Lindy Hop 1 Recap : Week One

This week is the first week of our brand new Lindy Hop blocks! To help you remember everything you learn in class we have decided to do a little recap of the moves and technique with some important points to remember about each. It's definietly not a substitute to the class, but it may jog your memory!

In the first week we talked about the roles of the lead and follow, how the lead initiates a move and the follow waits to feel the lead before responding. As you get more advanced these roles can become a little more flexible, but for now it's good to keep a nice and clear structure.

First we started with the basic footwork, (step,step, triple step, step, step, triple step), and did this along a line with our partner. This is just a nice building block for learning the footwork, but be prepared to adapt!

The next two moves involved the leads staying on the spot and moving their partner in front:

The Promenade

• Follows, you are always trying to keep connected with the hand on your back, hence you walk backwards.
• Leads, think about walking straight through your partner confidently and clearly.
• At the end, follows stay on the spot and leads move to the side.

The Yo-Yo

• Follows, don't expect the move, step as if you were being led in a Promenade. This will help create that nice stretchy feeling we talked about.
• Leads, provide a nice squishy wall for your follow to hit, as opposed to an uncomfortable solid wall (which causes whiplash!).

The next two moves involved the follows staying on the spot this time, and the leads moving directly in front of their partner.

The Lindy Circle

• The big bad daddy of the class-you will use this move for the rest of your Lindy Hoppin' days! Practice makes perfect.
• Leads, think about pivoting around, as opposed to crossing your feet either in front or behind.
• Follows, only step as far as necessay (as in, only as far as your led). If you feel like you are tripping up on your feet, remember to cross in front and not behind.

The Outside Turn

• Leads, create a nice high five and then send your partner through on count 5.
• Follows, pace your steps and only turn as far as your partner has led you. Keep your forearm in front of your face to protect your shoulder.

We hope you enjoyed the class! If you have some feedback, we'd love to hear it! You can access our feedback form online here. You can remain anonymous.

Stay tuned for a video recap of week one, as it won't upload at the moment. We will add it later!

In case you were wondering

Just in case you were wondering what Mr Charm is up to....

Hmmm.....maybe you should check out his blog Fidgety Feet.

Random thoughts on leading and following

Wooosh time flies by. It's been way too long since I last posted here. I shall make an attempt to do so more often!

The Swing Sesh was recently visited by the amazing Todd Yannacone and Lexi Keeton, who taught some fantastic workshops with a lot of solid core fundamentals as well as some nifty new "moves". For some reason or another, not many leads came along. I'm not really sure why this is, it seems strange to me seeings as Todd is such a phenomenal lead, here in our own hometown! But anyway, we had quite the turnout of enthusiastic ladies, all eager to learn some new material and work on their skills (this makes me do a little happy dance). As the ratio was fairly out of whack, most of The Swing Sesh teaching follows took the workshops as leads, myself included.

I was actually quite excited. I've always been somewhat of an ok lead, mostly at a beginner level, garnered from teaching experience and just socially dancing. Unfortunately, as I said before, we do have quite a lot of follows in Adelaide so sometimes I'd hear a song I really wanted to dance to, but couldn't find a lead. Thus, I began leading myself. I also found it an essential tool whilst teaching, because it is often useful to be able to give feedback to both roles, and as such you need to know something about both! I've always remained at a beginner level though because I haven't really worked on it, plus I am so busy teaching now I find it hard to get to classes and take them as a lead.

 The workshops with Todd and Lexi were the first time I'd really focused on my leading and critically thought about it, turning on my minds eye to look at myself and see what I'm actually doing. What an eye opener that was! Wow did it make me appreciate the complexities of leading a little more. Not that I didn't appreciate it before hand (nor am I saying following is not complex!), but I really felt like there was so much pressure, as I was directing the flow of the dance in this context. I know how frustrating it can be as a follow in a workshop where it is difficult to practice a technique when the leads are still practicing initiating it. So this was always on my mind during the classes.

At the end of the day I felt like I had gotten so much out of the workshops. Not only had I learnt some techniques as a lead, but I was also able to take all the follow-based feedback and slot that into my mind for future reference. How's that for getting 100% out of a workshop! I feel much more confident leading, and, I guess a little more aware of what I am capable of at the moment (I recently went through that phase of leading where my body wants to do something to the music but I can't quite pull it off and it turns into a little of a mess!). Now I have some tools to play around with and try and express the music with that I feel I have a solid grasp on.

The other big plus I have found from working on my leading is that it enables me to play around a lot more with shifting the roles when I am following. So, if I decide whilst following that I'd like to take a few counts or a phrase in a certain direction, and I want to initiate that myself I can communicate that a little more clearly to the lead I'm dancing with (well, most of the time anyway!). I don't feel like I'm interrupting the flow as much because I have a better idea about what the lead needs in order to continue the flow of whatever it is that I am offering him.

I know there are quite a few leads in Adelaide who recently have started taking classes as a follow, and I think this is great! Understanding both sides of the dance can only make us better dancers. Sometimes people have said things to me "you're to feminine to be leading", and I think that's crap! One can still be feminine and lead, or be masucline whilst following (actually, when I first started dancing I did a workshop with Josh McKiterick and Noni Clarke that challenged gendering the roles, that was a darn cool workshop), so I love that the dancers in the scene are embracing that.

Yeah! So ends my random thoughts.

Later, I'll add some resources related to this topic. *Hunts through favourites*.