There are so many events for girls/follows, e.g. US Girl Jam, CA Girl Jam, Midwest Girl Jam, and Southern Belle Swing Bash ......., etc. And, I seldom see event(s) especially focus on guys/leads. How come???Just curious. Maybe there are some events like that, and I just do not know them.
Originally posted Saturday, August 26, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Fad23" Okay, this whole "organize the event yourself thing" bugs me. People should be allowed their curiosity without needing to commit time and money, organization and effort that an event would take. This is a discussion forum. Saying "organize the event yourself" is a lot like saying "put up or shut up" or really mostly "shut up."
True. Fact is, if you've thrown an event, especially focused on this topic, you're more likely to have concrete opinions based upon experience. Otherwise, the opinions are based upon nothing... hence, organize your own event, experience it, and share.
As far as Guy Jams... since I agree that most workshops are lead focused, I'd say there's little to no market for this. Besides, whereas girls are generally okay with dancing with other girls, for some reason guys are a little more held back when it comes to dancing with other men (in general).
Originally posted Saturday, August 26, 2006 (5 years ago)
If I remember correctly, most of the girls at the girl jam couldn't lead, nor were they instructed to do so. The event wasn't focused on getting follows to lead but rather to teach women to understand the part of the dance that is theirs.
I still support the event, but I also acknowledge there were issues with how it worked out last year. Again, the event really lacked for boys who were crucial to much of the content. I guess by this time Giselle has heard all the criticism and may have considered how to make this better for the paying customers. For instance, this year there's a focus on Tap dance and breaking. Boys get into the event (to help) for free, to most classes.
Hopefully that means I will be able to sneak into a tap class.
Originally posted Saturday, August 26, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Fad23" Okay, this whole "organize the event yourself thing" bugs me.
Niche events are usually organized by people who care about the niche. If you want a Boy Jam or an Asian Jam or a Jazz Macarena workshop, the best chance maybe to organize it yourself. There is a difference between posting "Why are there no Asian Jams?" and posting "I think an Asian Jam would be hawt. Do you have any advice?" and the replies to those different postings will probably be different.
Quoted from "Fad23" People should be allowed their curiosity without needing to commit time and money, organization and effort that an event would take. This is a discussion forum.
Did the moderators lock the thread? No. Did they delete it? No.
It looks like people were allowed their curiousity. Like you said, this is a discussion forum. That means people are allowed to express their opinions, even if you don't like their opinions.
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
If you did have a guy/follow weekend-- and you let girls in for free. Would it make it more appealing to guys?
Or would that just be like lady's night at every bar in town.....plus lindy. haha [?]
I don't think you would have a problem getting girls, it wouldn't be leads dancing with other guys, just like it's not girls dancing with girls at the followers weekend.
Aside from the fact, that, it may not be needed if someone was just looking for moves, but is is Wanted? like, would guys want to go to something like this? [just currious] That was stylized focused like the girl's one is. I don't know, it would be an interesting idea because as others have stated classes ARE generally move focused, maybe something stylized or varriation/expression focused would be really fun and improve a different aspect of the dance......
.....maybe guys would also like to be free from "leading" to practice stuff and then combine it back together like the follower weekend does.....
Sure, you can just practice and practice anything, just like you can learn moves off of video or seeing someone do it, but it's always nice when someone teaches it to you. I dont know, at first I thought it sounded silly since classes ARE focused on the lead, but a specific aspect of leading [moves] and i think after a whille your focus shifts from moves to a lot of other things that are worth time too. I think it could be done atually, and this weird fear of "guys having to dance with guys"-- ha! any girl within 2 states of the event would "do her part" and not let that happen ;) Don't worry guys. LOL.
And. I think there would be a market for it. Guys looking to improve aspects of their dancing not taught in class [Style, timing, improv, etc.]-- I think those would be appealing because they are hard to do unless youhave been dancing forever, and even then certain things can be hard. But hey, who knows, i'm a girl after all!!! haha
I don't think you would have to have a huge turnout for a 1st time event like this to be considered successful and it would certainly build better, more dynamic leads which is what the follower weekend stives for aswell.
Do those things sound worth a weekend with lots of girls that get in free to any other leads? :dunno:
Because, it sounds like it would be win-win:
Guys get-- styized instruction, tons of girls to dance with, better overall.
