Ombailamos

my whole body hurts

Any athlete could probably relate to this.  As we get closer to competition, we are working harder and harder; both in quantity of rehearsal time, and in intensity of practice.

Ballroom dancing, as the book title states, is not for sissies.  It is physically demanding. 

It is not just a matter of moving your own body through three-dimensional space; it is a matter of absorbing, deflecting, or redirecting the forces of your partner's body.  The science of that is called mechanics, and that's something any athlete has to understand.

I never thought of myself as athletic growing up.  I was always bendy, and for a brief period I was pretty fast.  I gain strength quickly, too.  But I never participated in a sport (mostly because my hand-eye coordination is crap, and team sports tend to involve projectiles), and my tendency has been to stay "in shape" primarily through diet, not exercise.

The thing that undoubtedly saved me, in terms of being able to take up ballroom dancing in midlife as a serious sport, was yoga.  And sadly, the more rehearsal we do the less time I have for yoga.  It's one of those downward-spiraling vicious circles.

Mr. P worked on my back for a good half hour over the weekend, getting my right ribs mobile again to take the lock out of my lumbar spine.  I paid him back by accidentally bashing his knee in rehearsal.  He's got a knot and a half where my patella hit the inside of the proximal end of his tibia.  I don't even have a bruise; he is limping.  It's not a good place to be, three days before competition.

This is the point at which I (and possibly Mr. P too) always think of ... not doing it again.  We are tired.  We hurt.  Everything else in life has been shoved aside and the undone to-do's are getting snarly.

But like any other athlete, on "race day" the adrenaline will be up.  The music will be inspiring, we'll be looking our best; and if we don't absolutely crash, we'll have fun - and then it will all seem worthwhile.

costume accessories

This picture represents one swift evening's work.  This is possible only for crazypants people like me who have a hoard of costume and surface-design supplies, and a glue gun.

Aren't those butterfly pins cute?  I found the rhinestone-headed hairpins at the bottom of my barrette box, and they seemed like the right way to mount the feather butterflies from the floral department.  They'll go with my newly-renovated ballgown.

The green lilies are on alligator clips; they got streamers of embroidered peacock feathers.  These may go with my green Latin dress, or they may just wait for the future.

The purple flower is also on an alligator clip, and what I added there was a pair of feather earring pendants.  I don't have an immediate use for this but I had all the stuff and the glue gun was out anyway, so, you know.

Finally, the big green ornament comprises a large hair clip that I had stashed somewhere, two pieces of sequin applique from a recent project, three stitched "mirrors," a few random rhinestones, and some more of the embroidered peacock feathers.  This is intended to be worn with my green Latin dress.

There's also an ornament that will go with my black Latin dress, but that's another story.

attack of the to-do list

Following last weekend's competition, Mr. P and I have some revision to do to our choreography, some shopping to do for our costumes, and quite a lot of practice to do.  But say HI to the new Amateur Regional Champions in the over-35 American Rhythm division.  :-)

What else is cooking?  Mr. P is participating in the "Dancing with our Stars" fundraiser for the St. Monica School.  The big show is March 8. He's also volunteering to serve as deck captain for the "Dancing Feet" finals at the High Desert Dance Classic.  That'll be on March 9 and 10.  I, meanwhile, am teaching American Tango for beginners at High Desert. 

We may or may not compete in anything there - I am thinking not, except of course the Fun Team Match, because it would be nice to add another set of trophies to our collection (our teams have won three times).

Also coming up, we're performing for a charity event on February 9 and for another fundraiser on February 23.  Events like this are a great thing for us; any opportunity to break out the routines (or even to freestyle) in front of an audience helps to improve our performance quality.

On the home front, I have bookkeeping (tax prep!) and gardening to do, plus a lot of photography and editing so I can re-launch the Etsy store, plus some writing and editing to do so I can publish the paperback compilation of novellas 1-3.

As if all that is not enough, I have work to do for USA Dance and a craft project to finish AND a new craft project to stage for the next Estrogen Fest.

Our next competition is likely to be Nationals, April 5-7.  We really need to line up some kind of performance opportunity in March.  Oh yes, in March I have to get together with a photographer for a Canadian magazine called "Mindful," for which I was interviewed late last year.

