Let's KISS teaching west coast swing -- Keep It Simple, Savon

Here's an example of breaking an element down into the biggest, most fundamental chunk possible. What we want is efficiency. Humans have limited brain power, I've seen it suggested that at any given time we can really only think of, at most, two physical cues at once. 

For dance this doesn't necessarily mean that we can and/or should only think about ONE thing the whole time we're dancing--although that's entirely valid as a training method--but definitely at any given point in time we need to limit the number of directions we're trying to split our attention. For instance, I can think about different things on count 2 and count 4 of my underarm turn. However, trying to think about five different things on my count 2 alone isn't going to go so well. 

I think it's a natural human trait to want to believe that more is better. If I can conceive of six different things wrong with what I'm doing every time I lead down slot, that's good! I have more things to fix and when I've fixed them all my initiation on one will be absolutely perfect. 

One extremely useful saying from my original profession: More isn't better, it's just more. 

What we really want is to streamline things and make them efficient. Globalized. Chunk different actions together with each cue so that we can think about as few things as possible. We have limited processing power! Dancing is already like riding a unicycle on a sidewalk in New York City, we don't have to try and do calculus in our heads at the same time. 

Here's an example. 

Savon, our protagonist for this parable, has tried thinking about a few different things as he leads on count 1. 

Thinking about stepping onto the left foot: pitches toward follow while stepping, leads off time, has to arm pull.

Thinking about pushing off of the right foot (which is a fairly normal place for me to start a leader thinking about good quality initiations): sometimes the push doesn't actually move his body down slot, sometimes thinking about pushing with the right makes him reach back and "kickstand" onto his left in an odd way

Here is something specific to our hero: Coming from a pro soccer background, if he thinks "push" he also automatically thinks "land." Imagine jumping laterally and leaning + extending a foot to catch yourself--that's the athletic reflex that occurs for him. Thus, the go-to of 'push off your right foot to lead' makes weird things happen. 

The new idea: move body down slot. That's it, don't think about either foot right now, or the precise angle of your pitch, what your hand is doing, how you're rolling your receiving foot. It's too much all at once. 

How we introduced it: 

I literally show him how far I want him to try and bring his center down slot every time he leads. That's what's happening when I'm manhandling him into his count 1. It's exaggerated, but aiming for this amount of travel was useful. The explanation was "your spine is barely moving down slot as you step/push/whatever on one. I'd like it to move about a whole foot away from your follow to initiate the lead." If you compare the very first sugar push he did,(25 seconds into the video) with the one I... co-piloted right afterward, that's the contrast we created. And yes, whether it's a good idea or comfy for the student to teach this hands-on is an individual consideration as well ;)

It might not be audible on the video, but I also told him not to worry about screwing up the timing or the particular pattern, at least for the next 30 seconds. IF this cue helps, then we can integrate those other adjustments in as we go. We can't look for a cue that will magically fix everything at the same time! This particular thought has the potential to make his entire initiation on every single 1 much more coordinated. If we can replace thinking about hand, right foot, left foot, pitch, head weight, and foot articulation with one single thought--great, right? Which makes adding the next thing that much easier.

Talking with Savon, I brought up the Bruce Lee thought of "I do not hit, it hits all by itself." The proper leg drive happens if you think about moving your entire torso down slot to initiate the lead. Now, this wouldn't work for everyone. For example, if someone else only thought about their body moving down slot they might lean backward or something. This is just an example for one person, but hopefully it's illustrating the KISS principle here. 

Don't make things harder or more complicated than they have to be! and be willing to play around with how to think about or conceptualize any given aspect of your dance :)

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