learning – Page 4

Gendered language in class

I’m ok with talking about gender and using gendered pronouns in class. I just like to be sure I’m not just using the same two boring pronouns all the time, and that I’m using people’s preferred pronouns.

I’m not ok with gendering leading and following, or skills related to leading and following.

This is partly why I’m not ok with some elements of the ambidance movement: I don’t want to do away with all gender.
But I do want to do away with the essentialist coupling of skills and ideas with two gender ‘norms’.

How then do I work to deconstruct gender in lindy hop when I’m teaching?

1. Use the words ‘leads’ and ‘follows’ (or the role name, and I’m with Dan when it comes to avoiding leader/follower) rather than ‘ladies and gentlemen’, ‘men and women’, ‘she/her/he/him’ etc etc.

2. Use people’s actual names rather than the role. It’s nicer generally, but it also encourages us to think of people as individuals, not roles. I try to use my teaching partner’s name.

3. Rather than talking about or around your teaching partner (eg “The follow will do this,”) speak to your teaching partner, asking them to describe what they’re doing (eg “How do you know I’m asking you to move forward, Alice?”).

Then there are trickier, less obvious things.
1. Always ask permission before you touch someone. It’s quite common for leaders to simply ‘grab’ a follow in class/their partner to demonstrate on them as though they were an object. I always try to ask them if I can touch/demonstrate. And I always apologise if I’ve just thoughtlessly grabbed them.
I started doing this after we started asking students to always introduce themselves and ask someone to dance before touching a new partner. It rubbed off on me :D
This stops us treating our partners like objects/just ‘the follower’. And this issue happens more with leaders grabbing follows than vice versa.

2. Conceptualising lindy hop as something other than ‘leader says, follow does’.
We are currently using ‘call and response’ and both partners can do it. We also use ‘leader invites follow to do X, follow decides whether to do X, how fast to do X,’ etc etc etc.

3. Don’t use words that position follows as objects.
eg never using words like ‘push’ to describe what leads do: ‘the leader pushes the follow’. No. This a) not technically accurate, and b) disrespectful.

4. Always try to talk about and think about your partner as a human with feelings and emotions.
When we get really technical, it’s easy to reduce our partner to an object force/momentum happens to, or a subject who generates force/momentum. We are real people with real feelings. So while physics is at work, our feelings and emotions are much more important. So we use language that describes what’s happening from that POV first. In nerd terms, this means using ‘external cues’ rather than ‘internal cues’.
eg. I ask Alice if she’d like to go to the snack table, then I take her hand and go with her to the snack table. vs ‘I hold her hand with my fingers in X position, then I engage my core, prepare, and then lift my left foot, swing it back 20*, place it back behind me, and then she engages her core and activates her frame…..’
The technical jargon encourages us to talk about our bodies and partners as technical objects, not as real live humans. It also slows down learning :D

5. Speak and act as though your partner and other dancers have opinions, and that these opinions may differ from yours.
We often try to hide the way we ‘make the sausages’, but it’s more useful for learners to see us discuss things, perhaps disagree, share different ideas. So ask your partner and students what they think and feel. Allow yourself to learn from your students and be surprised and delighted by this new information.

-> all this stuff is about deconstructing not just a gender binary, but a hierarchy of gendered power with straight white bro at the top.

And what of historical accuracy in all this?
I think it’s important to talk about gender in a historical context when we talk about lindy hop. So while a gender neutral pronoun is very much something white, middle class Australian teachers are experimenting with, that’s not how black dancers might have spoken of each other in the 30s.

Again, though, I like to take care about generalising. While some dancers today would have us believe that the 30s were a time of rigid gender norms, that’s not entirely true:
– There were women leads and men follows (and every gender ID ever) in the olden days,
– There were queer dancers and musicians (I’m currently reading about queer culture in NY in the 20s-40s… helllooooo genderflex ID and jazz dance!) and genderflex lindy hoppers fucking up the patriarchy then. Lester Young, anyone?
– Some of the most supportive teachers I’ve had have been black OGs, who’ve used gender neutral language and openly said they support women leads/male follows/genderflex dance IDs.

So when we talk about ‘ungendering’ lindy hop, that’s perhaps not helpful. It’s more that I want to widen my understanding of gender (and sexuality) in dance to more than just straight men leading and straight women following. The world is huge, and jazz asks us to improvise and innovate.

