that had the event name, location and place printed on an inserted piece of paper. I suppose this is to provide competitors with something they can use... for something other than donating to USA Dancesport for reuse in a competition or taking up all that extra space in their closets.

Organizer 1 (looking through trophy catalogue): So, should we just go with the standard marble base and couple in a contra check topper like last year?
Organizer 2: Sounds good. Last year's trophies were very elegant.
Organizer 1: Oh, wait! They have alarm clock photo frames! Let's use those!
Organizer 2: Yes! Our competitors will have something different; they can display them on their desks at the office or their mantles.

Competitor 1 (on seeing "trophy"): Hmmm. I wonder if I can replace the event logo with a photograph...
Competitor 2: Even better. I can sell it on Ebay!


Pardon me, I'm feeling cynical today.

<lj-cut text="About our placement, dancing, etc...">

Steve and I placed 5th of 16 couples in Prechamp... It's disappointing after last year, when we were 4th because it feels like at best, we're stagnating and at worst, we're backsliding. Neither of us wants to stagnate in mid-to-low prechamp. But, after looking at the marks and realizing that one mark, one place higher, from one judge in quickstep would have placed us 4th, 5th place hurts a bit less. Also, of 36 marks total (accross 4 dances), 9 had us placed in the top 3. So maybe we're improving after all and we need to spend the next few weeks (high competition season) focusing on improving our consistency. We have moments... but they are moments, not whole rounds, or even whole dances.

It's easy to make excuses to justify a result that isn't what you'd hoped; if I hadn't been at the tail end of a cold and Steve hadn't been tired from being up all night at a rave, maybe things would have gone better. But there are 1001 reasons people don't dance their best at a comp, and every couple has them and everyone's reasons are different. So the only thing to do really is work harder.

We take our dancing seriously; I think we need to start taking competition a little more seriously as well. We need to practice performative aspects, and work on pushing ourselves to just get through rounds with consistency, to fix mistakes real-time, to keep going when we're tired... to never give up frame and verticality.

And of course, continuity of movement and musicality.

(And hope that we never again come accross the waltz that Steve can't count in competition. :-))

We've a lot of work ahead of us.
</lj-cut>

Breathe in, Breathe out (inhale, exhale)

2006-06-07T03:41:14Z

"When do you breathe?" Steve asked me in practice yesterday.

"I inhale when we rise, and exhale when we fall" I replied after a moment, as generally, I don't spend much time consciously thinking about when I do and don't breathe when I'm dancing -- but in an effort to keep myself tall and vertical, I have been making an effort to do inhale every time we turn to promenade, at least.

"Ah. I've realized that the reason I keep dying by the end of rounds is that I don't breathe much during the earlier dances."

I wasn't sure what to say.

I discussed this, later, at dinner with my brother, who pronounced Steve "one of the worst breathers [he's] ever seen." Again, I was dumbstruck, as the concept of being a "good breather" or a "bad breather" is not really something I spend much time contemplating. I just do.

I suppose that I have had my times when I haven't been such a good breather, for lack of a better term, either... the first time it even crossed my sphere of influence that breathing might matter when dancing was when someone asked Charlotte Jorgenson about it in a workshop she gave a few years ago in New York. She responded that yes, she does control her breathing, and carefully, when she dances, to help her get better movement and stretch and shape. I ignored this, largely, at the time, due to lack of elaboration and no way to apply it, but her words came drifting back some time later in the midst of a viennese where I found myself in the unhappy circumstance of muscles in my upper back and neck deciding that the middle of the Viennese Waltz would be a lovely time to seize. Which meant that to just keep going, All I thought about in that moment was breathing deeply and getting oxygen into the very muscles that were unhappy.

It worked, then, and I suppose from that point forward I've been becoming progressively more aware of my breathing.

Though I must confess, I often think about other aspects of technique, while dancing, and occasionally aspects of performance much more than something as "simple and natural" as breathing.