Girls get-- Event Free, guys trying to get better/advanced leads to dance with, better overall.
:thumbup:
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
Of course, I'm not going to organize a "Capital Unconventional Lead Gathering" -- I wouldn't qualify to join it ........ :P
Quoted from "Fad23" Okay, this whole "organize the event yourself thing" bugs me. People should be allowed their curiosity without needing to commit time and money, organization and effort that an event would take. This is a discussion forum. Saying "organize the event yourself" is a lot like saying "put up or shut up" or really mostly "shut up."
The market for such guy-styling event is questionable at best. Asking the question of why there aren't such events is a helpful motion towards encouraging ideas. Why aren't there guy jams? Because you might not be able to get the couple hundred guys to sign up for an event with only a few women. It's the awful truth ................
Most leads, from my observations, are not trying to get past their bad habits. Rather they are more interested in learning new variations in turns, swingouts, etc. I feel that the easiest remedy to this is for instructors (in some unorganized fashion) to teach their students to understand fundamentals, while encouraging them to break past having a list of moves ...........
I'd like to thank you Fad23 for the input. You must have read my mind.
Quoted from "lindylicious" Niche events are usually organized by people who care about the niche.........
Leads aren't exactly a niche -- they're half of every couple.
BTW, learning Lindy Hop for me is really like learning a part of American culture.
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
The other thing is that it seems like leads are already spending time learning new things from each other. They're always trading moves, standing in the corner doing solo charleston, talking about clips, trading said clips, one-upping each other, etc. The infrastructure is already there for guys to learn a lot.
But I always - always - hear from girls about how they don't feel like they know any cool styling, they don't feel like they know any cool variations they can do, and the guys don't let them into the clip-sharing club enough to really break down the masters, because really everyone's focused on Frankie and Dean.
So I can completely understand the market that exists for girls to get together and learn a bunch of cool stuff. The guys already have, by virtue of their guy-dom, the experience that allows them to learn neat things, but the girls need to build that themselves.
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
Marcelo
Thanks for picking up the context of my earlier post!
I'm not sure that it's by virtue of guy-dom completely. There are plenty of girls who've been working on their solo charleston stuff. The market for a workshop like this would seem to be those people who don't work on their own dancing outside of a classroom situation.
There definitely are guys who are hungry for new moves - most guys are. I don't believe that most guys are hungry for things they would learn in a guys-only environment.
Perhaps we could question what would best be learned in a sausage-fest? Discounting the teaching guys to follow thing (not because it's not a worthy cause, but because it's a separate set of disciplines than I'd like to focus on) what would be best or easiest for dancers to learn in a single sex environment?
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Fad23"
Perhaps we could question what would best be learned in a sausage-fest?
It wouldn't be a sausage fest.
[unless you wanted it to be. The girl weekends are not JUST Girls!!!!]
Girls may have trouble getting guys to come to their event because they already outnumber guys by far in most areas and there is "Nothing" in it for the guys to come to class since it is not focused to them/progression for them.
But, There are FAR more girls in most areas so I don't think there would be a problem getting girls to come dance with guys that want to work on cool stuff. They are used to being a little bored in class and might find it fun to work on their own stuff too/practice.
The idea/fear that it would be a sausage fest I think is clouding the ability to judge a weekend like this on it's merrits alone.
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
I'm in favor of whatever it takes to help guy-follows figure out how to get through the 1 & 2 with their dignity intact.
(and whatever will give Mr. Wonderful the chance to swivel his heart out.)
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
Edgar Allan Poe
Originally posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 (5 years ago)
Re Sausage-Fest
I was just being drily humorous. Like when Hot Pockets was followed up by Sausages (or was it the other way around?).
How guys come through the 1&2 would seem to be largely dependant on the person leading them, and/or their own understanding of follow skills. I hear a lot of people criticizing guy follows for looking like guys. To me this is stupid. Unless it's about parading around like drag queens, guy follows should look like guys. Why should we expect a dude to swivel like Jewel?