I have written about this many times before:

Gendering dance talk (7/2/13)
If you can jazz dance, gender neutral language is a fucking cake walk (29/6/13)
More than gender neutral language (17/10/13)
Moving away from gender essentialism in teaching talk (28/5/18)

Clicker training and positive reinforcement

I’ve recently been pushing to teach lindy hop using only positive reinforcement.
When the students are doing an ‘experiment with these things please’ session in class (and they do a lot of this independent, self-guided learning in class), we used to watch until we saw common errors or patterns of messed up movement. Then we’d stop and correct the students, saying things like “Instead of doing this, do that.” I had been advised by a teacher friend (Shane McCarthy in Perth) never to ‘correct’ a student in class in front of the group because it’s embarrassing and trashes their morale. But it’s taken me until just this year to realise that I never need to correct a student again.

‘Correction’ is another word for ‘telling students they’re doing things wrong, that they’re wrong.’ And this is shit for morale. Both students’ and ours. Because if you’re going to tell someone they suck, you feel terrible. Unless you are a somewhat shit person. I used to go home from class worried that I’d said the wrong thing, or taught them something bullshit.
Until I noticed that when I said, “Oh, you know what I saw that I really liked? ….” and then pointed out where someone specific had done something really nice, or in general when I saw something I liked, the students felt great, and I felt wonderful.

In our teaching pairs, we used to have a rule for reducing the amount of time we spent teaching: say one thing for follows, and one thing for leads. Thing is, these things were almost always ‘tips’ or corrections. So we were effectively making a rule: ‘say one thing to trash the follows, then one thing to trash the leads.’ Boo!
But then we started encouraging each other to say “Something that I saw that I liked…” And YES. The world got really really good. Yay!

So this year I made a rule for myself, which I’ve then asked all my teaching partners to do when the teach with me: if you want to guide students towards a particular behaviour, wait until you see a student or students doing that behaviour (or on the road to that behaviour), and then say, “I saw some people doing X. It was really nice.” You be very specific about what you saw, and if you think that student can handle the attention, name them: “I saw X and Y dancing away, then get into a tangle, and you know what they did? X said, “Can we stop for a tick so I can try again?’ And they stopped and chilled for a second, grooved til they found their timing, then they started it again. That was a really cool way of dealing with a mess.” If you see a bunch of people doing a thing, say that: “I saw a bunch of people doing X and I loved it.”

Or if you see ALL of them doing something – tell them! I tend to gush on this one: “Oh! That looked so nice and _grooving_ because you all took a bit of time to make friends with the music before you got going, and then you kept that groove!” I also like to point out how people have managed their own mistakes: “I really liked the way you guys started dancing, and it was nice, but a bit square” [demonstrate timing], “And then the music started, you all heard the musicians, and you all changed your dancing so it swung” [demonstrate swinging timing].

So now my rule is: no ‘corrections’, no ‘tips’. Just positive affirmations. If you don’t see the behaviour you need or want to see, wait. Because they’ll get there. If they don’t, then you need to show them again. And that’s ok.
Key to this is that you are looking at students looking for ways in which they are wonderful, rather than ways in which they are rubbish. It just made teaching so wonderful.

But let’s look more at this idea of positive reinforcement replacing correction in teaching.

Today, I read a book called ‘Getting Started: Clicker Training for Dogs’ by Karen Pryor, because we’re trying to teach our nutty, somewhat panicky rescue dog a few tricks, but also so she feels more confident and happy when we’re out, and when we’re around the house. This book is just lovely. Mostly because clicker training rewards good behaviour rather than punishing or correcting ‘bad’ behaviour. It also encourages you – the trainer – to look for goodness in your subject, not badness or errors. And hence, brings good vibes. As the book says

Once you get used to thinking the clicker way, you are much more likely to notice good behavior and reward it, instead of giving your attention to a child only when it’s doing something wrong.

More importantly for trainers, it’s much easier to maintain preferred behaviour with this method than with “physically correcting erroneous behaviour”.

Let me just note that point: it encourages teachers to actively look for good behaviour. It changes the teacher.

How does it work?
First, you encourage learning-by-exploring.
When your doggo does a behaviour close to what you want, you click your clicker and give it a treat. So if I want Frank to sit, if she stops, she gets a click and a treat. If she starts to lower her rear haunches, I click and she gets a treat. If she actually sits – click! And treat bonanza (lots of treats)! Important: you only click once, exactly as you see the desired behaviour. They then associate the click with approval for what they are doing _at that time_. You never punish or correct or tell them off. If they deviate substantially from what you want, you put the clicker and treats away. No more treats.