Interesting, though, that my technique has come to a point where when and how I choose to breathe matters. I really am bringing dance down to a science for myself.

When Trusting Becomes Dangerous...

2006-02-23T23:26:17Z

"Steve! No sex in front of other people!"

Added to my list of 2005-2006 Ballroom notable quotables. :-)

This comment was brought on because Steve and I were playing with different dips/tricks in Latin and Steve decided to try the one where the girl slides between the guy's legs, then he steps over her and does ... something.

Except he didn't believe I'd actually be game to try it, so then he wasn't quite sure how to hold me and ended up falling on top of me. Oops.

I might be terrible, but I think it's really funny when people fall, including myself. Must work with Steve, however, on the not dropping me thing... I watched our videos from Winter Frolic last night -- our latin looks halfway decent, provided we're not trying to do any tricks. It's funny that that should be the case for us... most people master the tricks and have no technique. We have decent technique (once we put connection back in our dancing), but the tricks aren't really as beautiful as they could be).

It was a learning experience, though. I haven't watched myself do Latin since I was Bronze or so -- I was really surprised at how much I have improved. I really do seem to have the technique to be doing novice, which is a nice feeling. I was surprised to see how much movement I have in my body. I remember being the girl with no movement and no body action and awkward lines... and I don't look at all like that anymore. However, it certainly shows when I feel off balance and unsupported... so I have to work on that. (And work more on my basics and settling and use of my legs and all the rest. But I saw real potential in my Latin, which was a welcome and pleasant surprise).

As to the Standard... the topline in quickstep is a mess, but that is easily corrected by lowering our center a teeny bit so that we're actually in control of our movement (I think we helped this at practice last night when we went through some of the swinging figures really really slowly). Generally we need to use our legs and feet more and be lower and more in control. But we are moving, if slowly, in that direction, so I must simply be patient and give things time. Baby steps, I remind myself. Baby steps.

Creating Connection

2006-02-09T10:19:57Z

Practice tonight was good.

We began with tango, but couldn't make our frame feel right. For some reason, Steve was having trouble making his arms feel comfortable and felt generally off balance. He didn't care to work through this, for whatever reason, and I was happy to let go of working on standard for the day as my stress level lately has caused my shoulders to creep up close to my ears, so even if my position had been correct, it felt odd and awkward and strained. Despite this, we got a bit of work done on the tango, figured out some about moving properly (that is, from our centers instead of our tops or feet) and I was able to explain a bit more about what makes me feel strained and twisted in our contra check. Steve was in a listening mood, somehow, and I was in a work hard and accomplish something but not bitchy mood. Which is recent, but good.

I am learning, with dance, to realize that it has to be about enjoying it and about taking pride in what you bring to the floor. Recognizing that you have a lot to learn, but trusting what you have and taking pride in that. Because unfortunately, not everyone can be in the final or win first place. And someday, we'll end up forced to dance championship level, and as good as we might be, we won't be as good as the top six couples, or even the top 12, really. And at that point, we have to keep working and keep doing our best not for the competitions and the results, but because it makes us as dancers feel good about ourselves, our work and our dancing. And dancing, when it works, is the most amazing feeling in the world.

The best part of practice, however, was working on Latin. We had enough success with it at the last competition that Steve believes we have some potential, and our standard coach (who had been judging at the last competition) said that our Latin had no connection. Steve told me this, and I laughed saying, well, yes... I took it away so you would stop leading me with your arms and overleading in general. Now we need to put it back.

And so we spent nearly an hour working on connection and basics. And the little bit of that that we did made our chacha routine, when we did it to speed, better. It's a long road we're starting on now -- we have a lot of work to do disciplining ourselves to move and settle and move and settle, but we are, I believe going about building connection the right way. I know that often people are taught to lead and be led with their arms, and while it's quite possible to dance this way, our choreography is too involved and too fast to work with this approach. Plus there will be synergy in the two; our biggest weakness in standard is even more profound in Latin -- proper connection requires a great awareness of center and moving from one's center first, and since most of the time there are few points of contact, both partners have to be very in touch with where their centers are. Standard has lots of points of contact, so while the technique is harder to fake, it's very easy to move from the wrong place and still have smooth lead and follow. So as we develop a good balanced center in our Standard, our Latin will improve, and as we work on connection in our latin, our sense of center will improve which will help the Standard.

