Teaching Tip of the Month: April 2008
Teaching the Triple Step in East Coast Swing
These three little chasse steps have caused many a beginning student to age prematurely. Worse, we as teachers often do not understand why the student cannot seem to master what seems to us so basic and fundamental. Even more worrying is our fear that we cannot move forward with our lesson if our student cannot do the basic step.
Fear not! Every dancer can master the East Coast Swing triple step, eventually J. Here are some tips to make those early lessons go much more smoothly.
- Define Triple Step. Tell your student, briefly, that a triple step is three weight changes in two beats of music. Don’t belabor the point, especially with your very analytic students. The last thing you want at this stage is intellectualizing.
- Walk through it. Have your student face the mirror with his weight on his right foot. Lead him to take three steps – side, close, side – to the left and then to the right.
- Count. There are many different teaching counts you can use. Start with “tri-ple-step”, then “side-together-side”, “step-together-step”, or “left-right-left.”
- Another option. If your student is having problems with the weight changes, try “1-2-3.”
Have your student say the count as he changes weight.
- Practice. Dance the triple steps slowly in both directions, then gradually increase your speed until your student is dancing a slow East Coast Swing tempo.
- Here are some tips that will help. Tell your student to:
- Remember to breathe and relax the shoulders.
- Keep weight balanced over the middle of the feet.
- Keep steps small and under the body.
- Make sure to completely change weight on each step, never using the same foot twice. This way, it will always be clear which foot is free to move next.
- Play music. Your student is now ready to try his triple step to some East Coast swing music. As he becomes more comfortable moving his feet, you can start counting “1-a-2, 3-a-4”. Now your student’s triple steps will really swing!
Teaching Tip of the Month: March 11, 2008
Tango Frame in Closed Position Feels Too Close!
Many beginning students feel very uncomfortable in the Tango closed position frame. In Tango, the partners are closer and more off-set than they are in the other Smooth dances. The leader’s right arm is wrapped farther and lower around the follower’s back; the follower’s left arm wraps around the leader’s right arm.
While this frame is crucial to achieving Tango’s cat-like, stealthy, and sharp movement across the floor—it can also feel like a lot of body contact for a new dancer.
If your students are feeling crowded in this frame, it may be because of one or more of these common problems:
- Breaking Frame
The Leader may be pulling the Follower forward by allowing the right elbow to fall behind the Leader’s rib cage. Tell the Leader that even though the Tango Closed Position is very close, the Leader’s elbows must always be held in front of the rib cage. - Insufficient Leftward Stretch
One or both partners may be standing straight up instead of stretching up and to the left. Be sure to remind you students to keep their collar bones open wide and their elbows in front of their rib cages. Here are some exercises that will help:- Have the Follower stretch both arms upward and to the left of the Leader’s head. Tell the Follower to maintain this stretch of the spine, even when the arms are in the Closed Position frame.
- To help the Leader stretch leftward, have the Follower lay the left arm along the right side of the Leader’s neck. Tell the Leader to maintain a forward, leftward poise, even when the arms are in the Closed Position frame.
- Tell both partners to notice the distance between their heads, then try to increase the distance by several inches. Tell them to maintain this distance while dancing.
With practice and with good technique, your students will soon feel very comfortable in this frame.
Teaching Tip of the Month: February 2008
TEACHING THE ROCK STEP IN EAST COAST SWING
The Rock Step in East Coast Swing has bedeviled many beginning students and many inexperienced teachers. It seems especially challenging for leaders to master. The most common problems occur when the leader points his foot instead of shifting his weight, or when he fails to master the timing of the Rock Step. Often you will find the awkward leader frozen in place as he cannot seem to translate your instructions to his feet in time with the music.
It can be very helpful with these students to go s-l-o-w-l-y and take breaks from the actual dancing. Remember, your leader’s experience in his first few dance lessons will determine whether he continues dancing or drops out altogether.
Here is a good framework for teaching the Rock Step:
Have your student face the mirror and put his weight on his right foot. Have your student mirror you as you demonstrate a left foot rock step. Tell your student to make two weight changes – back, forward – rather than just tapping the back foot.
