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*.
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