On the other hand, I've never heard of girl leads being criticized for looking like girls. Of course, most follows who lead, no matter how many cool moves they have or how strong their technique display something that makes my radar go "woo" in a weird way. For simplicity's sake, the following sentence is hypothetical. I'm not sure how to pinpoint it yet, but it seems connected to the way use their shoulders (not from their center?) in what seems a little more tentative than most guys learn to be.
Yuwen
Whoops. No problem in terms of answering your question. My pleasure.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
too many homophobes.
I only know about 3 guys that would dance with another guy. Everybody else, when asked, gets a weird face on their face then walks away.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Marcelo"
But I always - always - hear from girls about how they don't feel like they know any cool styling, they don't feel like they know any cool variations they can do, and the guys don't let them into the clip-sharing club enough to really break down the masters, because really everyone's focused on Frankie and Dean.
I hear the same thing all the time, but the thing is that girls have just as much opportunity to join into clip sharing clubs and the such... it just depends on how confident and outgoing she is.
It's unfair to the leads if they're gathered in a corner and working on stuff and the follows complain. If they want to work on stuff, too, then they should join in. At that point, shame on people who cast people out of a group because they are female. Shame on people who do not let people join in and practice. But before we lay the blame on exclusivity, you also have to blame people for not taking initiative either.
The people who created the girl jams saw a need, a market, and a potential for impacting the national swing scene. They took the initiative to do something innovative, and I'm sure that's much harder than going up to a group of people doing solo charleston in the corner and asking to learn what they're doing.
By the way, Marcelo, I agree with you in the fact that there is an innate trait in guy-dom that allows us to converge socially to work on things. I'm Just stating that you can't blame them for not including the girls - it's equal opportunity blame for the girls not joining in.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Just thought that I would add that when a guy wants to work on personal footwork variations within a particular pattern or movement it's easy enough for them to just lead that frequently over any given night and get it down. I'd imagine it's not nearly as easy based on talks I've had with follows. Some of them, especially in their earlier development stages find it hard to even work on swing out footwork variations because they aren't lead enough or when someone does lead them enough they frequently aren't lead well enough to work out the feeling correctly (just repeating what I've heard from various follows).
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Christ.
Talk about knee-jerk reactions.
It's not homophobia; it's about getting laid. Seriously, if your average guy is going to travel for a dance weekend, he wants to see and dance with CHICKS. Oh my God, what a f cking concept. If he wanted to spend a weekend with some men, he could do any number of other activities. Dancing is - and always has been - an outlet for meeting members of the (opposite) desired sex. Not 100 , no, but our best efforts to sanitize it have done nothing to curb the instinct.
As Swifty and others mentioned, almost everything else on the market is lead-centric. Do this. Do that. Make her spin. Matrix dip. Et cetera. There's no market for leader weekends because the entire market is made for leaders. Kudos to the ladies for organizing their own events.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Everest"
Quoted from "Addict"
Quoted from "TomHopper" Leads are told to focus on leading, instead of their own styling, and let follows shine instead, especially at the beginning.
Very true, because style sans technique is commonly referred to as 'crap'
Only because it usually is.
No ... it always is. If you don't have technique there's no way you can dance well. Maybe not everybody needs to be taught in class, but every great dancer has great technique.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Rather than have a single-sex focused event, I feel it might be more advantageous for event organizers to consciously address women's styling and men's styling in their class curricula. These kinds of classes were present ten years ago. Why aren't they apparent nowadays?
Of course, you still run into the issue of needing another person's living weight (i.e. counterbalance and compression) to truly work on these more expressive concerns in a partner situation. You would still really want leads to participate in a follow styling class and vice versa.
As for the difficulty of working on follows styling during a swingout, it might depend on how much leeway the lead offers. I'm still convinced that follows who are inspired to work on their own have been doing it for a while. That was the inspiration for California Girl Jam in the first place.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
I don't know if I agree with the counter-balance being required thing. There's plenty of styling(specific movement, lines, etc) that can be practiced without counter-balance. Being dependant on counter-balance for movement isn't a good thing.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "JacobLA" Just thought that I would add that when a guy wants to work on personal footwork variations within a particular pattern or movement it's easy enough for them to just lead that frequently over any given night and get it down. I'd imagine it's not nearly as easy based on talks I've had with follows. Some of them, especially in their earlier development stages find it hard to even work on swing out footwork variations because they aren't lead enough or when someone does lead them enough they frequently aren't lead well enough to work out the feeling correctly (just repeating what I've heard from various follows).
