Posts

Park Bench, Bus Bench

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Dan John, one of my mentors in the strength and conditioning world, often uses the ‘Park Bench/Bus Bench’ theory of setting up fitness programs.  The concept is really useful for anything else you might be working on–a skill or hobby, self improvement, mental health, or… your dance.  Here’s the basic idea.  If you were sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, you expect the bus to get there at a certain time. You have somewhere to be, and want to operate on a schedule. If the bus doesn’t show up or you miss it, you’d likely be frustrated.  On the other hand, if you were going for a walk in the park and sat on a bench there, you might not have anywhere to be for a while. You’re enjoying the day, and the amount of time you’re sitting there isn’t contingent on a strict schedule or plan.  A lot of workout plans are more of the former; and this isn’t a bad thing but often makes them unsustainable in the long term. You might also burn out if you took this approach to lots of other things: it’s
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WCS progress over the years

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  Some backstory What I've learned June 2016  September 2017 August 2018  August 2019  Late spring/early summer 2020  Summer 2021 June 2022  August 2023  ...Present day ***** Until next time! Love your dance, and be good to each other.  Reach out anytime with questions, for a lesson or video critique, or just to chat about dance stuff :) 
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Become adaptable

 "Did you just come back from an event?" I asked. I hadn't seen or danced with this friend in several weeks, but she felt tuned in--well connected and balanced.  She was surprised that the difference was that noticeable! If you've gone to many events you're probably familiar with the post event high and then crash, in terms of how good your dancing feels. But our dance can also fluctuate a decent amount week to week or even day to day.  Being more consistent in your own dance is a great goal to have, I wrote about it a little bit here .  We can also be aware that every day is going to exist somewhere on a spectrum of ability, comfort, thinking about one element vs another, and so forth. While becoming more consistent ourselves; we can also strive to become more adaptable to our partners.  ***** The best WCS dancers--social, competitive, of any level--are the ones who can maintain their own dance while still adjusting to their partners.  If you became the best at d
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January '24 Whips & Dips workshop

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 First off, the title is something of a misnomer. This is the name of a workshop series that is being revived -- this was the second time back -- and in fact, neither covered whips or dips! But it's a fun name and we might keep it.   Here's the basic idea. This is mainly the brainchild of my friend Nick.    1. The workshop series will focus on building the community with three pillars:       -Social and emotional wellness      -Positive gameplay      -Financial accessibility    2. High quality of instruction, with the allstar (or higher) tier instructors on board with the guidelines for teaching and interacting in the group   3. A fund/other means for scholarships and community opportunities built using proceeds from the workshop series.    In essence, this is a safe and fun place to learn. Passive aggressive commentary, tearing other people down (from workshop attendees, or instructors), dismissive remarks, etc. are all too often a part of instruction, even in peer-led groups,
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Your character sheet as a WCS dancer

"I don't know why Billy made finals when I didn't! I'm just so much better at [xyz miniscule aspect of technique] than he is!"  With sloppy feet, bad posture, lack of phrasing, a stiff upper body, etc. how could someone make finals in a jack & jill?  Everyone has a confirmation bias toward technical elements that they're either working hard on, care a lot about and value in themselves, or both. And this tends to show up when we're judging quality of dance and general dance ability in other people.  The typical response to these complaints is something like "well, were your worst moments better than their best ones" or something similarly unhelpful.  I think that a great lesson to take away from 'who makes it' is to think about why they did  rather than trying to think of reasons why they shouldn't  or why they don't deserve to .  More about growth mindset:  dance image neutrality how to get better at getting better whose fault
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The preflight checklist part 1: pick and choose

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Something that a lot of people struggle with when dancing is, simply, applying what they’ve learned while actually dancing. It’s often easy enough to access a new skill in an isolated drill or during a practice with an instructor, to a very slow song or no music at all. But out in the wild on the social floor, or even during a practice wherein you’re actually improv dancing, things just… fall apart.  I think that this is largely thanks to trying to do too much. Maybe the 'too much' is simply in terms of information overload. Maybe it's too many differing and maybe diametrically opposed instructor points of view. Maybe it's highly qualified instructors giving tips that are more of a technical analysis than actionable cues, I talk about that a little bit  here. ----- The first antidote to trying to do too much  is... focusing more, on fewer things. As with many other aspects of how I think about west coast swing, the initial idea came from Fae Ashley. Essentially, she wou
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Whose fault is it, really?

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Maybe because it's the end of the calendar year and we're stressed about tangibly progressing; maybe it's simply because the fall events have been stacking up recently... but I've been hearing a lot of frustration from friends and students (and random people online) regarding their competition draws.  "I just didn't like any of my partners, really." "My first draw was good, my second one was terrible though. I hope the judges weren't looking at me for that one."  "My finals partner was awful and I just hope people don't think I'm a bad dancer after watching that. That wasn't my fault!"  Then there's my friend who tells me that their (romantic) partner seems to get frustrated dancing with them when they can't do everything that they want to happen in the dance/make it their ideal.  There's the instructor who blames having "all bad draws in prelims" when she doesn't make finals.  And so on, and so
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He said/she said

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I've been dating dancers since 2011. And, accompanying that, practicing with romantic or at least non-platonic partners for the same length of time. It's only natural that we become interested in people who share our hobbies, passion projects, and way of life. It's also very natural to want to practice and get better with these same people. It just makes sense, right? You want to improve, you support their improvement, maybe you even live together.... And it doesn't have to be unhealthy. It can be constructive!  Twelve-ish years (more than eight of them, now, doing west coast swing) have included a fair share of ups and downs, healthy and unhealthy interactions with partners.  It's also included plenty of purely platonic practice partners, and range of different levels of success and productivity there, too.  Maybe due to this experience, and a lot of thought (and therapy, and discussion with uninvolved friends, and working with my own teachers and coaches) I've
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Aris' intermediate WCS classes in Colorado - through early fall '23

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 I've settled on a pretty clear values system for teaching group classes here in Colorado.  I don't think that an intermediate class with a fairly wide skill discrepancy is the place for higher concept material. "Easy wins" is the name of the game, sharing elements that are easy for attendees to implement on the social floor right after class, if they so choose. I love the deeper more cerebral stuff, but that's for private lessons or maybe a small group intensive with a specific focus that lasts 2-3 hours rather than just 1.  On a similar note, it's easy to get caught up in sharing the details that we ourselves like to think about as dancers, while instructing; and that simply isn't the most helpful thing for casual social attendees. So -- very minimal and direct cues, simple explanations of the material. I've talked more about that  here  and  here  as well as in  this video . They don't need 8 different things to think about at a time; though by
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End of summer '23 update - teaching, more teaching and a little travel

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 Hey there! First off, if you're a new reader - welcome.  Here is a youtube playlist  of me teaching - mostly group lesson recaps but some other educational stuff as well. Follower technique, thoughts on emotional health while working on your dance, and solo practice advice, among other things.   This is my instagram Here's a bit about my education and influences in WCS If you want to get in touch with me, either IG or FB messenger works or you can send me an email: arisdemarco@gmail.com  Recently I went to two events, Desert City Swing (my old hometown event) and Swingtime (my new one, as it turns out). I loved the venue, the music and social dancing, and how efficiently all the comps were run. It really was a very well done event, my favorite of the few I've been to since before the break.  https://swingtimewcs.com/   At swingtime, I made finals in both allstar Jack & Jill and allstar strictly. They recalled 10 leaders from I think 28 or 29, and 10 couples from 23 in
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