More is Less is More – thoughts from Zurich

The familiar adage begins “less is more”. My recent Zurich west coast swing teaching experience speaks differently – more is less then is more. Confusing? Allow me to explain.

I taught west coast swing workshops with Elissa Gutterman from Tel Aviv this past weekend. We were both excited to teach with a partner because we mainly teach alone. She teaches 4 different west coast swing level classes for Dance Tel Aviv. I specialize in teaching workshops and classes with local instructors and am often hired to be the principle teacher. It’s tough explaining both roles with, oftentimes, limited resources.

When you get two teachers that intimately understand both roles, leader and follower, two things can happen. One, you can get the never ending talkers. I witnessed this once at a Denver Intermediate workshop. At one point, the instructors had talked for at least 10 minutes, most students were sitting down. Fibonacci sequencers. This is more is more. Two, is where the two teachers complement each other and are content with the other teacher’s explanation. As each is a capable leader, they take turns leading. This is more is less.

As we were complimented on our ability to rarely talk while giving concise instructions and technique hints, you can guess we were the latter. This allowed the students more repetition and practice to music. We were able to focus on individual needs after giving group instructions. Then we could return to the center and remark on what we saw without always consulting the other. More solo teaching experience equaled less time talking equaled more students’ doing. More is less is more.

I would like to thank Nicola Fiaschi for organizing this workshop, Nadja Gross for hosting me and organizing the Bluesli workshops, Elissa for teaching with me, and the many others that made this weekend successful, including all the students and Saturday night’s social dancers.

Why Elephants Rule – Todd & Ramona teaching in Denver

I found out late October that Ceth Stifel, the man behind the Captain Lindy website, was bringing Todd Yannacone and Ramona Staffeld to teach workshops in Denver, Colorado. I was really excited for three reasons. 1. Colorado needs more intimate workshops  featuring national and international instructors. 2. Todd and Ramona are awesome (evidence above) and 3. I was going to be in Denver. Notice the past tense, but that’s a different story for a different time.

It’s true that Denver has several large events featuring many national instructors. Oftentimes, you’ll get 1 or 2 hours with an instructor, and may never learn from some instructor couples. With smaller local workshops, you will get 4-7 hours with an instructor couple. This allows you to understand their dance philosophy better, develop your dancing with them during an afternoon, and receive more personal attention. It’s wonderful to have consistency and gradual development. This makes learning fun, enjoyable, and more fun.

This brings me to my second point. Todd and Ramona are great teachers and you should take this opportunity to learn from them. I’ve had limited experience with Todd, but recently took a Masters Level class with him and Annie Trudeau at Lindy Focus. The material was solid, got me brainstorming new ideas (always welcome for the mad scientist!), we practiced lots to music, and they kept the class moving. I also watched another class he taught with Nina Gilkenson. This class featured some fancy arm-y stuff that Todd is known for. He was concise, precise, and technique driven without being too wordy.

While in Australia, I had the opportunity to work firsthand with Ramona when I substitute taught with her. Along with being a great dancer, she’s a great person. She smoothly segued me from lengthy technical driven detail into teaching through dance action. Lesson learned. And that’s the thing about Ramona’s classes. She had a jazz dance series she taught in Melbourne and students would come away pouring sweat, walking stiltedly, but beaming big smiles. You learn, you dance, it’s action and movement.

Whether you are an intermediate, advanced, advanced +++++ whatever dancer, I strongly encourage you to take these workshops. There will be something for everyone. Take advantage now. You have 10 more days to enjoy early bird pricing of $60 (price goes up after January 20).

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Further thoughts: small workshops are the backbone of the European scene. Dancers across Europe are hungry to learn whether they have an established scene or just beginning. I spend most of my time in Europe teaching workshops for local organizers. I rarely work a big event, but specialize in teaching workshops geared toward that community’s specific needs.