This is so totally RIGHT ON. I don't choose what you lead me to do. So if you never lead the thing I want to work on then how exactly do I work on it? And a girl can only work on so much without a leader.
But a lead can choose to lead what he wants to work on. So he can be working on stuff during every dance if he wants to.
Lindy is a rooster/pea[bleep!]dance. The males are the colorful, expressive, dominant ones. Women are taught to take a back seat to his lead at all times and if we don't we're called hijackers (what a lovely term).
Couple that limitation with how it's very rare for a regular class to be devoted to follower styling, motion, or even technique as anything more than an occasional special thing. While leads get that in almost every class.
And there you have a hole filled by the girl jams.
I'm hard pressed to think of what hole a guys jam would fill.
I certainly approve of men learning to follow and can see where that would fill a need. But I'm not sure you could make an entire weekend out of guys following. But perhaps you could.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Addict" I don't know if I agree with the counter-balance being required thing. There's plenty of styling(specific movement, lines, etc) that can be practiced without counter-balance. Being dependant on counter-balance for movement isn't a good thing.
I agree with this but when you actually want to work it into a dance then there is a bit of a learning curve of doing whatever movement or styling you've come up with and dancing with your partner at the same time. Sometimes I'll come up with a styling idea I think might work, practice the styling a bit on my own and then figure out that it doesn't really fit like I thought it might. I can frequently alter a little to fit but I don't really know I need to do that until I do try it out a couple times.
And of course there are some stylings that do actually require counterbalance.
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "Fad23" Rather than have a single-sex focused event, I feel it might be more advantageous for event organizers to consciously address women's styling and men's styling in their class curricula. These kinds of classes were present ten years ago. Why aren't they apparent nowadays?
Well, I don't know what was happening 10 years ago, since I've only been dancing for 7. But...
I guess it's kind of like affirmative action. Followers don't get genuinely equal attention at "regular" workshop weekends, so some of us decided to organize weekends to address that issue.
On the other hand, even if regular classes started equally catering to leads & follows, there still might be a benefit to girl jam weekends just in the environment it creates.
And as far as working on things in the corner and all that stuff about clips: I work in the corner, plenty of girls work in the corner--those are the folks you'll see organizing these weekends. Because, believe it or not, not everyone is at the stage where they can just walk up and start dancing in the corner and really progressing that way. It's often helpful to have the workshop format and someone to present the ideas and really show you how things work.
And as for clips, I'm going to venture to say that there's a lot more footage of stuff for guys to break down and steal than there is for ladies. At least old school footage. (Somebody correct me here, if you think that's wrong.) More recent clips are a different story (think of all the ULHS video).
Originally posted Monday, August 28, 2006 (5 years ago)
Quoted from "mousethief"
Talk about knee-jerk reactions.
It's not homophobia; it's about getting laid. Seriously, if your average guy is going to travel for a dance weekend, he wants to see and dance with CHICKS. Oh my God, what a f cking concept. If he wanted to spend a weekend with some men, he could do any number of other activities. Dancing is - and always has been - an outlet for meeting members of the (opposite) desired sex. Not 100 , no, but our best efforts to sanitize it have done nothing to curb the instinct.
This just had to be repeated in case people miss it among all the "legitimate" dance related reasons given. :)
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How come no Guy Jam(s)???
There are so many events for girls/follows, e.g. US Girl Jam, CA Girl Jam, Midwest Girl Jam, and Southern Belle Swing Bash ......., etc. And, I seldom see event(s) especially focus on guys/leads. How come???Just curious. Maybe there are some events like that, and I just do not know them.
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True. Fact is, if you've thrown an event, especially focused on this topic, you're more likely to have concrete opinions based upon experience. Otherwise, the opinions are based upon nothing... hence, organize your own event, experience it, and share.
As far as Guy Jams... since I agree that most workshops are lead focused, I'd say there's little to no market for this. Besides, whereas girls are generally okay with dancing with other girls, for some reason guys are a little more held back when it comes to dancing with other men (in general).