Good feelings about the partnership and where it's going. This is a very nice change from the past few months where I have been feeling very negative about my and our dancing. I think some forced time off has helped, but more than anything, realizing a few weeks ago that somehow my sense of self-worth got tied in to my competition results and then saying 'well, that's very silly' has helped most. And competing with no expectations because there had been little practice time and my mom had died only a few days before the comp helped, too. Because we went out and sold what we had, and it turned out pretty well, really. It was nice to have dancing that felt good and much improved from the past be rewarded, because it reminds you that the hard work is all worth it. But even if it hadn't been, the dancing felt good and I felt improvement and I was happy with how the rounds went (generally. Being dropped in Samba wasn't exactly *fun* but ah well, there's no such thing as a perfect comp), and that mattered a lot more than the results. Which truly is the best way to dance.

Quote of the Evening

2005-10-27T08:31:16Z

A: Yeah Steve! Touch yourself!

Okay, so it's one of those "you had to be there" moments... so the context, briefly, was that tonight was rounds practice. It was the first time Steve and I really tried to dance our routines full-out, to music, without stopping, and for the most part, we got through them. The tricks don't quite work yet, and we need to work on our dynamic in a few places, but the basic technique is there. (There is great irony in this, as for many couples, it's quite the opposite. They do fancy tricks but can't stay on their own feet to save their lives, but that is an entry for another time). Fortunately, those things are easy polishing things to fix before a competition.

Anyway, during the latin rounds, the team couples who don't compete Latin were sitting out to watch, and generally hooting and hollering about the sexiness of Latin dances. (I found this funny, as I NEVER think of myself as a sexy person -- it's an act that I can put on, when necessary, but it's very far from anything that is true of me in real life), and at the end of the samba, one of the girls yelled, very enthusiastically, the quote listed above. And Steve's response was to look down at her with a smirk that was half "what's wrong with you?" and half "yeah, I'm hot and I know it" pleased with himself.

Meanwhile, I had a very good laugh over it. :-)

Weekend Lessons

2005-10-25T00:23:49Z

Saturday was filled with dance lessons of different kinds.

First, 1.5 hours of DS Teacher Seminar with Silke. I noticed, the first year that I taught dance (when I was 14 and was a teaching assistant in ballet/tap/jazz combo classes for 6-8 year old girls) that my dancing improved tremendously. I thought, at the time (and for many years after, really) that the reason I improved so much was because I was determined to not let students pick up my bad habits. I'm coming to realize, however, that being extra dilligent about having proper basic technique for basic things is only part of the reason teaching helps one's dance so much. The other part is that in having to explain something to other people and be prepared for questions they might have, you have to think outside of the questions that you would ask about your own dancing. So you think more deeply about everything, and from more perspectives about how dancing really works.

It's especially true with ballroom. Ballroom has a man and a woman dancing together trying to display a single picture. Which means each person has different roles and objectives. In Latin, for instance, the woman's movement is a response to and continuation of the man's action. It's such a simple thought, really, but it totally changed how I thought about latin. Yes, I know there is lead and follow and the best dancers make you see a couple and not simply two good dancers dancing in unison. I'd never really stopped to think about why that happens, I merely observed that it did. So Silke's workshop gave me words... and also a thought that changed my dancing. A reason behind why connection is important. She said a bunch of other technique-y things that I think will be really good for my dancing, as well, but some words carry an idea with them that is so general and so widely applicable that they carry immense power. Now every step I take in Latin, I will think in terms of "how am I continuing his movement?" instead of "am I following correctly, am I connected properly, etc, etc." Because if I am really continuing his movement, then I will follow correctly and be connected properly. That will just take some time and work. :-)