At some point in all this, we have to start planning our next couple of vacations.  AND, after Nationals, we have to start preparing to have some long-overdue house guests. 

I have schemes.

teaching (dance), for beginners

How does one person teach another person to dance? 

I speak here not to a professional dancer teaching a beginner.  I speak here to novice teachers. 

This is a topic at the front of my mind just now because our chapter is again helping a local school do a "Dancing with the Stars" type fundraiser.  Members of USA Dance are acting as the experienced, "professional" partners for volunteers from the school.  What this involves is:

• choosing a dance style;
• choosing music;
• choreographing a short routine;
• rehearsing as a couple;
• practicing entry, exit, and bow;
• assisting with costume choices; and
• general pep-talking. 

How much of this is part of being a good social dancer?  Almost none of it.  

Social dancers learn the basics of several dance styles, but unless they also do showcases or competitions, they rarely practice learning choreography, much less creating it; they don't routinely analyze music; they frequently don't have regular practice partners; they rarely think about performance or costume.

Some of it isn't even part of being a good competition dancer. 

Dancers in amateur partnerships have an advantage over dancers in pro-am partnerships when it comes to choreography: we often do at least some of our own, to save money when we get together with our coach.  (It takes less time to fix something than it does to create it, and coaching time is money.) 

But unless we also do showcases, we don't - as a rule - practice to specific music, nor do we try to fit a dance to a given song.

More importantly in this particular context, though, neither social nor competitive amateur dancers are used to teaching anybody.  A dancer in either group is unlikely to have learned both leaders' and followers' parts.  So ... how the blazes does one start? 

The first stage

... is meeting the partner, deciding what dance style to do, and communicating the basics of that dance style. 

In the present case, because it is not a USA Dance event, the school's volunteers quite rightly should be determining what style they do - if they have a preference.  Say one of our dancers has an idea for a jive routine, but they are partnered with someone who is scared of jive.  Well ... the partner wins, in my opinion. 

It is then up to the more experienced dancer to work out what dance style that inexperienced partner will be more comfortable with.  On the flip side, if the school's volunteer has a firm idea of what he would like to do, the USA Dance partner should go along with it.

Sometimes even a very experienced dancer will need to do some homework.  Fortunately, YouTube is teeming with informative videos illustrating everything from the basic box step to complex patterns and tricks. 

The experienced partner should be able to demonstrate at the very least the foot positions for the inexperienced partner.  You can't "teach" someone anything by pushing them through it.  The experienced partner must also be able to verbalize what is required.

The second stage ... 

is creating the choreography.  In this case, partnerships can use any resources they can get their hands on.  They can go and work with a professional instructor if they want, they can work as teams with other volunteers, or they can try to do it all themselves. 

At this stage, what is of key importance is that the experienced partner can demonstrate the opposite part of either piece of the choreography.  If he or she can't do this, help must be solicited from outside. 

Next most important is patience and enthusiasm.  Any beginner is insecure, overwhelmed, and afraid of "looking bad."  The experienced partner has to be able to stifle their own frustration or confusion.  They must be consistently supportive and encouraging, no matter how much repetition is required. 

The experienced dancer should begin working with the chosen music as soon as the partner is able to walk through the entire routine.  Performance and style can be helped immeasurably by a good music choice.  Again, if the school's volunteer has a preference, the experienced partner should try to work with that rather than impose their own choice. 

The third stage ...

is - of course - practice, practice, and more practice. 

Perhaps counter-intuitively, a key thing to practice is the entry, exit, and bow parts of the performance.  Why?  Because you want to give a good first impression, and leave a good last impression.

 

This type of project is much like learning a wedding dance.  There is a short timeline with a guaranteed performance at the end of it.  It's not like getting together with someone to practice that thing from class. 

Teaching a dance is a really good way to become a better dancer.  In a project like this, it's also community service.  The experienced partners are representing USA Dance.  Last year, they did us proud, and I have faith in the 2013 team.

occupy the ballroom!