So we have the second point: you encourage learning by approval and positive reinforcement, not correction and punishment/disapproval.
I’ve heard of positive reinforcement, of course, but I’d never really thought about what I was doing as a teacher as positive reinforcement.

The goal: the doggo learns that their behaviour gets you to click and give you treats. So they start thinking: what can I do that will make the human click? And they start experimenting.

You can immediately see how this works for lindy hop: what can I do that will make my partner smile, and dance really well making for a good dance and fun time for both of us? You can also see that this approach forces you to shift the learners’ focus from you, the teacher, to each partners. Ha. Yes. Your ego will need to be set aside for minute!

But this approach also works for teaching: what sort of things can I try to that will get me a good result? What interesting things can we do to make the students and us happy? How much fun can we actually have in class? And I tell you, friends: it’s addictive. If you can have a little bit of fun once, you suddenly think LET’S HAVE A LOT OF FUN ALL THE TIME.
This encourages a happy, creative pupper, but also happy, creative dancer. Ta da! Lindy hop!

This book extends this approach to teaching other animals besides dogs (it was actually developed with dolphins), and then to teaching children. Apparently this method works particularly well with humans learning physical skills, because it’s so quick. Not only are you giving positive reinforcement, but you’re also physically making a nonverbal sound (clicking the clicker) when you see the behaviour you want. And retention of these skills is permanent, with learning happening twice as fast as with verbal instructions.

The question then becomes: can we use a clicker in a lindy hop class? If not, what non-vocal substitution would work?
As a clear example, when you learn African dance with drummers in class, the drummers signal a change in the exercise or step or rhythm with a very clear rhythmic sound. And if you’re doing a nonverbal warm up like i-go, you-go, the teacher moves on from one rhythm or one shape to another when you get it right. Hmmm. Close, but not quite right.

I have noticed myself that if I use words to signal my approval or to signal ‘Yes! you are on track!’ to students, the language itself interrupts their processing of information. This is no doubt because, as we know, humans can’t/aren’t much good at processing words and physical lead/follow information at the same time.
So let’s look at another example from black culture (which is where of course lindy hop began): the call-and-response “Amen!” of a congregation responding to a preacher. It is a word, but it’s used so often that it has become more of a ‘sound’ than an actual Word. It means ‘yes!’ and ‘I hear you!’ and ‘praise that/you!’
Even within a mainstream white culture, women talking in groups use non-verbal signals of approval to encourage speakers in conversation: the raised eyebrow, the exclamation of breath, a laugh-sound.

What sort of nonlingual verbal cues can we use?

The other key element in clicker training is to do with the trainers: you learn to

respond in new ways. You become used to the idea that behavior needs to be built in small pieces, not in big chunks. You stop expecting too much, too soon, and just look for what you can reinforce – and so in fact you get more results, and better.
If you see a behavior you don’t like, …instead of rushing in to prevent it or stop it, you take it as a training opportunity: what is it this learner needs to know? What’s missing? What can I add that would replace this bad behavior?… you have a better way – reinforcing what you like, instead of attacking what you don’t.
…The experience can lead to less stress and more fun in life in general.

Ah!
This is another approach that we’ve really jumped onto in our teaching. The idea of slowly building up skills in pieces. So instead of starting a class by saying, “Today we will learn the swing out!” and then proceeding to show a move, then break it into pieces, then map it out, then have them do each bit, we start with a related foundational skill. We need a few things for swing outs: a sense of timing (ie the beat), a rhythm (ie a way of moving through space predictably), and a partner. To work with a partner, we need to know how to touch them, how to communicate with them (to know what they want/like and to tell them what we want/like), and to know how they feel the music.

So we begin with the first part: how do we move our bodies? Then we move on to the next part: how do we dance with a partner? Then we get them using all these elements (rhythm, shared beat, partnering skills, movement, etc) to do a simple task – move around the room randomly, experimenting. We ask them, “What helps? What makes this easier? What was the funnest part?”
Then we ask them to do a specific task: to dance a circle. But we literally say, “Now look here.” We show them. They watch. Then we say, “Please give your best approximation of this.” They do it. Boom circles. This has taught them not only a specific move, but it’s also taught them to experiment and try. And they get rewarded for that. But the move itself also teaches them to feel and experiment with rotational momentum… or, in human words, to feel that wonderful spinny roundy feeling.
Then we say, “Please let go half way.” And they basically recreate throwing a ball on a string. A swing out. And you give them TREAT BONANZA. Both in terms of praise, but you also point out: now you have a very fun move. And you set them loose to play with it to music.