After that, there was a group technique class. There is one of these technique classes every week, but this week was my week to take notes. Which was fun, as Tomas (one of my standard coaches) was teaching. He is a fabulous teacher, and I learned a lot about dancing in general and what makes quickstep different from other dances (something I knew intuitively, but again, words can make a huge difference), even though I was already familiar with many of the technical points he brought out. I saw things with new eyes, though -- ways of teaching technical points, ways of explaining things that I might bring in to practice with my partner as these technical points are just as important at our level (if not moreso!) as they are at the syllabus levels.

Finally, we had a lesson in quickstep. Which was great because Aira poked at my dancing just as much as she poked at Steve's. It's rare for this to happen, in part because I usually catch on pretty quickly, and in part because we dance standard... and with Steve being the guy and therefore the leader, often fixing his mistakes will fix problems that I am having. There's a lot to do to be a strong, active follower, but, as Stephen (another standard coach) points out, all the lady has to do is follow, and think about what she is and isn't getting from the man. The man has to lead and take care of floorcraft and make decisions about where to follow the routine and where to change it in order to not run in to other couples and decide on the timing of steps and all the rest. There's a lot involved in a task like that... and a good lead with a decent follower will create great dancing. A bad lead with a good follower creates mediocre dancing at best. So it's a treat when I get picked on. I am perhaps weird in that I like it when coaches are hard on me... it makes me feel like I am a good dancer who has potential (as I have seen many a coach work with mediocre dancers who don't seem to be going anywhere and they just correct things fairly mundanely). And I like that a coach will lead me in something saying "I'm not the best leader, but..." as it means I've gotten to a place where her lead is not so much better than my follow that I won't notice the difference. Plus, I really do want to be the best partner and follower that I can be.

Especially since I feel very good about my current partnership. After not-quite a year, I still enjoy dancing with Steve, and feel we are improving and improving together at an acceptable rate. I'm not improving as fast as I might like, but I feel that we are improving very nicely, and that I'm not really outrunning him. Not that we don't have little fights now and then or difficult practices or any of those things -- we do -- but that would be true in any partnership... and we always manage to get through and come out on top. I practice 4 days a week with him, most weeks, including spending all day on Saturdays dancing. I remember the studio in NYC and practice there and how 3 days felt like a lot. In some ways I wanted more, but often, I felt that 3 evenings a week, plus one for the NYU team should be enough... I certainly wasn't inclined to get up on saturday morning or sunday to head into the dance studio. I'm not sure if the difference now is that space isn't free, so I value the space we have on Saturdays and am willing to work under that constraint, or if there is something really different about this partnership that I really enjoy dancing 5 days a week (4 with him, 1 teaching), but it is a difference. I practice harder, I think, than I ever have... perhaps in absolute time a little less, but then I think the practices are more productive as Steve and I argue a lot less than many couples, and I love it. Which feels good because I believe, now, that I was being very honest when I said I would willingly practice as many as 15 hours a week. (It's more like 8-10 for me and Steve, generally, but still, that is a good amount, and I would willingly practice more, but don't *have* to do so).

And. Latin is coming together well. I think we will be okay in novice at the next couple of competitions. (Also, I finally finally have a real open jive routine! I love it! I have to say... starting open made me hate Smooth, but I think a lot of that was because of my partner and probably because I was in a little over my head (though I didn't realize it at the time). Open Standard and Open Latin have been a different journey. They may have felt a bit premature when I started, but then I looked at how I dance and the way people dance at syllabus and realized that I could hold my own in open so I might as well go for it. And open has been, for the international style dances, when I really started understanding them and loving them).

