Okay, so yeah the title sounds dumb, but bear with me here. I finally ponied up the $$ and bought some aris allen dance shoes (a pair of dance sneakers and a pair of captoes). Now, until now I've been dancing in a pair of All Stars, and they're comfy...
And quite frankly, your counter-example of the way soccer players move is just as much of an exaggeration. Soccer players wear cleats and can do all sorts of things because their shoes are literally sticking their feet to the ground. I'd like you to try to move like a soccer player, wearing cleats on a pitch, on a polished ballroom floor wearing slick shoes. Should you try, please get it on film. I'd pay for that :)
That's besides the point. The fact is that you can't change direction without extending your feet beyond your center in the direction you're moving, unless you have another way of redirecting your momentum. As I noted earlier, that other way involves using your partner's momentum.
For once I totally agree with Zenin. These are strange times.
I admit I was especially dogmatic in my rant on "keep your feet under you." I was cranky. Instead of propounding more on that, let me present a couple of situations where one might be tempted to offer that advice, along with some other (better imho) options.
A common case where you'll see beginner/intermediate leaders taking a big giant step is on step 2 of a swingout. There are various reasons for that, some of which are related to what the follow is doing. You can say "take smaller steps" or "keep your feet under you," and perhaps that may be helpful. But imho, advice like this is often minimally effective, because a.) 90 of the people in class don't believe it applies to them and b.) even if they do, they don't really have the physical awareness to understand when they're manifesting the problem and why.
As for the "when," one way I'd address this problem in class would be to simply drill the first 2-3 steps of a swingout with the leads, just by demonstration and copying. A great way to build body awareness is to have them actually do it wrong on purpose a time or two so that they feel the difference. Part of the reason leaders take giant steps on 2 might be that the follow isn't moving enough through the swingout, and a sort of mutual negative feedback loop is occurring. Thus you may have to work with follows independently as you work with the leads.
As to the "why," as bryn noted, much of the problem with feet not being under you is related to posture. When students find that ready stance (shoulders forward, butt back), it tends to resolve a huge number of other issues, including "feet not under them," and I tend to see the latter more a symptom of the lack of the former than vice versa. IMHO, jogging makes a fairly close approximation to good lindy posture. Consider the fact that when you jog, your leg does not extend and straighten as much when you take a step, thus it's "more under you" when your weight changes than it is when walking.
So, one way to work on this is to have students literally jog around the room. Jogging backwards especially, because it's pretty much impossible to jog backwards with one's shoulders back (without falling.) Then to further the awareness, I'd have students attempt to jog through their swingouts, trying to maintain roughly the same feel. (Esp. if you're aiming for a bouncy style). I've had really amazing results with this technique. Posture/footwork/everything tends to re-orient more closely to a proper swingout.
Another approach I might take could be to work a bit on committing our weight fully to the weight bearing foot (ie, not straddling our weight). When you do that, almost by definition your weight bearing leg is going to be pretty much directly under your center of gravity. There are lots of ways to work this -- extending the jogging example, you can have people practice taking a little jog step, and then pausing and collecting their weight on one leg before prepping and pushing into the next one. This also works "using the floor," which, incidentally, should help with traction.
Not all of these examples would be appropriate for every class. They're just a few possibilities.
The nice thing about these exercises is that they require very little actual talking. Much less than this post! My current theory is that doing trumps seeing trumps hearing, every time, because as Zenin observed, the gulf between what you say and what you actually do is sometimes so huge that it's easy to say things that are either inaccurate or minimally helpful.
I'll echo Ogden for a moment. Just go out and dance on 'em.
Yes, you'll feel out of control for a bit. Yes, you'll probably fall on your butt a time or two. When that happens you'll feel deeply embarrassed.
Do it anyway.
Once you're past that initial learning curve you'll find greater control. You slip and slide because your weight is behind (or to the side of) your feet. This is not the slick shoes' fault; they're merely exposing this deficiency in your dancing. Learn to control your weight and balance, and you'll fix that part of your dancing. Eventually you'll be able to slide when you want, or come to a dead stop using good technique.
For what it's worth- each pair of AA dance shoes that I own were like ICE when I first bought them, but after dancing a few times both the shoes and I grew into each other. I certainly had to learn where my center was...but the first 2-3 times the shoes were REALLY slick and just needed to be danced in a bit.
Quoted from "Addict" I'd like you to try to move like a soccer player, wearing cleats on a pitch, on a polished ballroom floor wearing slick shoes. Should you try, please get it on film. I'd pay for that :)
That's besides the point.
But it really isn't. One of the things you have to work with, is that people use their past experience to do things that seem like something they've tried before. So if I've made fast direction changes many times before (even though, as it turns out, the way I handled those turns relied on my shoes sticking to the running surface), I am going to try something similar when I have to make a fast direction change dancing. And it's not going to work, because I'm going to slide around. If you tried to change direction like a soccer player in dance shoes on a slick floor, you'd fall on your ass. What you actually have to do while dancing is different, and it almost surely involves keeping your center of gravity much closer to your point of contact with the ground. Hence the advice, which just might have been thought out. It's an exaggerated way of thinking to help correct the normal way of doing things.
Quoted from "Phlurg" Stand up totally straight, so that you're exactly perpendicular to the ground.
Actually, that's physically impossible. My body isn't made of straight lines, so it can't be perpendicular to the floor. Now, I know that sounds nitpicky, but I don't think it's much more nitpicky than pointing out that it's impossible to move without shifting your weight. I tried what you said, to the best of my ability, and I was actually surprised at how little leaning forward I saw while walking. It was almost imperceptible. (Maybe I do walk funny, but then I don't normally start off trying so hard to be perpendicular, either.)