Alternative Teaching Counts: There are various teaching counts you can use to help your student learn the rock step.
1. Start with “rock-step,” “back-step,” or “rock-replace.”
2. If your student is having difficulty with the weight changes or timing, try “left-right” for Leaders (or “right-left” for Followers), “quick-quick,” or “1-2.”
Continue Practicing: Practice the left foot rock step several times.
Give Tips
Small Steps: Keep steps small and under the body.
Balanced Poise: Maintain a balanced poise and never let weight go back past the halfway point between the feet. This will improve balance and timing, as well as connection with one’s partner. Tell your student to think about keeping weight slightly forward toward the balls of the feet, and to keep the heel of the back foot off the floor.
Teaching Tip of the Month: January 2008
INTRODUCING SWAY TO YOUR STUDENT'S SMOOTH DANCING
Sway is defined as the inclination of the body away from the moving foot and, if there is turn involved, towards the inside of the turn. Sway is one of the best technique elements to introduce after your student has mastered the basic footwork in Waltz. Sway is relatively easy for your student to learn and will make his dancing much more beautiful.
Here is a good way to introduce your student to Sway. Follow this guideline and everything should go very “Smoothly”!
Demonstrate Sway: When you introduce sway for the first time, demonstrate a simple figure such as the Waltz Box Step Straight two times.
First demonstrate the figure without sway.
Then demonstrate the figure with sway.
Point out how sway adds a beautiful new dimension to Smooth dancing.
Explain Swing and Sway Relationship: Using simple terms, tell your student that sway is a picture made by the body when a dancer swings the hips to the side.
Demonstrate the same simple figure again, with and without swing, so your student can see how the swing of your hips creates sway.
Explain Footwork and Sway Relationship: Tell your student that sway depends on correct footwork.
Demonstrate how it is difficult to sway on step 2 of the Waltz Box Step Straight if you use foot-flat footwork.
Then demonstrate how using toe footwork on step 2 enables you to swing your hips and create sway.
Explain General Sway Rules: Tell your students that they will be able to figure out the sway for most figures, once they learn the general rules for sway. Here are three easy Sway rules for Waltz and Viennese Waltz. Have your students memorize them.
Forward and Back Steps: In most Bronze figures (in which the feet close on step 3), there is no sway on forward and back steps (straight).
Right Foot Side and the Following Closing Step: Sway to the left.
Left Foot Side and the Following Closing Step: Sway to the right.
Teaching Tip of the Week: December 28, 2007
BETTER POSTURE FOR THE NEW YEAR
One of the challenges of teaching adult beginners is to make your students actually believe that they are dancers. Nothing helps more in this regard than training your students to cultivate a dancer’s posture.
Tell your students that their goal in the New Year is to develop a dancer’s presence; they should move through all their daily activities in such a way that people will start to believe that they are dancers. More importantly, your students will believe that they are dancers too.
A dancer’s presence is the result of good posture and a positive energy flow through the body. This is an achievable standard for every one of your students. Encourage your students to focus on this radiant presence. Here is an exercise that will help:
Cultivate Awareness of Energy: Tell trainees to take moments throughout the day to become aware of their energy flow. For example, their energy is low if their heads are sinking down or their shoulders are hunching. When trainees notice their energy is low, they should stop and consciously energize their bodies.
Hold the head higher.
Drop the shoulders.
Lift the solar plexus.
Pull the belly button to the spine.
Try to touch the ceiling with the top of the head.
Cultivate Posture: Another way to develop a dancer’s presence is to cultivate posture. Tell trainees to check and correct their own posture many times each day, using the following checklist:
Are the shoulders rolled back, and relaxed down?
Is the head held high?
Is the stomach pulled in and lifted?
Is the chest broad and lifted?
Is the upper body relaxed?
Make Others Think You Must Be a Dancer: The goal is to exude such presence with your posture and energy that when your student meets new people, they ask, “Are you a dancer?”
Teaching Tip of the Week: December 21, 2007
TEACHING BALL-CHANGE ACTION IN HUSTLE
Ball-change is a nickname for two steps in which only the ball of the foot touches the floor on the first step. Beginning students can have a difficult time with the quick weight change and often end up just pointing the foot on the first step. Here is an exercise that will help them develop the ball-change action used in Hustle side and back breaks.