If I remember correctly, most of the girls at the girl jam couldn't lead, nor were they instructed to do so. The event wasn't focused on getting follows to lead but rather to teach women to understand the part of the dance that is theirs.
I still support the event, but I also acknowledge there were issues with how it worked out last year. Again, the event really lacked for boys who were crucial to much of the content. I guess by this time Giselle has heard all the criticism and may have considered how to make this better for the paying customers. For instance, this year there's a focus on Tap dance and breaking. Boys get into the event (to help) for free, to most classes.
Hopefully that means I will be able to sneak into a tap class.
Here's the California Girl Jam MySpace.
Niche events are usually organized by people who care about the niche. If you want a Boy Jam or an Asian Jam or a Jazz Macarena workshop, the best chance maybe to organize it yourself. There is a difference between posting "Why are there no Asian Jams?" and posting "I think an Asian Jam would be hawt. Do you have any advice?" and the replies to those different postings will probably be different.
Did the moderators lock the thread? No. Did they delete it? No.
It looks like people were allowed their curiousity. Like you said, this is a discussion forum. That means people are allowed to express their opinions, even if you don't like their opinions.
I just imagine a guy jam style event to be full of creepy leads for some reason ... CreepyCon 2006 ... or maybe CreepyJam?
you misspelled Blues weekend :P
Speak only if you can improve the silence. - Quaker saying (via @Rikomatic)
No one is vere going to organize it because most people really don't care that much.
:shrug:
But Fad23 has a point. Why can't the guy talk about it as an idea without being told over and over again to organize it himself? He's just ruminating.
In other news, it looks like Hannah (and I) will be attending the CA Girl Jam. I'm more than happy to be a lead to these fine ladies.
If you did have a guy/follow weekend-- and you let girls in for free. Would it make it more appealing to guys?
Or would that just be like lady's night at every bar in town.....plus lindy. haha [?]
I don't think you would have a problem getting girls, it wouldn't be leads dancing with other guys, just like it's not girls dancing with girls at the followers weekend. Aside from the fact, that, it may not be needed if someone was just looking for moves, but is is Wanted? like, would guys want to go to something like this? [just currious] That was stylized focused like the girl's one is. I don't know, it would be an interesting idea because as others have stated classes ARE generally move focused, maybe something stylized or varriation/expression focused would be really fun and improve a different aspect of the dance...... .....maybe guys would also like to be free from "leading" to practice stuff and then combine it back together like the follower weekend does.....
Sure, you can just practice and practice anything, just like you can learn moves off of video or seeing someone do it, but it's always nice when someone teaches it to you. I dont know, at first I thought it sounded silly since classes ARE focused on the lead, but a specific aspect of leading [moves] and i think after a whille your focus shifts from moves to a lot of other things that are worth time too. I think it could be done atually, and this weird fear of "guys having to dance with guys"-- ha! any girl within 2 states of the event would "do her part" and not let that happen ;) Don't worry guys. LOL.
And. I think there would be a market for it. Guys looking to improve aspects of their dancing not taught in class [Style, timing, improv, etc.]-- I think those would be appealing because they are hard to do unless youhave been dancing forever, and even then certain things can be hard. But hey, who knows, i'm a girl after all!!! haha I don't think you would have to have a huge turnout for a 1st time event like this to be considered successful and it would certainly build better, more dynamic leads which is what the follower weekend stives for aswell.
Do those things sound worth a weekend with lots of girls that get in free to any other leads? :dunno: Because, it sounds like it would be win-win: Guys get-- styized instruction, tons of girls to dance with, better overall. Girls get-- Event Free, guys trying to get better/advanced leads to dance with, better overall. :thumbup:
Of course, I'm not going to organize a "Capital Unconventional Lead Gathering" -- I wouldn't qualify to join it ........ :P
I'd like to thank you Fad23 for the input. You must have read my mind.
Leads aren't exactly a niche -- they're half of every couple.
BTW, learning Lindy Hop for me is really like learning a part of American culture.
The other thing is that it seems like leads are already spending time learning new things from each other. They're always trading moves, standing in the corner doing solo charleston, talking about clips, trading said clips, one-upping each other, etc. The infrastructure is already there for guys to learn a lot.