FWIW, I happen to be especially aware that it's impossible for me to stand perfectly square to the ground because my back curves in ways that aren't quite normal, and it gives me all sorts of issues with balance. The "keep your weight over you feet" advice is one of the few things that actually helped with that.
Quoted from "Phlurg" Here's my theory, having taught for quite a while. When you get up in front of a group of students you sometimes find yourself wanting something to say, and often what comes out of your mouth is stuff other people taught you.
Okay, if that the context you've heard it in, I agree. As a meme, it should probably die. The times I particularly remember hearing it (as in, the times I was really listening), were times when an instructor watched me, specifically, paused to think about what to say, and that was one of the things they said. However...
Quote The fact is that you can't change direction without extending your feet beyond your center in the direction you're moving, unless you have another way of redirecting your momentum.
I think this has everything to do with why your words made such a disconnect with my experience. You are giving advice on leading (of course -- a leader asked the question.) I've heard this advice (mainly) in the context of being more leadable. While following, I'm typically not changing my own momentum -- the leader is taking care of that for me. I don't make the decision about when to change direction, so I can't really prepare for it by leaning a certain way. If I commit strongly to moving in a particular direction, it's hard for the leader to redirect me, and it limits what he can do with me.
You are addressing the case where a lead slides unintentionally, which is most likely to happen when he's making a direction change. So yeah, if he takes the advice to keep his feet under him too literally in that situation, he's gonna be screwed.
And sure, whenever possible, a good exercise can help more than words. But for some of us, the words are important, too. We need both. Are there problems with words? Sure. I've run into issues of all kinds taking the words too literally, or trying too hard to follow them, or not understanding them (including the words we've been talking about here, which have helped, but yeah I've had issues with taking that too literally.) But the exercises have their drawbacks, too. We can use the things we get from them inappropriately, and we need guidance on how to use what we learn there, what part of what we just felt is the takeaway, and how really dancing is also different from whatever exercise we just did.
And for anyone reading this that doesn't know who we are yet, Phlurg and bryn have tons more experience than I do. If I argue with someone like Phlurg, it's because I think I can learn something from his responses when I talk about what feels "off" to me with what he said.
r_c_s, I'm referring to a theory of movement that says that, at least in part, our center tends to precede our feet. This is especially noticeable at high speeds or during rapid acceleration or direction changes, as in:
It's the same principle that makes skaters do this:
All of these images share the fact that the feet are not directly under the body. Now, obviously if Kobe Bryant was wearing Aris Allens on a slippery floor, he'd fall on his ass in that picture. That's not a problem for the theory. It merely says that the speed at which one can accelerate/decelerate is in part a function of factors like momentum, friction, angle of attack with the ground, etc...
So yes, on a slippery surface, your angle of attack of the weight bearing leg in particular has to be lessened. If that's what people mean by "keep your feet under you," then sure, but I still think the advice is fairly useless in that context because I think it's something people tend to have already learned, because otherwise they really would be falling, and falling is a great teacher. ;)
Re: standing totally straight. Ok, substitute "do your best imitation of a soldier at attention" for "stand up totally straight." I don't think the body first theory is a complete description of how we move or walk generally. It's a complex topic.
Re: follows vs. leads. I don't have as much advice for follows on slippery surfaces -- I think where things tend to break down generally is when the follow prematurely ends her own momentum. So yeah, it's incumbent on the follow to not anticipate or change her momentum in some weird way. On slippery floors, for example, as a leader I find it much more difficult to do swingouts with follows who don't come forward enough in the first half.
Re: words. I have nothing against them. ;) In classes I try to hit all three learning styles (kinesthetic, visual, verbal) via explanations, demonstrations, exercises. However, I do believe that the act of translation from a purely verbal description to physical sensation or motor skill is highly error prone and problematic. So I like to short circuit the process by tricking students into approximating the physical sensation naturally, as in the jogging example. That way, they're not so much groping along the foggy path from words to movement but merely applying labels/explanations to movement they already grasp.
I admit that my prejudice against the feet under you thing is curmudgeonly and overly literal. What can I say? I'm a literal curmudgeon.
Ok here's the thing about all your picture examples, Phlurg - they're all moving by themselves. And in partner dancing that isn't the case. Even if you come from the school of very little counter balance, you're still either moving someone else or being moved by someone else or perhaps a little of both. Even a little bit of someone else's weight being thrown into the mix changes everything. If you lean that far forward and someone gives you a pull, you're done. (Especially as a follower.) Even moreso with a fast floor/shoes - which is what this thread's about, right?
Now I can agree that the simple phrase "keep your feet under you" doesn't do much good as a teaching tool without anything else being shown or said. But I gotta tell ya that when I learned to not let my feet get too far behind or in front of me is when I really started to be a responsive follower. Does that mean they are literally always under me? No. But if I keep that in mind as a goal I usually do better. And my students seem to, too.
So I do make that correction on some of my students. I just usually do it with more explanation than "keep your feet under you". The mistakes they're making often include them not engaging their core, and not pushing through their feet, taking larger steps than needed, and in some cases collapsing their upper bodies forward. And I talk about all of that.
But in my head I have to admit I'm sometimes thinking "if you would just keep your feet under you and have some better posture".
And while we all know Zenin is just so much smarter than the rest of us and needs everything to be literal and exact, most of the rest of us just need a concept to work towards, with a few specific actions that help us get there.
