The root of everything, how to learn dance with ADHD, teaching better, and other scrambled thoughts

 "You're not shifting your weight, that's the problem," my then-girlfriend Fae told me. I assured her that I was. All the pieces, after all, were in the right places (I thought) I was checking all the boxes that I had been coached to. I could even take away the other foot and balance, to me this was proof that I was 'completing' my weight shift and my body was ending up in the proper situation. 

She was right, which isn't unusual. As it turns out, weight shifts for our dance involve more than lining up the requisite pieces (not everyone does) and contracting the requisite muscles (fewer do this), more than momentary balance. And weight shifts are really important! How we move from one foot to another is... pretty much the most important thing we do, since the bottom line of what we're doing is just shifting from foot to foot while holding hands with another person. 

One of the major elements I've spent the past two years really working on is just shifting my weight better. Not that I've gotten to be amazing at it or anything, but the improvement has very noticeably changed not just the look and overall quality of my dance, but how well it works. That is, the chances of any idea I initiate of actually being completed effectively. 

When it comes to learning a skill, I tend to break it down into the following components: 

1. Learn from my coaches/ask them how they think about it/have them teach it to me

2. Watch literally everyone good at it do it, which does involve measuring higher level leads directly against each other for how well they execute said element of their dance relative to their own bodies. Then I try and apply that to myself. Sometimes this can be switched with #1. 

3. As I add the element it starts out in just a few places (i.e. my anchor) then I start thinking about where else the skill should also be executed (e.g. is this count a full weight transfer?) 

4. The pieces are 'chunked' together. As this happens I start playing with effective cues. Where do I think about moving from in my body? I try to use external cues more than internal ones, as they've been proven more athletically efficient. But knowing the little bits and pieces is instrumental to being able to replicate the sensation of the technique because tactile feelings can easily be lost. 

5. The cues are meant to create desired sensations. As I focus more on how something should feel I can think less about it, the 'chunk' becomes bigger, and I have the mental space to add more chunks, more skills or elements that I'm working on over time. 

This is necessary for me because habits don't really form or stick. I might need a very very small piece of my brain to switch something 'on', but it still has to be a conscious effort. Thus, making the biggest possible combos of pieces that go together is fairly vital. 

On to cues. Here's an example: when learning how to hold your frame, you were probably first taught a specific position for your shoulders (and elbows and hands) and given a muscle to think about ('squeeze your lats'). 

Some cues are more effective than others. Pull your shoulders back and down tends to result in overuse of the scap retractors between your shoulder blades. For modern humans who sit a lot, this generally carries over and tightens the upper traps as well. 

Create a straight line across your collar bones is a good one that I've heard. 

Spread your shoulders to the walls on either side of you, accompanied by a tactile cue of pulling 'strings' from the side delts is one that I use often. 

Open your frame from your elbows is one of my favorites that an instructor gave me. The accompanying visual helps a lot. 

Another fun one I've used is imagine your crush is approaching and you want to be as tall and confident as possible. Usually, someone can tell if they're over engaging if you go with this or something similar. 

Heart-bright is a unique one that involves imagining energy or light projecting from your heart/chest in order to open it. I think that this could lend itself well to expanding movement if needed. 

Lift from the center and let the outside lines drop down was an excellent one as well and this leader really emphasizes that particular look in his dance with great success. 

You'll notice that none of these involved putting small joints in specific places or telling muscles to simply 'activate' or 'relax'. That's why they're so much more useful. And no, none on the short list are necessarily better or worse--that will depend entirely on the individual, how they learn, what the A is that they need to get to B from, what helps them conceptually, and how well the instructor can use that cue as a starting point and help tweak from there. The specific cue is not the thing that matters. 

Instructors in any physical discipline but especially WCS (to me) rely far too much on a specific line or cue. Generally this is one that works for them, so they think that it should work for everyone. Or, it's a piece of their system, that they want to apply to all their instruction. As a teacher: 

-Have a firm concept of what you want your student to achieve and be aware that this will not be the same for everyone. Take the frame example.

-Use appropriate cuing given the student's preferences for learning style. Try to make it work with external cues, visual imitation, or tactile feedback. Focusing on an exact position, muscle, repeating just one statement over and over, etc. won't work as well after the lesson is over. 

-Adjust as necessary, and listen to how they break it down for themselves as you individualize it. 

-Use a combination of whatever worked thus far--them watching you or someone else, them listening to an external cue you gave them that put them on the right track, possibly a feeling or sensation, and how they re-explained it to themselves (back to you) in order to give them a map to finding it again and using that point to explore further. 

This applies to teaching in general. I like to say that there might not be a single right way to do wcs, but there are a lot of potential wrong ways that are far less efficient to use or effective at communicating. There seems to be a partial return to the general trend of 'it's west coast swing, there aren't really any rules here!' Which is where things fall apart. I had one pro tell me that dancing fusion was a good place to learn connection for wcs. A local guy who teaches believes that country swing is a good place to learn connection for wcs. People with ballroom backgrounds or classical solo training say that they don't need to learn how wcs works because they learned dance technique already. It's a mess. 

One of my favorite quotes, from a man named Bryce Lane: you have to choose between improving, and proving that there is only one right way to improve. Keep this in mind. Don't be dogmatic--wcs is a dance with an awful lot of 'it depends' and choosing either 1. to lock it down with a strict set of rules, or 2. say 'well, anything goes' are two extremes that will hold both teachers and students back both in the short and the longer term. 

https://youtube.com/@ArisDeMarcoWCS 

https://www.instagram.com/arisdemarco.floortime/

arisdemarco@gmail.com

ps I'm at City of Angels this weekend! My first event in over two years. Hit me up if you're gonna be there too.