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strathspey@strathspey.org:44726

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Anselm Lingnau

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Less stress on Footwork

March 15, 2006, 6:52 p.m. (Message 44726, in reply to message 44725)

Eric Ferguson wrote:

> Why do we not give good timing and positioning, and dancing with the music,
> the top priority in our teaching?  We would all have fewer frustrations at
> our dance events.

I've found that generally people *try* to be in the right place at the right 
time, if they can remember where that place is. They don't mind getting there 
two bars in advance because they will more often be late, usually due to the 
fact that being expected to join in a formation at some particular point in 
the dance takes them completely by surprise.

I try to teach my dancers to think 1-2 bars ahead of the music so as not to be 
surprised. I also try to get them to phrase correctly by stressing the side 
lines etc. as points of reference, such as in figures of eight. However, 
phrasing correctly in many cases means covering large distances, which in 
turn means proper footwork. (Eric cites turn-corners-and-partner; this is a 
figure which without good footwork becomes very difficult indeed, as people 
try to make up what their feet won't do for them by using their arms in some 
sort of weird Bavarian-style arm-wrestling match.)

I agree with Eric that footwork should not be the first priority of a new 
dancer. However neither should it be the last. It turns out that, given time, 
most people do manage to figure out timing and positioning from the example 
of other dancers, but this does not apply to footwork to the same extent. The 
focus on footwork in many classes is probably not because teachers are 
footwork-crazy, but because footwork is really much more difficult than most 
other aspects of learning SCD.

This is also supported by the observation that, in a dance situation, many 
people manage to dance formations but their footwork goes haywire rather than 
vice-versa. Besides, footwork, being a micro-motor skill, offers far less 
immediate feedback to the individual dancer than phrasing or timing do -- one 
can usually tell that something is not quite as it should be if one bumps 
into other dancers or finds oneself off in never-land, but to straighten out 
one's footwork in most cases requires a teacher.

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
                                                              -- Kahlil Gibran

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