Madrid has 7 schools, around 150 dancers, and have a workshop with out of town instructors about once a month. Sometimes it’s a big event, but most often it’s small. London has at least 3 large schools and Swing Patrol brings between 600-1,000 dancers a week. Sometimes they might have 2 workshops by 2 different instructors in a weekend. The point is that scene leaders, like Ceth, Heather, Shana, Joe, are developing the scene by bringing in out of town instructors and designing workshops based on the community’s needs. They’re not waiting for the big organizers to throw their big event. I want to support them any way I can. I hope you can.

What Level Am I? – Lindy Focus

During my first week teaching in Madrid, this couple walks into the Intermediate Lindy Hop class and approaches me stating “we’re not sure if we should be here.” I reply that the beginner level is probably too easy for them. Insulted, I hear “we’ve been dancing for 4 years”. They apparently desired entry into our advanced lindy hop class, so I kept my eye on them. They didn’t stand out enough from their peers, so I was content to leave them in intermediate. They never returned.

This past week, from December 26 through January 2, I was at Lindy Focus, the large US NYE lindy hop event. Plans included dancing, dining, hanging out, creating random fun, and volunteering. Since I used Sosh’s level testing application at the Atlanta Varsity Showdown, I was asked to assist the Lindy Focus crew during level testing.

Until you realize you’ll audition approximately 410 people within 3.5 hours, level testing seems easy. My possible duties included being on the audition team or live tracking the audition scoresheets making sure everyone received at least 3 judges votes. Michael, Jaya, and Sosh were intent on make sure the audition process was accurate, judicious, seamless and timely. It helped they provided us drinks and pizza. Through their online registration questionnaire, they were able to segment everyone into 4 tracked groups inside each of the 3 major audition groups and provide the judges with scoring notes for each heat. Michael organized and “unzipped”, Rob dj’ed, Jaya and Sosh monitored, others rotated and numbered everyone, ringers filled in, judges quickly judged using their iPad application.

The audition groups were relatively homogeneous. You danced with people near or at your level. Each group danced to warmup songs and then were judged within their peer group. It made our job easier. In the end, each dancer was scored by 3-7 judges. Averages were taken, badges reprinted.

The next morning, the non-instructor judges and Sosh showed up at 8am to  filter the late arrivals. Having seen the previous night’s 12 groups, we were able to sort everyone relatively quickly in groups of 3-4 couples. If people were unhappy with their placements from either testing session, they were asked to attend that day’s classes and come to the appeals that evening.

This brings me to my other duties, class evaluations. I was asked to attend every class and evaluate the levels, looking for any outliers. I took notes on the different levels, so I would be prepared for that night’s appeals. I was also on call with Sosh in case anyone showed up at registration and needed immediate placement. My notes, ranging from “roughly fluid, still slightly hitchy” to “fluid, body still thinking a bit or holding back”, helped me individually evaluate that day’s 10-15 extra class takers. Thank goodness I can lead or follow on different surfaces. Overall, I was pleased with every class’s participants. Between the online registration process and level testing, the results averaged out quite well.

Even so, you will always have people that think their level is too easy for them, want their significant other with them, or are hopeful they might get into a higher level. Therefore, the appeals process exists with limited spaces, a kind Sosh, and a bad cop Jo. Enter at your own risk, stand out among your other hopeful peers. We evaluated 100+ dancers that night. Less than 10% achieved their goals.

Overall, I thought the Lindy Focus level testing was successful. Each student danced with 5 different people to 5 different songs and were scored by 3-7 different judges. And, as I said before, classes were homogeneous.

My random thoughts:

Swingouts matter. Dance fluidity and body mechanics matter. Momentum matters. If dancing was speaking, aim to “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”.

The pace the teacher sets influences the students’ self-evaluation. I received the most level questions from high level students in a slow moving class.

Some teachers demand, others coddle, some monotone, others make conversation, some waste time, others drill, some engage, others distract with short shorts. Each teaching couple is different in philosophy, work ethic, and teaching mechanics. Be open minded students and assume they’re talking about you.

If you want personal feedback after level testing, we spent about 5-15 seconds looking at you. I suggest getting a private lesson. They’re worth it.

In the end, it’s not how long you dance that determines your class level. It’s how you dance that determines your level.