I haven't commented on DWTS 15 yet, but I am COMPELLED.  Here is the scoreboard as of October 15, with my malapert commentary:

Gilles and Peta: 39.5.  Bollywood.  A trifle overscored, and I say that with a major crush on Gilles and full appreciation for the costuming. They needed another day.

Shawn and Derek: 39.5.  Salsa. It was called "mambo" on the show, but it was not mambo.  It was a superb salsa.  (Shawn could walk out of the ABC studio and into professional salsa or lindy hop competition.)  DEREK SHOULD KNOW BETTER, as should frickin' Len.  Mambo breaks on the two beat.  If it doesn't, it is not mambo, and you lose.  This is a mambo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6dp0Nbcazg

Kelly and Val: 37.5.  Contemporary. Not perfect, but given the level of difficulty I was impressed.  With one more day, and no injury ... .  Her dance last week was a real breakthrough and shows what a few extra hours of rehearsal can do.  Great partnership.

Melissa and Tony: 37. A very good ... rock & roll routine.  How it could look, anyway.  Rock & Roll is a competitive swing dance category that is between jitterbug and lindy hop but also has a "compulsory" footwork portion, which is kind of fascinating to watch, as well as an acrobatic partnering portion.  It was an event in the World Games a couple of times.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mx8spF2-TA&feature=relmfu

Emmitt and Cheryl: 36.  Cheryl's pro cohort didn't achieve her stated goal of learning bolero.  This routine was an international rumba, with about three bolero basics mixed in.  Not impressed, and the judges shouldn't have been either - it was nicely danced as a rumba, BUT.  This is a bolero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7EGe1VLiAY&feature=fvwrel

Sabrina and Louis: 35.5.  Should have been scored higher than Emmitt's "bolero."  Another solid performance from Sabrina, a little too solid for Louis maybe as he did seem to be working really hard in those lifts.

Apolo and Karina: 34.5.  OWCH.

Bristol and Mark: 32.  A very boring ... jitterbug routine.  I find it sad that Tony and Mark basically ended up swapping styles, nobody on the show will mention it, and nobody in the audience will get it.  Mark had to because Bristol can't do a proper rock & roll routine.  This was egregiously overscored and I hope at least the voters lay off the redial a little this week because this chick belongs in the bottom two, and off the show ASAP.

Kirstie and Maks: 30.  Level of difficulty was higher than Bristol's routine, level of performance was miles better.  This is one time I am glad Kirstie has a strong fan base.

Anyway.  It was a very entertaining show (as was last week's) but one of those times that I just want to thump somebody.  Because if I can go to the trouble of looking up these dance styles for a silly little blog post, the professional dancers who have achieved an unprecedented level of fame via this show should damn well do the same.

recovery: foot massage for beginners

So Mr. P and I are doing quite a bit of dancing recently, and the body is complaining.  The feet, in particular, are complaining.

Any idea how many joints there are in the foot?  It's something crazy, like twenty-plus joints, in each foot.  Of course each of those joints is crossed by ligaments and tendons, all those connective tissues are attached to muscles, many of the muscles are attached to other muscles, plus there are sheets of fascia on the sole of the foot and the outside of the thigh that might just possibly get tight and pull things out of whack and ... it's no wonder a person's feet hurt occasionally, is all I'm saying.

AND just in case all of that is not enough, all of those muscles are innervated!  Nerves get tight, too.

Mr. P has applied some of his professional skills on my howlin' dogs, and I'm not going to get into specifics, because everyone's feet are different, but just as a general recommendation, here is a foot flexibility practice that anyone can do and that everyone should do if they want to maintain optimal ranges of motion and the best possible body mechanics.

• Stretch the top of the foot - by grasping the toes in the opposite hand and bending the toes toward the sole of the foot.  Try to do this without cranking the ankle to either side - keep the foot in line with the shin - but go ahead and bring the whole foot down if you can.
• Stretch the bottom of the foot - by grasping the toes in the same-side hand and gently pulling them up toward the body.  Go ahead and bring the whole foot up if you can.
• Flex the foot diagonally - by holding the sides of the foot in both hands and applying a gentle twist - inside of the foot toward you while the outside is bent away, then reverse.  Start at the toes and work toward the heel.
• Rotate the foot on the ankle
• Point the toes as far down as you can
• Flex the toes toward you as far as you can
• Dig into the sole of the foot with your thumbs, massaging all of the soft tissue from toes to heel, starting in the center and working out to the edges and up onto the top surface, running a thumb between the metatarsals to look for hot spots - give those a gentle rub with the side of a finger - and finishing by gently pulling on each toe.