But I always - always - hear from girls about how they don't feel like they know any cool styling, they don't feel like they know any cool variations they can do, and the guys don't let them into the clip-sharing club enough to really break down the masters, because really everyone's focused on Frankie and Dean.
So I can completely understand the market that exists for girls to get together and learn a bunch of cool stuff. The guys already have, by virtue of their guy-dom, the experience that allows them to learn neat things, but the girls need to build that themselves.
Marcelo Thanks for picking up the context of my earlier post!
I'm not sure that it's by virtue of guy-dom completely. There are plenty of girls who've been working on their solo charleston stuff. The market for a workshop like this would seem to be those people who don't work on their own dancing outside of a classroom situation.
There definitely are guys who are hungry for new moves - most guys are. I don't believe that most guys are hungry for things they would learn in a guys-only environment.
Perhaps we could question what would best be learned in a sausage-fest? Discounting the teaching guys to follow thing (not because it's not a worthy cause, but because it's a separate set of disciplines than I'd like to focus on) what would be best or easiest for dancers to learn in a single sex environment?
Gotta run. Curious to hear what everyone thinks.
Very true, because style sans technique is commonly referred to as 'crap'
It wouldn't be a sausage fest. [unless you wanted it to be. The girl weekends are not JUST Girls!!!!] Girls may have trouble getting guys to come to their event because they already outnumber guys by far in most areas and there is "Nothing" in it for the guys to come to class since it is not focused to them/progression for them.
But, There are FAR more girls in most areas so I don't think there would be a problem getting girls to come dance with guys that want to work on cool stuff. They are used to being a little bored in class and might find it fun to work on their own stuff too/practice.
The idea/fear that it would be a sausage fest I think is clouding the ability to judge a weekend like this on it's merrits alone.
I'm in favor of whatever it takes to help guy-follows figure out how to get through the 1 & 2 with their dignity intact. (and whatever will give Mr. Wonderful the chance to swivel his heart out.)
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them. Edgar Allan Poe
Re Sausage-Fest I was just being drily humorous. Like when Hot Pockets was followed up by Sausages (or was it the other way around?).
How guys come through the 1&2 would seem to be largely dependant on the person leading them, and/or their own understanding of follow skills. I hear a lot of people criticizing guy follows for looking like guys. To me this is stupid. Unless it's about parading around like drag queens, guy follows should look like guys. Why should we expect a dude to swivel like Jewel?
On the other hand, I've never heard of girl leads being criticized for looking like girls. Of course, most follows who lead, no matter how many cool moves they have or how strong their technique display something that makes my radar go "woo" in a weird way. For simplicity's sake, the following sentence is hypothetical. I'm not sure how to pinpoint it yet, but it seems connected to the way use their shoulders (not from their center?) in what seems a little more tentative than most guys learn to be.
Yuwen Whoops. No problem in terms of answering your question. My pleasure.
Only because it usually is.
too many homophobes. I only know about 3 guys that would dance with another guy. Everybody else, when asked, gets a weird face on their face then walks away.
I hear the same thing all the time, but the thing is that girls have just as much opportunity to join into clip sharing clubs and the such... it just depends on how confident and outgoing she is.
It's unfair to the leads if they're gathered in a corner and working on stuff and the follows complain. If they want to work on stuff, too, then they should join in. At that point, shame on people who cast people out of a group because they are female. Shame on people who do not let people join in and practice. But before we lay the blame on exclusivity, you also have to blame people for not taking initiative either.
The people who created the girl jams saw a need, a market, and a potential for impacting the national swing scene. They took the initiative to do something innovative, and I'm sure that's much harder than going up to a group of people doing solo charleston in the corner and asking to learn what they're doing.
By the way, Marcelo, I agree with you in the fact that there is an innate trait in guy-dom that allows us to converge socially to work on things. I'm Just stating that you can't blame them for not including the girls - it's equal opportunity blame for the girls not joining in.
Just thought that I would add that when a guy wants to work on personal footwork variations within a particular pattern or movement it's easy enough for them to just lead that frequently over any given night and get it down. I'd imagine it's not nearly as easy based on talks I've had with follows. Some of them, especially in their earlier development stages find it hard to even work on swing out footwork variations because they aren't lead enough or when someone does lead them enough they frequently aren't lead well enough to work out the feeling correctly (just repeating what I've heard from various follows).