If I'd come to this thread sooner my advice to the initial poster probably would have been focused on keeping his core engaged more and taking smaller steps at first until he felt more comfortable using larger footwork again. That and keeping his chest and head more upright. When you're first learning to dance on smoother surfaces or with faster shoes, you need to develop the familiarity with what's coming. Tight core, small steps, head and chest up for a while and it'll all start to become easier.
So no, I wouldn't have said, keep your feet under you. But physically it woulda kinda been the same thing.
Quoted from "mouth" Ok here's the thing about all your picture examples, Phlurg - they're all moving by themselves. And in partner dancing that isn't the case. Even if you come from the school of very little counter balance, you're still either moving someone else or being moved by someone else or perhaps a little of both. Even a little bit of someone else's weight being thrown into the mix changes everything. If you lean that far forward and someone gives you a pull, you're done. (Especially as a follower.) Even moreso with a fast floor/shoes - which is what this thread's about, right?
I agree with this, but let me go back to my original example of a rock step. I don't see how it's possible to do a rockstep without your back foot at least being slightly behind your center of gravity. I mean, perhaps if you bring your back toe only, say, 2 inches behind your front one, or perhaps if you move your shoulders back as you do it so it stays over the back foot, but that's not actually how anyone does rocksteps.
Or, let me put it another way. In the most trivial sense, the keep your feet under you idea must be false because whenever you take a step bigger than an inch or so, one of your feet must by definition be either in front or behind your body at some point during the step. If it works to help people adjust their posture or engage their core or whatever then great, I'm all for it, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that it's technically false.
Well the whole point of a rock step is to use it as a launching pad. You aren't supposed to fully commit your weight backwards. It's a cheat step, and the weight is angled into the floor. And yes, I do move my hips back with my foot on the rock step. My shoulders stay forward but my feet never cease being beneath me.
Quoted from "Phlurg" Or, let me put it another way. In the most trivial sense, the keep your feet under you idea must be false because whenever you take a step bigger than an inch or so, one of your feet must by definition be either in front or behind your body at some point during the step.
As I said before, I don't think it matters whether the non-standing leg is under you. You aren't putting any weight on it so it doesn't need to be centred. But hopefully this other leg is still under control... not flailing about wildly.
Anyway, I'm all for doing more than talking, but I have used this suggestion on occasion when it was warranted, and it was immediately helpful. And of course I always demo what I'm talking about, too.
Quoted from "mouth" Ok here's the thing about all your picture examples, Phlurg - they're all moving by themselves. And in partner dancing that isn't the case. Even if you come from the school of very little counter balance, you're still either moving someone else or being moved by someone else or perhaps a little of both. Even a little bit of someone else's weight being thrown into the mix changes everything. If you lean that far forward and someone gives you a pull, you're done. (Especially as a follower.) Even moreso with a fast floor/shoes - which is what this thread's about, right?
I agree with this, but let me go back to my original example of a rock step. I don't see how it's possible to do a rockstep without your back foot at least being slightly behind your center of gravity. I mean, perhaps if you bring your back toe only, say, 2 inches behind your front one, or perhaps if you move your shoulders back as you do it so it stays over the back foot, but that's not actually how anyone does rocksteps.
Or, let me put it another way. In the most trivial sense, the keep your feet under you idea must be false because whenever you take a step bigger than an inch or so, one of your feet must by definition be either in front or behind your body at some point during the step. If it works to help people adjust their posture or engage their core or whatever then great, I'm all for it, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that it's technically false.
Wait, so you really don't move ANY of your weight during a rock step? I know there's this new cool styling some of the boys are doing where they stretch their leg really far back during the rock and only move their body a little. But that's styling. And usually you put styling on after you've gotten the basic technique down. Style is often breaking the rules to do other cool things. And for me, the whole idea of keeping your feet under you is involved with the stage before the breaking the rules style thing.
Maybe I lead poorly (totally willing to own that) but when I follow, I most definitely bring my center back on a rock. Is it an absolute perfect line between my head and my back foot? Probably not. But who's busy measuring that kind of thing anyway? If my leader leads me to rock back, he's leading my body, not my foot. So my body initiates the motion and my foot goes down according to how much he's moved my center. So yeah, basically my foot stays pretty much under me. If it goes to far back then my body will, too, and I won't have followed what he lead. And if it doesn't move enough and right away then I won't be able to put it down and I'll fall.
Again, yeah, it's not 100 exact and perfect all the time. But I definitely don't want to teach people that their feet are leading the motion. They're not. And I don't want to teach that you leave them behind. You don't do that either. There should be simultaneous action with body and feet. Which seems totally in line with the idea of keeping your feet with you or "under" you if one prefers.
So with a window of what "feet underneath me" means, slightly behind maybe, slightly in front possibly, but generally with your body, it seems pretty factual to say that overall your center is over your standing foot or both feet if you're split weight. And if your body's over your feet then by definition your feet are under your body.
I mean, as you pointed out, if you're not over your feet you're falling. And I don't spend much time falling when I lindy hop. At least, not more than once a night (on a good day). I want to control, push, pull, move myself; not fall.
And that all requires the feet to come along for the ride (and in some cases drive).
Maybe it's the math geek in you that's got your panties in a bunch. And everyone knows a math geek in panties is hot so don't sweat it. :wink:
The thing about leading our center ahead of our feet, as in Phlurg's pictures above, is that our feet are always being moved to catch up. In effect, every step you take is a shifting of your center, followed closely by a step taken (beneath your center!) to catch your fall.
It's not so much about keeping your feet beneath you as it is bringing your feet back under you.
Don't agree? Try walking by moving your foot first, then your center. It'll look and feel completely retarded.
Now, try another exercise. Extend your leg forward and raised slightly. Now "fall" forward onto that leg. Where is your weight in relation to that foot, once you catch yourself? It's stacked, isn't it? Your foot IS beneath you.