Do this every morning and every night if you've got habitual foot pain, balance problems, knee pain, if your joints crack a lot, or if you just think it sounds mighty relaxing.  At the very least, do once a day.

Perfect to do while you catch up with "Holmes on Homes," or your entertainment of choice.  It takes about five minutes.   Feel better?

off the dance floor

I'm seeing some real changes in my body this year as a result of the dancing we're doing, but perhaps even more as a result of what I'm doing off the dance floor.  I really haven't added that much activity, but apparently the way I'm approaching things is working. 

Ballroom dance training - and I have to assume any other dance training - requires more than just learning some steps.  It requires more than going to a group class once in a while, or going out social dancing, or even learning routines for a show or competition. 

To dance well requires attention to the full complement of physical fitness variables: strength, balance, flexibility, endurance, and agility.  How do these apply in dance? 

You need strength to generate and absorb forces.  Both your own, and those of your partner.  Forces in dancing occur in multiple planes, at varying speeds, and with varying degrees of rotation.  There is no such thing as an isolated action in dancing. 

Strength, of course, is also needed to create movement.  You need power to get across the floor, and you need stability to control your movement.  Power and stability are functions of strength.

You need balance to maintain your center as you create and respond to movement.  In ballroom, the center is always between the partners.  Use of counterweight, manipulation of centrifugal and centripetal forces, and the ability to create an asymmetrical line are all functions of balance. 

Flexibility is what permits freedom of movement.  A lot of people seem to think of "flexibility" in very narrow terms, as (e.g.) the ability to touch one's toes.  But every soft tissue in the body is extensible, and pretty much all of them are involved in dancing. 

Again, there is no such thing as an isolated action in dancing: If you are extending your leg and arching your foot, that involves everything from your toes to your shoulders. Everything from standing up straight to doing a split is a function of flexibility.  

You need endurance to spend any length of time dancing.  Endurance is a function of muscular, vascular, and cardiorespiratory fitness.  You can have healthy lungs, and still have no endurance if your muscles are not regularly challenged.  You can have strong skeletal musculature, and still have no endurance if your heart is never challenged.  You can have strong muscles, a healthy heart and lungs, and still have no endurance if you have a vascular disease or infirmity. 

Finally, you need agility in order to get around the dance floor.  Agility is the ability to place your feet where they need to go, in time with the music, without stepping on your partner or other dancers, and without tipping over or losing position.  Agility is created through a combination of strength, flexibility, and balance.  Foot speed is a function of agility. 

Agility is what sets good dancers apart most obviously, and it is the biggest challenge to acquire, given that you cannot study or exercise just one fitness mode in order to achieve it. 

So how am I working on improving each aspect of my fitness as a dancer?  Obviously, I dance quite a lot.  Not as much as a professional dancer does, of course, but a good bit given the constraints of my (and Mr. P's) working life.  Aside from dancing, though - dancing consciously, working on technique and style as well as steps - I'm working with weights to improve upper-body strength and muscular endurance; I'm doing more, and more difficult yoga, which improves full-body strength, balance, flexibility, and endurance; I'm doing more ballet-based exercises, which also improve full-body strength, balance, flexibility, and endurance - and bring them all together into agility. 

Yoga is my first fitness love and I will never leave it, but in yoga - as I do it - the focus is on working into a position and then holding it.  There is no holding in dance.  You are constantly moving in and out of position.  There is no "stop." 

Even in vinyasa (the practice of intentionally moving from one yoga position to another with minimal pauses) it is the position, not the movement, that is the focus.  Holding positions challenges the body to build strength, getting into positions challenges flexibility; but it's dancing through positions that builds agility.  Ballet is great for this. 