Have your student stand on the left foot and touch the ball of the right foot to the floor with the heel lifted.
Have your student step onto the ball of the right foot, and push down as if pushing a nail into the floor.
Now tell your student to straighten the right knee slightly and lift the left foot slightly off the floor. The right heel should not touch the floor. Show your student how to stay level (i.e. not rise) by absorbing the movement in the right leg and hip.
Have your student replace weight to the left foot. The right heel is still lifted.
Practice this several times, making sure your student stays level.
Once your student has mastered the ball-change action here, you can begin to incorporate it into side and back breaks.
Teaching Tip of the Week: December 14, 2007
BODY RISE IN BOLERO
It can be difficult for students to master the concept of “body rise” in Bolero, especially if they have just begun to dance the rise and fall element of Waltz correctly. Here are some exercises that will help.
First, be sure your students understand “body rise” at a conceptual level. Have them repeat this definition: “Body Rise is the elevation of the body achieved by straightening the knees and stretching through the spine.” Remember that body rise can be done with or without foot rise. In the DVIDA syllabus, there is no foot rise.
Next, lead your student through a basic body rise exercise.
Rise: Start with feet together and weight on both feet. Bend the knees. Then, have your student imagine someone is pulling on a string attached to the crown of his or her head, causing the spine to lengthen and the body to stretch or “rise” to full height. Heels should remain in contact with the floor.
Fall: Maintaining a fully lengthened spine, have your student bend both knees to lower or “fall.”
Practice: Have your student continue practicing body rise and fall several times.
Once they are comfortable, start to integrate the body rise into the basic Bolero movement. Start with the side steps:
Bend Standing Knee: Have everyone stand with weight on the right foot. Bend the right knee to lower, while extending the left foot to the side without weight.
Straighten Both Knees: As weight is transferred to the left foot, gradually straighten both knees and stretch through the spine. Heels should remain in contact with the floor.
Continue Practicing: Repeat this exercise to the right side, starting with bending the left knee and extending the right foot to the side without weight. Continue practicing shifting weight from foot to foot several times.
Now add in the break steps to complete the basic movement:
As weight is taken on the first step (Quick), the knees are first straight, and then bend on the second half of the beat (&). As weight is taken on the second step (Quick), the knees remain bent.
Finally, add the rise and fall count:
So your student can more fully understand when to be rising and when to be falling, you can use a count of “Slow &, Quick &, Quick &.” The rise and fall will be:
Slow |
& |
Quick |
& |
Quick |
& |
Down |
Up |
Up |
Down |
Down |
Down |
Practice several times without music, until your student is comfortable. Then add the music, but be sure your student can dance the rise and fall element smoothly and without hesitation before you start teaching more advanced figures.
Teaching Tip of the Week: December 7, 2007
SOLVING TANGO SHOULDER PROBLEMS IN YOUR STUDENTS
It’s very common for the shoulders to creep up while your students are dancing Tango. This is a problem for both leaders and followers and is especially pronounced in Tango, for several reasons.
First, a dancer’s shoulders will tend to rise while dancing in promenade position or changing dance positions quickly, both of which happen a lot in Tango. Second, the leader wraps his right hand farther around the followers back in Tango, and this makes his right shoulder prone to rising. Finally, because the follower’s left arm is wrapped around the leader’s right arm, her left shoulder rises whenever his right shoulder rises.
Here are two good exercises to help with “Tango Shoulder Creep”:
Leader’s Right Hand Adjustment: Remind your students that in Tango, the leader’s right hand is lower than in the other Smooth dances. This allows the leader to place the right fingertips across the follower’s spine without raising the right shoulder. Have your student place his hand in a variety of positions on the follower’s back and have him notice what happens to his shoulder.
No Shoulder Movement Exercise: Have your students begin the exercise in their very best closed position. Make sure their shoulders are down and their backs are open. Now have them slowly change to promenade position, without allowing their shoulders to rise. Have them slowly change back to closed position, again without allowing their shoulders to rise. Gradually increase the speed of their transitions, and then try dancing a figure that changes dance position, always without allowing the shoulders to rise.