Wait, so you really don't move ANY of your weight during a rock step?
No, I do a partial weight shift, just like you do. Watch yourself do one in the mirror though and tell me where your foot is in relation to your body. Better yet, send me some pictures. ;)
Quote
Maybe it's the math geek in you that's got your panties in a bunch.
As I said before, I don't think it matters whether the non-standing leg is under you. You aren't putting any weight on it so it doesn't need to be centred. But hopefully this other leg is still under control... not flailing about wildly.
If what you're saying is that your weight bearing leg needs to be centered under you, I don't believe it's possible for it to be otherwise, without a) falling or b) moving. Here's an experiment: from a standstill, fully put your weight fully on a leg that's not under you and see what happens. Post the results on youtube. ;)
Here's where I think we can agree. Compare the way your weight shifts between walking and jogging. When you walk, your receiving leg extends out in front of you, before your weight has fully transferred. When you jog, your receiving leg stays under you, so that the weight shift is somewhat more simultaneous with the step. If you were to take a photo in both cases of the exact instant when both feet were on the ground, you'd see that in walking, the body is centered more evenly between front/back feet, whereas in jogging, the body is closer to the front foot.
I think we would agree that the latter (jogging) is closer to what we need in lindy, and that "keep your feet under you" is a sort of shorthand for all of that, even though it's not your feet (plural) that remain under you, but your receiving leg as you make a weight shift. But the latter is a rather windy thing to say, I'd agree.
Yes, the idea of "partial" or "complete" weight shifts is not 100 true, in that you don't move your body totally over your foot, so the weight is actually acting somewhere between your feet. But I'm not teaching a physics class, and I find that telling people to transfer their weight completely gets the point of what I want them to do across to them and into their bodies much faster, and in a way that they can understand, than a detailed physics discussion.
I dont' usually use "keep you feet underneath you", though I understand it's application. I try not to separate the feet from the body when I'm teaching. Usually we focus on body movement, focusing on weight transitions while keeping the feet closer to the body (small steps). When students get too concerned about feet, I usually say somethinglike "your body is very good at keeping your feet underneath it already, so concentrate on the body movement, and the feet will naturally do what they need to do to support that movement". Sometimes this is hard for those beginners that really want a "step-by-step" set of directions, but it's often freeing for those beginners who get overwhelmed up by thinking of their body, their feet, their partner, what is being lead/followed etc. all at the same time. It's one less thing to think about.
That said, we often let our beginners start with a complete weight shift, moving the body over the foot with the wieght on it, becuase it drives home the completeness and importance of the weight shift. It also helps them to keeop their steps small, becuase it's harder to transition weight clearly over a larger step, in the amount of time even a med-slow tempo song gives you. Once they get used to this, it's realtively easy to transition to a more typical rock step, especially at higher tempos, because they are thinking about how their body is moving and feeling, rather than exactly where their feet are.
Agreed. When I teach people from scratch, it never seems to come up as an issue because we don't focus on the feet (aside from working on basic footwork variations); we focus on the dynamic of the movement. But when I'm training dancers who've started learning to dance elsewhere, whether from other instructors or just by social dancing, it sometimes comes up as a bad habit they've already acquired.
Quoted from "Boston Globe from Phlurg's Link" They're designed to monitor elderly people, and send alerts if increased wavering signals the risk of a fall.
I know you just had a birthday, dude, but don't you think this is a little drastic?
Quoted from "Boston Globe from Phlurg's Link" They're designed to monitor elderly people, and send alerts if increased wavering signals the risk of a fall.
I know you just had a birthday, dude, but don't you think this is a little drastic?
Why you... come over here so I can hit you with my cane!
Quoted from "Boston Globe from Phlurg's Link" They're designed to monitor elderly people, and send alerts if increased wavering signals the risk of a fall.
I know you just had a birthday, dude, but don't you think this is a little drastic?
Maybe it'll help keep Frankie from breaking his hip again!
Anyway, folks. Thanks for the interesting debate.
I've found that yeah, I just needed to dance in my AA captoes some more. I haven't worn my sneakers again b/c I haven't had time to get out to get a wire brush (long story but basically allergies knocked me on my ass soon after recovering from pneumonia), so they're still slippery as glass, but the raw soles are doing just fine. I DID fall straight on my butt once, though, but while my follow was apologizing (she didn't really give me a good connection on that move, but I should've realized that earlier), I was telling her not to. Why tell you this? Because the funny thing is that I effectively dropped myself. THAT's why I'm saying this (hey, it's FUNNY! :P ). ANyway, yeah. Definitely learning to dance in these things, and learning to LOVE it.
Now I just need to learn how to susie q with those heels on my captoes. Any tips on that? I'm used to doing the susie q (when I'm leading her in swivels/switches) with all stars, and the dance sneakers felt much the same in that regard. So, I'm not used to putting my forward foot on what is effectively a narrow edge, and so I get little to NO traction and the lead becomes the obvious thing, NOT the follow's thing (which SHOULD be the highlighted portion of the move. her doing swivels and switches is HER chance to show off).
If the soles of your shoes are slippy enough, you don't have to lift your toe up for your Suzy-Q's. You can totally just do them on a flat foot. My sources inform me that this is a totally legit and vintage styling, and some of them (though not all) insist that it is in fact the ONLY correct styling, and if you're propped up on the corner of your heel, then it's not a suzie-q anymore, it's something else entirely (somebody said corkscrew?).
I'll have to try doing it that way now :D. Thanks. Somehow doing it flatfooted never crossed my mind, as I've only seen it done with the front foot being popped up on the heel.
