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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).