Once your students have mastered these shoulder exercises in Tango, their frame should improve in all the Smooth dances!
Teaching Tip of the Week: November 28, 2007
TEACHING NEW FIGURES TO A GROUP CLASS
Teaching a fun and effective group class can be a real challenge for a new teacher. The room is full of students at a variety of levels, abilities, and temperaments, and the teacher must bring them all from point A to point B.
It will be very helpful to follow this process when teaching your class a new figure. Go through all these steps every time. It is a systematic learning structure that will give the students time to assimilate the new information and to begin feeling comfortable dancing the figures you’ve introduced.
Demonstrate the figure with a partner to music.
Separate the leaders and followers.
Teach the foot positions.
Have the class practice the steps without music.
Have the class practice the steps with music
Ask the students to take a partner and form a circle around you and your assistant.
Explain the process for changing partners in the class. Tell your class that that it has been shown that you learn to dance 30% faster by alternating partners. It is true and it encourages more socializing and better learning.
Teach the frame, tracks, hold, and line of dance.
Demonstrate a good frame and a weak frame.
Have them dance together without music.
Change partners, and have them dance again without music.
Change partners, and have them dance together with music.
Change partners, and have them dance together with music.
Ask if there are any questions.
Point out any mistakes that you see.
Change partners and have them try the figure one more time thinking of the corrections.
At the end of the music say “Excellent! Give yourselves a hand! That was wonderful!”
Tell the students they did a great job and it’s time to learn the next figure!
Use this same structure to teach the second and third figures, and then put all three figures into an amalgamation. If you are patient, thorough, and enthusiastic, you’ll be sure to have a class full of dancers by the end of the evening!
Teaching Tip of the Week: November 21, 2007
TEACHING CUBAN MOTION TO BEGINNING STUDENTS
Mastering Cuban Motion can be a daunting proposition to beginning students who are just learning which foot goes where. Here is a fun and easy exercise to help your students begin to understand the concept of Cuban Motion and to experience the feeling of Cuban Motion in their own bodies. It is called:
Waiting for the Bus
Have your students face the mirror, fold their arms, and settle into one hip. Tell them to pretend they are waiting for a bus, and when the bus has not arrived, they get restless and settle into the other hip. Have your students practice settling first into one hip and then into the other several times.
Now point out to your students that when they settle into one hip, one knee is straight and the other knee is bent. This results is a backward rotation (or twist) of the hip of the leg which is straight. This rotation of the hips is Cuban motion. Be sure your students, and your students’ bodies, understand that bending and straightening the legs -- not wiggling the hips -- creates Cuban motion.
Now have your students try the Waiting for the Bus exercise to the Rumba SQQ rhythm. Have them change weight while you call out the SQQ rhythm. Be sure they are always putting their weight onto a bent leg and not just jerking their hips side to side. Try this sequence:
Start with weight on a straight Right leg, with the Right hip twisted back, and the Left foot free.
1. Step forward on the Left foot with a bent knee, without fully committing the weight.
2.
Transfer the weight onto the Left foot.
3.
Straighten the Left knee, the Right heel should release from the floor, keeping pressure on the Right toes.
4.
Twist the Left hip back, the Right foot collects under the body with the R knee flexed, without weight.
Then repeat with the Right Foot stepping forward.
Once they have mastered this, put on some slow Rumba music and repeat the exercise. By the end of the lesson, your students will have begun mastering the feel of true Cuban Motion.
Diane's Teaching Tip of the Week: November 14, 2007
PROMENADE POSITION
Beginning students often have difficulty mastering the frame for promenade position. A good way to teach this frame is to have the students stand in front of a wall. They should place the palms of their hands flat against the wall, with their arms at shoulder level. Now have the students turn their feet, hips, and head halfway towards the line of dance while keeping their palms flat against the wall and their arms parallel to the floor. Leaders will turn towards the left, and followers will turn toward the right
The students should notice how their hips open with their feet and head, but their arms do not move. Have them repeat this exercise several times until they have memorized the feeling. Now they are ready to try an actual promenade position with a partner.