Quoted from "mouth" If you do a toe-up Suzy Q in front of Frankie you'll get a talking to. Toe down is the way to go.
Well, I stand corrected 8). And good thing too. I wouldn't want to embarass myself in front of Frankie, after all. Sure I doubt I'll measure UP to him, but I can at least do it right ;).
Quoted from "Big Mike" I'll echo Ogden for a moment. Just go out and dance on 'em.
Yes, you'll feel out of control for a bit. Yes, you'll probably fall on your butt a time or two. When that happens you'll feel deeply embarrassed.
Do it anyway.
Once you're past that initial learning curve you'll find greater control. You slip and slide because your weight is behind (or to the side of) your feet.
Hmm, if he's dancing at home or at least solo in an uncrowded area, that sounds like a good idea, but wouldn't that approach be likely to hurt his follow or one of the other people on a crowded dance floor? I'm all for learning to dance with better technique, but being so out of control that you fall, crash into someone, etc. seems like a pretty bad idea. :( Using the less-slippery shoes on those particular dance floors until his technique improves seems like a reasonable compromise.
Quoted from "mouth" If you do a toe-up Suzy Q in front of Frankie you'll get a talking to. Toe down is the way to go.
Ha, I was about to say the same thing. I was once in a class where we were doing some sort of jazz routine and I forget who was teaching, but Frankie was watching. About half the class was doing the Suzy Q with their toes up, and Frankie stopped the class to make everyone remember for the rest of their lives that it ain't supposed to be that way, and to keep our dern toes down. It was fantastic.
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Lindy:
Swing Talk
- 9/18/08 12:00 am by SirBrass
- 7654 views
Okay, so yeah the title sounds dumb, but bear with me here. I finally ponied up the $$ and bought some aris allen dance shoes (a pair of dance sneakers and a pair of captoes). Now, until now I've been dancing in a pair of All Stars, and they're comfy...Page(s): < Previous 1 2 ... (58 items total)
Phlurg
That's besides the point. The fact is that you can't change direction without extending your feet beyond your center in the direction you're moving, unless you have another way of redirecting your momentum. As I noted earlier, that other way involves using your partner's momentum.
Phlurg
For once I totally agree with Zenin. These are strange times.
I admit I was especially dogmatic in my rant on "keep your feet under you." I was cranky. Instead of propounding more on that, let me present a couple of situations where one might be tempted to offer that advice, along with some other (better imho) options.
A common case where you'll see beginner/intermediate leaders taking a big giant step is on step 2 of a swingout. There are various reasons for that, some of which are related to what the follow is doing. You can say "take smaller steps" or "keep your feet under you," and perhaps that may be helpful. But imho, advice like this is often minimally effective, because a.) 90 of the people in class don't believe it applies to them and b.) even if they do, they don't really have the physical awareness to understand when they're manifesting the problem and why.
As for the "when," one way I'd address this problem in class would be to simply drill the first 2-3 steps of a swingout with the leads, just by demonstration and copying. A great way to build body awareness is to have them actually do it wrong on purpose a time or two so that they feel the difference. Part of the reason leaders take giant steps on 2 might be that the follow isn't moving enough through the swingout, and a sort of mutual negative feedback loop is occurring. Thus you may have to work with follows independently as you work with the leads.
As to the "why," as bryn noted, much of the problem with feet not being under you is related to posture. When students find that ready stance (shoulders forward, butt back), it tends to resolve a huge number of other issues, including "feet not under them," and I tend to see the latter more a symptom of the lack of the former than vice versa. IMHO, jogging makes a fairly close approximation to good lindy posture. Consider the fact that when you jog, your leg does not extend and straighten as much when you take a step, thus it's "more under you" when your weight changes than it is when walking.
So, one way to work on this is to have students literally jog around the room. Jogging backwards especially, because it's pretty much impossible to jog backwards with one's shoulders back (without falling.) Then to further the awareness, I'd have students attempt to jog through their swingouts, trying to maintain roughly the same feel. (Esp. if you're aiming for a bouncy style). I've had really amazing results with this technique. Posture/footwork/everything tends to re-orient more closely to a proper swingout.
Another approach I might take could be to work a bit on committing our weight fully to the weight bearing foot (ie, not straddling our weight). When you do that, almost by definition your weight bearing leg is going to be pretty much directly under your center of gravity. There are lots of ways to work this -- extending the jogging example, you can have people practice taking a little jog step, and then pausing and collecting their weight on one leg before prepping and pushing into the next one. This also works "using the floor," which, incidentally, should help with traction.
Not all of these examples would be appropriate for every class. They're just a few possibilities.
The nice thing about these exercises is that they require very little actual talking. Much less than this post! My current theory is that doing trumps seeing trumps hearing, every time, because as Zenin observed, the gulf between what you say and what you actually do is sometimes so huge that it's easy to say things that are either inaccurate or minimally helpful.
Big Mike
I'll echo Ogden for a moment. Just go out and dance on 'em.
Yes, you'll feel out of control for a bit. Yes, you'll probably fall on your butt a time or two. When that happens you'll feel deeply embarrassed.
Do it anyway.
Once you're past that initial learning curve you'll find greater control. You slip and slide because your weight is behind (or to the side of) your feet. This is not the slick shoes' fault; they're merely exposing this deficiency in your dancing. Learn to control your weight and balance, and you'll fix that part of your dancing. Eventually you'll be able to slide when you want, or come to a dead stop using good technique.