All this plus a couple of jazz steps and warms ups and things is our first class. They have learnt a swing out. But they have learnt a million other skills as well as this one move. And the skills are more important.
For us, as teachers, we’ve learnt that a swing out isn’t a ‘thing’ that you give a student. It’s a thing that they discover through guided experimentation.

You want to keep doing positive reinforcement because it gives them the confidence to try, and to make mistakes, and then to see what happens when they do it in this way or that way. Which is, of course, how the swing out was born historically.

Clicker training in brief

– click the behaviour you want, exactly when it happens
– reward/treat after you click
– only work positively: reward what you want, or actions that get closer to what you want; never punish
– work in incremental steps towards a bigger goal

Key elements of clicker training:
– encourage the learner to experiment with all sorts of things until they figure out what behaviour will get a click (and a treat)
– you, the teacher, have to look actively for things to reward/click. This often means the learner does things you don’t expect, which gets them closer to the goal
– you, the teacher, get more flexible and learn more 　
– the learner is learning experiment with doing all sorts of things with the goal of changing _your_ (the teacher’s) behaviour (ie to get you to click)

Conclusion
It is epic fun for everyone, because you focus on positive outcomes and reinforcement, rather than correcting and punishing.

Interesting thing:
The clicker is absolutely key because it is an aural, nonverbal cue. It gets twice as fast learning than a verbal cue. Because it side steps the longer word-processing-learning of verbal cues. It’s _faster_ because your brain doesn’t need to untangle the words. Your brain is faster with nonverbal cues.

It also works on doggos.

Challenge: clicking is kind of harsh, socially.

An example of a pretty structured tagteaching (which uses clicker training).

Cognitive load and lindy hop

Leah Jo linked up this interesting article, ‘Cognitive Load Theory
How the cognitive load of a learning task affects a person’s ability to memorize it’ on facebork.

It’s very interesting.

Fran then asked about the point that because processing more than one type of data increases cognitive load, we should avoid it.

I’m not entirely sure I understand the article’s point, as I haven’t read the original research. But that won’t stop me blabbering on.

I’ve just read that bit, and I reckon it means:

Different types of data are processed in different ways (eg auditory info – sound – and visual info – stuff we see).
Processing more than one type of info at a time increases cognitive load (ie it’s more work.)
Therefore (this article suggests) we should only present data in one form at a time.
In our case, that’d be just scatting a rhythm, or just dancing a rhythm, not dancing and scatting.

I think I can dig this, especially for total beginners who are just learning to dance for the first time. They can be learning to process visual info (bodies in motion), auditory info (clapping), etc etc etc.
So what we’ve found (coincidentally – I’d never heard this theory before), is that we demonstrate one thing at a time. eg we dance the whole move. Then we clap a rhythm. Then we may tap the rhythm with our toes. Then we may step it out with no sound, but shapes. This way the info (ie the rhythm) comes to them as lots of different data types, but one at a time.

Having said all that, as we know, dancers are super good at processing a few different types of data at once: we can be led through a routine and see the shapes, we can listen to the music and hear the melody, we can feel the physical cues and respond with the shapes.

But these are skills we come to after practicing and learning for a while.
I think retention (memory) is under-emphasised in our skill sets. I mean, we learn complex rhythms (which are essentially like learning complex mathematical formula or series of words), retain them, and then repeat them back with or without variation. We also learn whole sequences of steps during our dancing years, and then recreate or revise them in real time.
So one thing we learn when we do a dance class is to see/hear/feel data in one way, then retain that ‘way’ and information while we’re watching and retaining a section, third, fourth set of data. Then we synthesise it all and do it with another human being surrounded by heaps of other human beings also dancing or playing music!

That’s some seriously heavy cognitive load. So one thing we need to do in classes is teach students how to cope with a) the pressure of increased cognitive load, b) how to actually carry increased cognitive load. And lindy hop is awesome because it’s so fun: it rewards increased cognitive load management with good endorphines and happy times. :D

We can also just start with simpler tasks, then increase the complexity. For example, begin with one type of data at a time, then gradually increase the combinations. I think we do this with our beginners. So we may just give them one rhythm in the baby version of i-go, you-go, but as they get more experienced, we increase the number of things they have to do during that task (eg the next step in this game is to have the pair take turns dancing a rhythm at each other, in real time, so they have to invent a rhythm while they’re watching and retaining their partner’s rhythm. The simple solution to this is to take something from your partner’s rhythm and build on it in your rhythm, so you don’t have to make something entirely different. This is what tappers do in jams. It also provides rhythmic coherency or consistency).