Yep.
Although, "giant gaping hole" is not a selling point.
Kalman
Christ.
Talk about knee-jerk reactions.
It's not homophobia; it's about getting laid. Seriously, if your average guy is going to travel for a dance weekend, he wants to see and dance with CHICKS. Oh my God, what a f cking concept. If he wanted to spend a weekend with some men, he could do any number of other activities. Dancing is - and always has been - an outlet for meeting members of the (opposite) desired sex. Not 100 , no, but our best efforts to sanitize it have done nothing to curb the instinct.
As Swifty and others mentioned, almost everything else on the market is lead-centric. Do this. Do that. Make her spin. Matrix dip. Et cetera. There's no market for leader weekends because the entire market is made for leaders. Kudos to the ladies for organizing their own events.
Kalman
No ... it always is. If you don't have technique there's no way you can dance well. Maybe not everybody needs to be taught in class, but every great dancer has great technique.
Rather than have a single-sex focused event, I feel it might be more advantageous for event organizers to consciously address women's styling and men's styling in their class curricula. These kinds of classes were present ten years ago. Why aren't they apparent nowadays?
Of course, you still run into the issue of needing another person's living weight (i.e. counterbalance and compression) to truly work on these more expressive concerns in a partner situation. You would still really want leads to participate in a follow styling class and vice versa.
As for the difficulty of working on follows styling during a swingout, it might depend on how much leeway the lead offers. I'm still convinced that follows who are inspired to work on their own have been doing it for a while. That was the inspiration for California Girl Jam in the first place.
I don't know if I agree with the counter-balance being required thing. There's plenty of styling(specific movement, lines, etc) that can be practiced without counter-balance. Being dependant on counter-balance for movement isn't a good thing.
This is so totally RIGHT ON. I don't choose what you lead me to do. So if you never lead the thing I want to work on then how exactly do I work on it? And a girl can only work on so much without a leader.
But a lead can choose to lead what he wants to work on. So he can be working on stuff during every dance if he wants to.
Lindy is a rooster/pea[bleep!]dance. The males are the colorful, expressive, dominant ones. Women are taught to take a back seat to his lead at all times and if we don't we're called hijackers (what a lovely term).
Couple that limitation with how it's very rare for a regular class to be devoted to follower styling, motion, or even technique as anything more than an occasional special thing. While leads get that in almost every class.
And there you have a hole filled by the girl jams. I'm hard pressed to think of what hole a guys jam would fill.
I certainly approve of men learning to follow and can see where that would fill a need. But I'm not sure you could make an entire weekend out of guys following. But perhaps you could.
D'oh!
I agree with this but when you actually want to work it into a dance then there is a bit of a learning curve of doing whatever movement or styling you've come up with and dancing with your partner at the same time. Sometimes I'll come up with a styling idea I think might work, practice the styling a bit on my own and then figure out that it doesn't really fit like I thought it might. I can frequently alter a little to fit but I don't really know I need to do that until I do try it out a couple times. And of course there are some stylings that do actually require counterbalance.
Well, I don't know what was happening 10 years ago, since I've only been dancing for 7. But...
I guess it's kind of like affirmative action. Followers don't get genuinely equal attention at "regular" workshop weekends, so some of us decided to organize weekends to address that issue.
On the other hand, even if regular classes started equally catering to leads & follows, there still might be a benefit to girl jam weekends just in the environment it creates.
And as far as working on things in the corner and all that stuff about clips: I work in the corner, plenty of girls work in the corner--those are the folks you'll see organizing these weekends. Because, believe it or not, not everyone is at the stage where they can just walk up and start dancing in the corner and really progressing that way. It's often helpful to have the workshop format and someone to present the ideas and really show you how things work.
And as for clips, I'm going to venture to say that there's a lot more footage of stuff for guys to break down and steal than there is for ladies. At least old school footage. (Somebody correct me here, if you think that's wrong.) More recent clips are a different story (think of all the ULHS video).
This just had to be repeated in case people miss it among all the "legitimate" dance related reasons given. :)
Martinis do not contain vodka. —Rachel Maddow
There aren't many swing dancers called: "Guy".
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