MB
guitarchika7
For what it's worth- each pair of AA dance shoes that I own were like ICE when I first bought them, but after dancing a few times both the shoes and I grew into each other. I certainly had to learn where my center was...but the first 2-3 times the shoes were REALLY slick and just needed to be danced in a bit.
bryn
Yes, Phlurg, now we're on the same page.
r_c_s
But it really isn't. One of the things you have to work with, is that people use their past experience to do things that seem like something they've tried before. So if I've made fast direction changes many times before (even though, as it turns out, the way I handled those turns relied on my shoes sticking to the running surface), I am going to try something similar when I have to make a fast direction change dancing. And it's not going to work, because I'm going to slide around. If you tried to change direction like a soccer player in dance shoes on a slick floor, you'd fall on your ass. What you actually have to do while dancing is different, and it almost surely involves keeping your center of gravity much closer to your point of contact with the ground. Hence the advice, which just might have been thought out. It's an exaggerated way of thinking to help correct the normal way of doing things.
Actually, that's physically impossible. My body isn't made of straight lines, so it can't be perpendicular to the floor. Now, I know that sounds nitpicky, but I don't think it's much more nitpicky than pointing out that it's impossible to move without shifting your weight. I tried what you said, to the best of my ability, and I was actually surprised at how little leaning forward I saw while walking. It was almost imperceptible. (Maybe I do walk funny, but then I don't normally start off trying so hard to be perpendicular, either.)
FWIW, I happen to be especially aware that it's impossible for me to stand perfectly square to the ground because my back curves in ways that aren't quite normal, and it gives me all sorts of issues with balance. The "keep your weight over you feet" advice is one of the few things that actually helped with that.
Okay, if that the context you've heard it in, I agree. As a meme, it should probably die. The times I particularly remember hearing it (as in, the times I was really listening), were times when an instructor watched me, specifically, paused to think about what to say, and that was one of the things they said. However...
I think this has everything to do with why your words made such a disconnect with my experience. You are giving advice on leading (of course -- a leader asked the question.) I've heard this advice (mainly) in the context of being more leadable. While following, I'm typically not changing my own momentum -- the leader is taking care of that for me. I don't make the decision about when to change direction, so I can't really prepare for it by leaning a certain way. If I commit strongly to moving in a particular direction, it's hard for the leader to redirect me, and it limits what he can do with me.
You are addressing the case where a lead slides unintentionally, which is most likely to happen when he's making a direction change. So yeah, if he takes the advice to keep his feet under him too literally in that situation, he's gonna be screwed.
And sure, whenever possible, a good exercise can help more than words. But for some of us, the words are important, too. We need both. Are there problems with words? Sure. I've run into issues of all kinds taking the words too literally, or trying too hard to follow them, or not understanding them (including the words we've been talking about here, which have helped, but yeah I've had issues with taking that too literally.) But the exercises have their drawbacks, too. We can use the things we get from them inappropriately, and we need guidance on how to use what we learn there, what part of what we just felt is the takeaway, and how really dancing is also different from whatever exercise we just did.
And for anyone reading this that doesn't know who we are yet, Phlurg and bryn have tons more experience than I do. If I argue with someone like Phlurg, it's because I think I can learn something from his responses when I talk about what feels "off" to me with what he said.
-- Rachel
Phlurg
r_c_s, I'm referring to a theory of movement that says that, at least in part, our center tends to precede our feet. This is especially noticeable at high speeds or during rapid acceleration or direction changes, as in:
It's the same principle that makes skaters do this:
All of these images share the fact that the feet are not directly under the body. Now, obviously if Kobe Bryant was wearing Aris Allens on a slippery floor, he'd fall on his ass in that picture. That's not a problem for the theory. It merely says that the speed at which one can accelerate/decelerate is in part a function of factors like momentum, friction, angle of attack with the ground, etc...
So yes, on a slippery surface, your angle of attack of the weight bearing leg in particular has to be lessened. If that's what people mean by "keep your feet under you," then sure, but I still think the advice is fairly useless in that context because I think it's something people tend to have already learned, because otherwise they really would be falling, and falling is a great teacher. ;)
Re: standing totally straight. Ok, substitute "do your best imitation of a soldier at attention" for "stand up totally straight." I don't think the body first theory is a complete description of how we move or walk generally. It's a complex topic.
Re: follows vs. leads. I don't have as much advice for follows on slippery surfaces -- I think where things tend to break down generally is when the follow prematurely ends her own momentum. So yeah, it's incumbent on the follow to not anticipate or change her momentum in some weird way. On slippery floors, for example, as a leader I find it much more difficult to do swingouts with follows who don't come forward enough in the first half.
Re: words. I have nothing against them. ;) In classes I try to hit all three learning styles (kinesthetic, visual, verbal) via explanations, demonstrations, exercises. However, I do believe that the act of translation from a purely verbal description to physical sensation or motor skill is highly error prone and problematic. So I like to short circuit the process by tricking students into approximating the physical sensation naturally, as in the jogging example. That way, they're not so much groping along the foggy path from words to movement but merely applying labels/explanations to movement they already grasp.
I admit that my prejudice against the feet under you thing is curmudgeonly and overly literal. What can I say? I'm a literal curmudgeon.
mouth
Ok here's the thing about all your picture examples, Phlurg - they're all moving by themselves. And in partner dancing that isn't the case. Even if you come from the school of very little counter balance, you're still either moving someone else or being moved by someone else or perhaps a little of both. Even a little bit of someone else's weight being thrown into the mix changes everything. If you lean that far forward and someone gives you a pull, you're done. (Especially as a follower.) Even moreso with a fast floor/shoes - which is what this thread's about, right?
