Floortime

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 lot...

 "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 be...

"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...

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...

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...

Sometimes we look at a west coast swing dancer and it's easy to see why they managed to improve rather quickly. Factors like an extensive preexisting dance background, time spent playing a musical instrument, natural athleticism, youth/starting to learn west coast swing at a younger age, learning in an advantageous location (think of trying to learn the dance in the bay area instead of, say, Alaska)… these are obvious. But there are also some less-than-tangible factors we can keep an eye out for. Not only are these extremely valuable, but they can also be consciously developed to help us grow our own dance!   1. Non-attachment to ideas or theories.   Simply put, the people I know who have improved their own dance the fastest are those who can easily ditch what so-and-so said if it doesn’t work for them. “This doesn’t feel like what’s best for me right now” is an extremely powerful thought. Combine this with the next point and you’ll have an immense advantage in terms of mak...

  Yeah, the title is a reference to supernatural  I started doing west coast swing in 2015. I'd done collegiate ballroom for about two years, and salsa/bachata for about the same amount of time. Neither very seriously!  At this point I'd also played violin for over a decade, done martial arts for about four years (both of those when I was much younger), soccer for a couple of seasons (during middle school) track and field for two years (high school), calisthenics on a regular basis since 2008, trained hardstyle (SFG/RKC) kettlebells since 2009, and done powerlifting-style barbell strength training since 2010. I also worked full time as a personal trainer/powerlifting team coach/kettlebell instructor and mentor to other certified instructors as my full time profession from 2014-2018.  Yes, all of this helped me a lot. Much more so than the limited dance experience I'd had . My very first west coast swing lesson was in Washington DC but I really started a few months la...

First, the mirror here is an analogy. Looking in a mirror while you're dancing isn't wrong, and it isn't even rude as long as your partner knows you're practicing and sees the dance as such. But it's inefficient and will throw your dancing off. It'll change where your head weight is, possibly affect where your frame is at, and you'll have to abandon it if you're spotting anyway. Plus, watching yourself *directly* flat from the side or front isn't as good as a slight angle. You can get this if you have full unbroken mirrors on two perpendicular walls, but it's still not as good as a video. Or a video of the mirrored dance space! So take videos.  Everyone hates seeing themselves dance , at first at least. There are exceptions, but I think they're too scarce to mention. Even most people who are really, really self obsessed have insecurities and are surprised when the way they look doesn't match the images in their head.  You can think of thi...

Approaching west coast swing as a human being, Episode I   A few years ago, I came across the idea of body neutrality . I worked in the fitness industry as a strength coach and became very familiar with how negative self-talk affected people. The desire to measure up to impossible, airbrushed standards on magazine covers, web pages and tv. One of the suggestions I received from some very, very intelligent coaches (and good people) was to supplant aesthetic goals with performance goals . Rather than getting validation from others complimenting your appearance or comparing yourself to someone on a movie screen, you’d focus your efforts on what your body could DO—be it powerlifting, a triathlon, yoga, rock climbing, or anything else. For women especially the sensation of being strong, physically capable, and literally taking up space was a drastic change and improvement from where they’d been. Here’s the problem. That approach was body positivity —like the ‘big is beautiful’ ...