It's also great for training the body to finish lines without conscious thought.  In ballet, you dance all the way through your extremities.  You do in ballroom, too - but many dancers never get that far. 

And I don't even do that much ballet - I've never had formal training, and there are a lot of things about classical ballet that would be actively bad for my ballroom technique.  But for me, the intentional creation of dance movement has to go beyond just practicing my ballroom basics. 

Dance, as a Western art, pretty much begins with ballet.  Practicing tendu and port-de-bras should be part of any serious ballroom student's work, IMO. And so should holding plank position.

the vocabulary of dance

One of the things that I like about SYTYCD is that they don't spend a lot of time defining, for those in the general audience, the dance terms they use.  They seem to assume that those who are really interested will ask someone who knows.

If you're serious about dancing, it's helpful to learn the language.  Not just the physical language, but the terminology.  What is first position, second position, fifth position?  What is a jetée, a rondé, an arabesque?  What's the difference between an arabesque and an attitude?  What is a pirouette?  What are chainé turns, pivots, swivels?  What, exactly, is an extension?

These terms are used as a matter of course in ballet, jazz, and modern dance classes, but you may not hear them very much in ballroom or other partner-dancing classes. Which is kind of a shame, because most of us learn in an environment of words. 

If a teacher can say "take fifth position, right foot back" that's easier than saying "place your right foot behind your left foot, right toe to left heel, both toes turned out." The dance term provides a shorthand.

I try to introduce and use dance terminology when teaching, for that reason.  The same goes for figures: it's a lot quicker and easier to say "forward half of a box" than "left foot forward, right foot to the side, left foot closes to right foot."

One of the great things is that all of these bits and pieces of knowledge can be studied outside the dance class or lesson.  As I've mentioned before, there are so many educational supplements available now, from printed manuals to DVDs to popular books, that a really interested student has plenty of resources. 

There is no such thing as too much information.  The more you learn outside the class or lesson, the less you have to think about during the class or lesson.  All you have to concentrate on is what's immediately before you. 

And because every teacher presents information differently, learning basic terminology on your own will give you a base upon which to build, and to which you can relate what you're getting from your teachers.

Remember, you have to have a vocabulary before you can construct a sentence.  Same goes for dancing.  Learn the proper vocabulary, and your constructions become simpler, more clear, more definite and more intentional. 

Otherwise, you risk putting yourself in a position only because someone tells you to, which is not the way to create beautiful movement.  If you know what you are doing, and can put a name to it, your movement is more intelligible.  From my observations, you will also find it easier to remember sequences of movement.

Not to mention, you'll be able to point out which sensational action the latest SYTYCD contestant just pulled off.  It's all part of considering yourself a dancer.

action and reaction

Mr. P and I are in heavy training.  For amateurs like us, that amounts to about two hours of "walk-through" practice at home in the living room, another ninety minutes to two hours of "run-through" practices in a dance studio, and another ninety minutes to two hours working with our coach, every week. 

Each of these training modes has a specific purpose.  The walk-throughs are to set the routines in our heads and bodies so that we don't have to consciously retrieve the sequences from memory.  We also use this time to diagnose issues with our lines or connections.  The run-throughs are to do the routines to music (when we can) or at least at tempo, using as much space as we possibly can. 

Sometimes the studio where we practice is pretty empty and we're able to hog ALL the space.  That's ideal.  On the competition floor, we'll have to steer around other dancers, just as we do when social dancing, but for a full-power practice we want to actively and intentionally be as big in our movement as we can.  The studio also has a lot of mirrors so we can see ourselves in action and fix anything wonky.

The coaching is all about learning how to create the movement we want.  Our years of social dancing have not helped us to move correctly or effectively in the context of competition.  In fact, when we are actively training for a competition as we are now, we hardly go social dancing at all.  Our coach has spent a lot of time correcting bad habits we picked up through social dancing ... so the last thing we want to do right now is go out and practice doing things the wrong way again. 

We typically don't suffer much from ordinary practice, but the coaching is a different story.  Everything we do with our coach is about making the movement bigger, stronger, more emphatic, more expressive.  That puts unaccustomed stresses on our bodies.  On the memo line of the check, I usually write "private lecture and torture." 