Now I can agree that the simple phrase "keep your feet under you" doesn't do much good as a teaching tool without anything else being shown or said. But I gotta tell ya that when I learned to not let my feet get too far behind or in front of me is when I really started to be a responsive follower. Does that mean they are literally always under me? No. But if I keep that in mind as a goal I usually do better. And my students seem to, too.
So I do make that correction on some of my students. I just usually do it with more explanation than "keep your feet under you". The mistakes they're making often include them not engaging their core, and not pushing through their feet, taking larger steps than needed, and in some cases collapsing their upper bodies forward. And I talk about all of that.
But in my head I have to admit I'm sometimes thinking "if you would just keep your feet under you and have some better posture".
And while we all know Zenin is just so much smarter than the rest of us and needs everything to be literal and exact, most of the rest of us just need a concept to work towards, with a few specific actions that help us get there.
If I'd come to this thread sooner my advice to the initial poster probably would have been focused on keeping his core engaged more and taking smaller steps at first until he felt more comfortable using larger footwork again. That and keeping his chest and head more upright. When you're first learning to dance on smoother surfaces or with faster shoes, you need to develop the familiarity with what's coming. Tight core, small steps, head and chest up for a while and it'll all start to become easier.
So no, I wouldn't have said, keep your feet under you. But physically it woulda kinda been the same thing.
Phlurg
I agree with this, but let me go back to my original example of a rock step. I don't see how it's possible to do a rockstep without your back foot at least being slightly behind your center of gravity. I mean, perhaps if you bring your back toe only, say, 2 inches behind your front one, or perhaps if you move your shoulders back as you do it so it stays over the back foot, but that's not actually how anyone does rocksteps.
Or, let me put it another way. In the most trivial sense, the keep your feet under you idea must be false because whenever you take a step bigger than an inch or so, one of your feet must by definition be either in front or behind your body at some point during the step. If it works to help people adjust their posture or engage their core or whatever then great, I'm all for it, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that it's technically false.
bryn
Well the whole point of a rock step is to use it as a launching pad. You aren't supposed to fully commit your weight backwards. It's a cheat step, and the weight is angled into the floor. And yes, I do move my hips back with my foot on the rock step. My shoulders stay forward but my feet never cease being beneath me.
As I said before, I don't think it matters whether the non-standing leg is under you. You aren't putting any weight on it so it doesn't need to be centred. But hopefully this other leg is still under control... not flailing about wildly.
Anyway, I'm all for doing more than talking, but I have used this suggestion on occasion when it was warranted, and it was immediately helpful. And of course I always demo what I'm talking about, too.
mouth
Wait, so you really don't move ANY of your weight during a rock step? I know there's this new cool styling some of the boys are doing where they stretch their leg really far back during the rock and only move their body a little. But that's styling. And usually you put styling on after you've gotten the basic technique down. Style is often breaking the rules to do other cool things. And for me, the whole idea of keeping your feet under you is involved with the stage before the breaking the rules style thing.
Maybe I lead poorly (totally willing to own that) but when I follow, I most definitely bring my center back on a rock. Is it an absolute perfect line between my head and my back foot? Probably not. But who's busy measuring that kind of thing anyway? If my leader leads me to rock back, he's leading my body, not my foot. So my body initiates the motion and my foot goes down according to how much he's moved my center. So yeah, basically my foot stays pretty much under me. If it goes to far back then my body will, too, and I won't have followed what he lead. And if it doesn't move enough and right away then I won't be able to put it down and I'll fall.
Again, yeah, it's not 100 exact and perfect all the time. But I definitely don't want to teach people that their feet are leading the motion. They're not. And I don't want to teach that you leave them behind. You don't do that either. There should be simultaneous action with body and feet. Which seems totally in line with the idea of keeping your feet with you or "under" you if one prefers.
So with a window of what "feet underneath me" means, slightly behind maybe, slightly in front possibly, but generally with your body, it seems pretty factual to say that overall your center is over your standing foot or both feet if you're split weight. And if your body's over your feet then by definition your feet are under your body.
I mean, as you pointed out, if you're not over your feet you're falling. And I don't spend much time falling when I lindy hop. At least, not more than once a night (on a good day). I want to control, push, pull, move myself; not fall.
And that all requires the feet to come along for the ride (and in some cases drive).
Maybe it's the math geek in you that's got your panties in a bunch. And everyone knows a math geek in panties is hot so don't sweat it. :wink:
Big Mike
The thing about leading our center ahead of our feet, as in Phlurg's pictures above, is that our feet are always being moved to catch up. In effect, every step you take is a shifting of your center, followed closely by a step taken (beneath your center!) to catch your fall.
It's not so much about keeping your feet beneath you as it is bringing your feet back under you.
Don't agree? Try walking by moving your foot first, then your center. It'll look and feel completely retarded.
Now, try another exercise. Extend your leg forward and raised slightly. Now "fall" forward onto that leg. Where is your weight in relation to that foot, once you catch yourself? It's stacked, isn't it? Your foot IS beneath you.
Phlurg
No, I do a partial weight shift, just like you do. Watch yourself do one in the mirror though and tell me where your foot is in relation to your body. Better yet, send me some pictures. ;)
Probably, yeah... ;)
Phlurg
If what you're saying is that your weight bearing leg needs to be centered under you, I don't believe it's possible for it to be otherwise, without a) falling or b) moving. Here's an experiment: from a standstill, fully put your weight fully on a leg that's not under you and see what happens. Post the results on youtube. ;)
Phlurg
Here's where I think we can agree. Compare the way your weight shifts between walking and jogging. When you walk, your receiving leg extends out in front of you, before your weight has fully transferred. When you jog, your receiving leg stays under you, so that the weight shift is somewhat more simultaneous with the step. If you were to take a photo in both cases of the exact instant when both feet were on the ground, you'd see that in walking, the body is centered more evenly between front/back feet, whereas in jogging, the body is closer to the front foot.