Every Competition is a Lesson Learned

2005-10-18T23:51:41Z

The San Francisco Autumn Classic brought a small, fast floor -- though the tails problem was resolved, the floor brought on some new problems. In the semifinal, we had a number of traffic problems (meaning other couples being in our way, and us being in the way of other couples). I think some of them are experience-related... Steve hasn't had to face the challenge of dancing on a really crowded floor, yet, having only danced juniors and I guess youth with basically only having finals... and there, the couples are smaller and the movement is less, so it feels like there's always plenty of space. Which means you never have to get used to having to stop mid-wall to avoid crashes, or overturn and underturn things to get out of some other couple's way, and you definitely never have to learn how to keep your poise and not look ruffled when the inevitable occurs.

There were many lessons learned at this competition.

1. We need to make an effort to practice dancing through our material on crowded floors and work on avoiding people while we do so. In part to ensure we keep moving in competition, and in part to learn to keep our poise when have traffic problems. Steve sees them, but is like a young driver whose response is to freak out and overcorrect, he reverts to having poor poise, a worried look on his face and not really giving me any support or that much in the way of a clear lead. And once shape is gone, it is very difficult to get it back.

2. We dance better when we have an audience -- people who care about our dancing whom we want to impress.

3. Because of our individual mental prep strategies for the comp, it's really better for us *not* to have to talk to each other right before we dance... what is probably Steve's self-talk of "I'm better than all of these people and going to win" comes out verbally from him as "oh this should be an easy field to beat, nobody in it is that good." -- which makes me nervous, as if we misjudge how well we have to dance, then we won't get the result that we deserve.

4. How we feel about our early rounds has an impact on how we dance in later rounds. When we feel a round went well, we step it up in the next round. If we feel a round went poorly, it's hard for us to reset our energy and dance our best in the following round.

So, much to be adjusted. And important to note that the dancing is getting better, but a lot of what we know and can do in practice hasn't really had a chance to sink in to muscle memory yet. Hopefully that will start happening soon -- it will make our dancing dramatically better, I think.

And we did, it turns out, make the final... we were awarded 5th place, which, since we were beaten by a couple of couples whom we have beaten consistently for the last few months, was frustrating, but there are worse things. And at least our tango and quickstep had some good moments, as we scored a 1st place mark in each of those dances. (granted, we also scored a few 6th place marks in each dance, but hey, can't win 'em all).

I think it's all there for us -- we have the good dancing, now we just need to develop the floorcraft, poise and confidence to show it off.

Clothes May not Make the Man...

2005-08-31T22:32:41Z

but apparently, they can break him.

IGB was Sunday night, and Steve and I were competing adult prechampionship standard. It was the largest prechamp field I'd ever competed in (17 couples, yay!), and we very definitively made the semifinal, with 4 of 5 or 5 of 5 recalls in every dance.

We danced at least the same as, if not better than the quarterfinal in the semi (though we did have some traffic problems and got stuck in some corners), yet we did not make the final. And several couples who did make the final were couples that we've beaten recently. The frustrating part was looking at the marks and watching our 4 of 5 or 5 of 5 drop to a total of 4 marks accross 4 dances.

I blame this on the fact that Steve does not own tails. And while he looked clean and presentable and I like a champion. (Even though I made my own ballgown... it really doesn't look it on the floor), I think the fact that Steve didn't have tails really hurt us. Because there were several couples who all deserved to be in the final, who all had the same number of issues, and thus the judges will, in many cases, reward those with a more polished look. In part, it is because we were dancing in an evening session and dancing at the prechampionship level... which means that we were dancing for spectating social dancers as much as competitors. The upside of this is that we got to have the bright stage lights in an otherwise darkened room and feel like performers as much as competitors. The downside is that we were in a situation where ballroom is being presented to the world, and that carries with it a certain image. At the prechamp level, it's not just about good dancing anymore. It's necessary, at that level, to have a look that tells the judges that you take your dancing seriously and that you have respect for your sport and art and craft and its traditions.

So, quite frustrating. Especially when we'd previously beaten about half of the couples who did make the prechamp final.