My Achilles tendons are sore as hell right now from holding a balance in full relevé.  Even with high heels on, in order to achieve some lines the foot has to be arched and that means the full weight is on the forefoot.  This compresses the Achilles tendon and puts a lot of forces into the very small muscles and other connective tissues of the ankle. 

We both find ourselves with creaky backs, sore shoulders, and tight hips the day after one of these sessions.  Not because we've injured anything in the traumatic sense, but because our soft tissues have been generating and absorbing forces they aren't accustomed to.  Of course, the only way to get accustomed to these kinds of actions is to perform them. 

In a perfect world, we could work with our coach twice a week. But that's not an option right now.  So we work on Sundays, and on Mondays we recover.  We stretch a lot.  We use the foam rollers.  We do self-massage, and occasionally recruit each other to get into really gnarly bits.  And we rest.

Taking a day (at least) to recover is pretty much an essential.  We're middle-aged.  We're not elite athletes.  If we don't give ourselves recovery time, there's a very real chance of what I would call an accumulated-stress injury. 

This sport is something we do for fun, so pushing ourselves into the danger zone would just be stupid.  We've both seen too many "weekend warriors" who end up in the emergency room because they outperform their training. 

We're now at the point of having our choreography set for eight routines.  We'll be practicing, and continuing with coaching, right up to our first competition of the season.  We're in better shape for it than we were last time out.  It's a good place to be.  And it's good to feel that we can actually afford to take a day off.

more reading on dancing

And we are back to our regularly-scheduled, troll-free programming.  Recently I finished a book called "The Ballroom Dance Coach: Expert Strategies to Take Your Dancing to the Next Level," by Jessika Ferm. 

Ms. Ferm is a professional executive coach, and competes in ballroom competitions ("DanceSport") as an amateur with a professional partner.  We call these events "pro-am" and they are the big moneymaker in the ballroom industry.  They are also a great way for dancers without regular partners to advance their dancing quickly. 

This particular book reflects Ms. Ferm's experience as a ballroom competitor, as well as her expertise as a coach.  It would be a very good accompaniment to "Ballroom Dancing is Not for Sissies," which was reviewed here some time ago (see link below).  There is a lot of good stuff, and absolutely nothing that made me think "No." 

I tend to obsess about my own dancing.  You may have noticed this. Maybe I think about dancing more than the average dancer; I don't really discuss it in much detail with my amateur peers.  Ms. Ferm seems to be my kind of dancer, i.e. she really thinks about it.  It's a hobby for her as for me, but an important one, that plays a large part in her life.  She seems very self-aware. 

The book is loaded with short interviews with people representing various segments of the dance world.  These are all tied to a structure of questions and exercises revolving around four stages of learning. 

• Stage 1: we don't know what we don't know. a.k.a.: Unconscious Incompetence. 
• Stage 2: we know that we don't know.  a.k.a.: Conscious Incompetence.
• Stage 3: We know that we know.  a.k.a.: Conscious Competence.
• Stage 4: It's second nature. a.k.a.: Unconscious Competence.

The benefit of this structure is that it allows different examples to stand out without a great deal of discussion or explanation.  The book is slim and a quick read.  There are many excellent tips for dealing with the emotional ramifications of learning a difficult sport.  Just one example, a quote from multi-national champion Mireille Veilleux: 

"Dancing is always about working on the fundamentals.  Sometimes, the higher we get in our dancing, the easier it is to forget about the basics.  If you are getting frustrated or emotional because you can't push through to the next level, go back and work on the basics you already know.  This will build confidence and skills that you will need as you move forward."  

Now, of course, many dancers won't like to hear this; social dancers are notorious for neglecting study once they have achieved a certain level of competence.  But anyone who's had a class with me knows that I very strongly believe the dancer with simple moves and good basic technique is a better dancer than the one with flashy moves and no technique.

My only quibble is with the book design.  The typeface is small and slim, and for these eyes at least was difficult to read - especially in the sections where the type was white on a gray background. 

Recommended: but read it under a strong light. 

(May be out of print; not yet available for Kindle.) 

Read more: Ballroom Dancing is Not for Sissies