I think we would agree that the latter (jogging) is closer to what we need in lindy, and that "keep your feet under you" is a sort of shorthand for all of that, even though it's not your feet (plural) that remain under you, but your receiving leg as you make a weight shift. But the latter is a rather windy thing to say, I'd agree.
Ogden
Yes, the idea of "partial" or "complete" weight shifts is not 100 true, in that you don't move your body totally over your foot, so the weight is actually acting somewhere between your feet. But I'm not teaching a physics class, and I find that telling people to transfer their weight completely gets the point of what I want them to do across to them and into their bodies much faster, and in a way that they can understand, than a detailed physics discussion.
I dont' usually use "keep you feet underneath you", though I understand it's application. I try not to separate the feet from the body when I'm teaching. Usually we focus on body movement, focusing on weight transitions while keeping the feet closer to the body (small steps). When students get too concerned about feet, I usually say somethinglike "your body is very good at keeping your feet underneath it already, so concentrate on the body movement, and the feet will naturally do what they need to do to support that movement". Sometimes this is hard for those beginners that really want a "step-by-step" set of directions, but it's often freeing for those beginners who get overwhelmed up by thinking of their body, their feet, their partner, what is being lead/followed etc. all at the same time. It's one less thing to think about.
That said, we often let our beginners start with a complete weight shift, moving the body over the foot with the wieght on it, becuase it drives home the completeness and importance of the weight shift. It also helps them to keeop their steps small, becuase it's harder to transition weight clearly over a larger step, in the amount of time even a med-slow tempo song gives you. Once they get used to this, it's realtively easy to transition to a more typical rock step, especially at higher tempos, because they are thinking about how their body is moving and feeling, rather than exactly where their feet are.
bryn
Agreed. When I teach people from scratch, it never seems to come up as an issue because we don't focus on the feet (aside from working on basic footwork variations); we focus on the dynamic of the movement. But when I'm training dancers who've started learning to dance elsewhere, whether from other instructors or just by social dancing, it sometimes comes up as a bad habit they've already acquired.
Phlurg
Dude, we totally need this to help out with these discussions.
Keither
I know you just had a birthday, dude, but don't you think this is a little drastic?
Phlurg
Why you... come over here so I can hit you with my cane!
SirBrass
Maybe it'll help keep Frankie from breaking his hip again!
Anyway, folks. Thanks for the interesting debate.
I've found that yeah, I just needed to dance in my AA captoes some more. I haven't worn my sneakers again b/c I haven't had time to get out to get a wire brush (long story but basically allergies knocked me on my ass soon after recovering from pneumonia), so they're still slippery as glass, but the raw soles are doing just fine. I DID fall straight on my butt once, though, but while my follow was apologizing (she didn't really give me a good connection on that move, but I should've realized that earlier), I was telling her not to. Why tell you this? Because the funny thing is that I effectively dropped myself. THAT's why I'm saying this (hey, it's FUNNY! :P ). ANyway, yeah. Definitely learning to dance in these things, and learning to LOVE it.
Now I just need to learn how to susie q with those heels on my captoes. Any tips on that? I'm used to doing the susie q (when I'm leading her in swivels/switches) with all stars, and the dance sneakers felt much the same in that regard. So, I'm not used to putting my forward foot on what is effectively a narrow edge, and so I get little to NO traction and the lead becomes the obvious thing, NOT the follow's thing (which SHOULD be the highlighted portion of the move. her doing swivels and switches is HER chance to show off).
Foehg
If the soles of your shoes are slippy enough, you don't have to lift your toe up for your Suzy-Q's. You can totally just do them on a flat foot. My sources inform me that this is a totally legit and vintage styling, and some of them (though not all) insist that it is in fact the ONLY correct styling, and if you're propped up on the corner of your heel, then it's not a suzie-q anymore, it's something else entirely (somebody said corkscrew?).
Anyway, watch Al and Leon rockin' the suzies on the DuPont show, and see how flat they keep their feet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZB6t4P-QI
SirBrass
Holy SMOKES that's awesome!
I'll have to try doing it that way now :D. Thanks. Somehow doing it flatfooted never crossed my mind, as I've only seen it done with the front foot being popped up on the heel.
mouth
If you do a toe-up Suzy Q in front of Frankie you'll get a talking to. Toe down is the way to go.
SirBrass
Well, I stand corrected 8). And good thing too. I wouldn't want to embarass myself in front of Frankie, after all. Sure I doubt I'll measure UP to him, but I can at least do it right ;).
Whisper
Hmm, if he's dancing at home or at least solo in an uncrowded area, that sounds like a good idea, but wouldn't that approach be likely to hurt his follow or one of the other people on a crowded dance floor? I'm all for learning to dance with better technique, but being so out of control that you fall, crash into someone, etc. seems like a pretty bad idea. :( Using the less-slippery shoes on those particular dance floors until his technique improves seems like a reasonable compromise.
Addict
I fall on a semi-regular basis(when I pushing things too far, or when I've had a few too many)
Never have I dragged my partner down with me
fiddletree
Ha, I was about to say the same thing. I was once in a class where we were doing some sort of jazz routine and I forget who was teaching, but Frankie was watching. About half the class was doing the Suzy Q with their toes up, and Frankie stopped the class to make everyone remember for the rest of their lives that it ain't supposed to be that way, and to keep our dern toes down. It was fantastic.
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