The plus side, however, is that Steve has recognized that he needs tails to be really competitive at the level at which we dance. I had been sort of prodding at this for a while, and he disagreed... and wanted to be frugal and delay getting tails as long as possible. And I understand that; I certainly have to be very careful about how I spend my money. But if I'm making a commitment to dancing, that requires committing completely, including investing a little in my look as a dancer. And I think Steve sees that now. Which is important and which is a definite good thing out of a bad result.

It helps that several pros (all three of our coaches), friends who are better dancers than us, and even strangers who are also better than us were all surprised that we didn't make the final and assured us that we belonged there. And any drop in the quality of our dancing we can blame on a lack of practice time directly before the competition due to Steve having had his wisdom teeth out a mere week before we were to compete.

It also helps that it's not the first time it's happened to me. The last time was in a final, where my partner and I were placed 4th after one couple we certainly should have beaten and one that we possibly could have beaten ... but again, the top three couples all had men in tails and women in thousand-plus dollar ballgowns.

So, all in all, the competition was a success, and we have room to grow and we will grow.

(Plus,it was nice to have my coach tell me I belong in prechamp. :-))

Oh, and the shows. Amazing. Simply amazing.

Choreography is happiness.

2005-07-19T09:24:44Z

We got a new wall in Quickstep on Sunday. 'Tis most cute. And mostly a swinging wall, which is nice, because so much of our routine is hopping, skipping and jumping. And it did have charlestons in it, toward the end, which are tremendously cute. :-)

Also made some changes to the first wall. It doesn't move as much now, but Steve seems happier with it, and as Tomas (one of our coaches) points out, quickstep has inherent in it a lot of momentum. So being light and having good musicality is more important. I think the way that we rebuilt the end of the first wall will fix some of the problems with overshaping and a waffly frame that we used to have. And if it doesn't work when we practice, we can always change it.

I'm glad we're competing again soon. It's great to have time that's spent developing and reinventing material and adding material, which has been the journey of the last 3 months (wow, it really has been 3 months since we last competed. That's a very startling thought, really -- it doesn't seem that long), but getting out on the competition floor is important, too, as competition is sort of a measuring rod for improvement, and a reminder of how far we've come and what's left to be improved. (As, you know, dance really is all about the improvement).

I am also excited about this competition since my greatest cheerleader and biggest fan, my mom, will be here for it. She's never seen me dance open, and hasn't seen me dance at all since Nationals 2 years ago. I'd like to think I've improved a lot since then, so I'm excited to see what she thinks. :-)

So now the challenge will be getting everything done with my new gown in time for the competition. It's getting close... stoning to finish, choker and wings to make, and that's it, really. The challenge with the wings is that I want two-toned fabric, but need to do the dyeing myself, and thus must find time for coloring. Which I still haven't entirely figured out. Though I think I have a much better sense of it now -- I think my flaw with my last attempt was how I attempted to dry the fabric. If only I could find the right sort of two-toned chiffon. But I guess you can't have everything.

Anatomy of a Relationship in 5 Latin Dances

2005-07-08T23:45:14Z

The five dances of International Latin rounds tell a powerful story of relationships (this is, of course, written from the girl's point of view).

1. Cha Cha Cha ~ We meet at a party. We flirt. You get my number, but I'm not sure I'll answer when you call me. In fact, the first time you call, I don't. Then I change my mind and call you back. Then we play telephone tag while I make up my mind.

2. Samba ~ We decided to go on a date. It was really good. The chemistry was really really good. We have a great time together.

3. Rumba ~ I love you, but I'm not so sure this relationship is a good idea. I really really want you, but I'm torn. I want to be close to you, but I can't seem to bring myself to commit.

4. Paso Doble ~ I was right. The relationship wasn't a good idea. Now if only I could sort out these mixed feelings. Love and hate really are two sides of the same coin.

5. Jive ~ Okay, well, it wasn't all bad. Let's be friends and pretend we're totally over this whole thing by being a little TOO happy around each other.

(Excerpted from a conversation with my partner sometime last April).