I’ve been interested to compare teaching in a quiet environment after teaching in a noisy environment with lots of distractions. The former is very much the marker of middle class, anglo-european teaching philosophy. The idea that we need a quiet ‘room of one’s own’ to do good solid thinking and learning. But if there’s one thing we know about lindy hop, it’s that it was born and thrived in loud environments full of information and noise and other people. One of the very first things you learn in a tap class, for example, is how to handle the cognitive load of a very loud learning environment. A lot of people simply can’t get past that first bit (I personally really struggle with this).

I also noticed that when we started welcome small babies and children (and doggos) in our teaching space, at first I found it impossible to stay focussed. Then I just learnt to ignore it (as I suppose mothers learn to ignore random kid noise, but respond to particular noises or lack of noise :D). So you learn to filter out extraneous data to decrease your cognitive load.

…following that thought on. We know that people learn best in environments where they feel happy and safe. This is probably because when we feel unsafe, we are ‘hyper vigilant’, taking in lots of information about our environment, _and_ keeping our bodies ready to fight or fly. Which is why anxiety or social phobias or trauma are so exhausting.

So while I dig this article, I think that it’d be really useful to compare it with learning in other cultural spaces. I haven’t checked the samples in this piece, but I wonder if they used predominantly white, middle class people between 18 and 25 (ie university students) in laboratory environments as their samples?

Perhaps one of the most important things about thinking of lindy hop as a black dance, is that we remember where and how people learnt to dance: in vernacular spaces. Everyday spaces. Spaces full of noise and stimuli and other people. Which is not only why we see the influence of everyday stuff in lindy hop (eg rhythmic movements borrowed from stuff like sweeping or hammering or ball games or playing hop scotch; familiar personalities like pimps and kids skipping; familiar animals like chickens and cows), but the ability to bear massive cognitive load while completing complex tasks…

Independent students and the I-go You-go game (part 4: Teaching ethos and goals)

Independent students and the I-go You-go game (part 2: I-go You-go)

Independent students and the I-go You-go game (part 1: a class structure)

Class ‘content’

We’ve just finished a six week long beginner lindy hop block. This whole block could be summarised in one hour (as we did tonight) with the below points. If I had time, I’d also list the specific class plans we had for each individual class.

Specific dance stuff:
– gliding (dancing in closed with no particular rhythm), aka floor craft, partnering, leading and following, comfortable closed position, finding 1, stopping and starting independently;
– circles, aka a specific rhythm (which someone pointed out tonight is 2 x 4 counts) with a specific direction and shape – leads leading and follows following, efficient and deliberate movement through space, being able to choose a smaller step size, etc;
– swinging out from closed position, aka knowing where ‘halfway’ is in a circle (on count 5 or after the triple step), continuing rhythm, leading with your body and the physics of rotation, understanding how far to go away from your partner;
– jazzing in open, then re-starting again, aka keeping time and changing between a single time rhythm and a step step triple step rhythm, leading in from open using your body, following in from open;
– using rotation again to ‘catch’ the follow, making contact with your body to follow the lead;
– combining the two to make an open to open swing out, with or without time jazzing in open, aka hearing 8s, phrases, keeping time, swinging time, etc, improvising, changing rhythms;
– charleston on your own (and using the groove to transition between the two);
– moving from a circle into side by side charleston then out again (using the groove to keep time, knowing when to change, using your body to change direction and suggest a change in rhythm, recognising changes in your lead’s body movement, maintaining a rhythm until it changes);
– the kick through in side by side charleston (how to lead by moving your own body – kicking in and out, pivoting on one foot, pivoting on one foot and turning, a new charleston rhythm, etc etc)
– leading the whole group in a big apple, in turn (hearing the phrase, knowing how to prepare for, then pass the turn to your neighbour, knowing how to pass without stressing, understanding how to lead a move successfully for a group, etc)!
– moving through space (rotating partners!)
– swivels, boogie back and forward, itches, push it, push it out, etc, rocking, and many other jazz steps.

Learning skills:
– learning-by-watching;
– working with a partner;
– dealing with not getting it right first time (aka patience and perseverance);
– i-go you-go learning style in pairs and in groups;
– sticking with a task (no matter how ‘simple’) and refining it;
– working with a range of partners of different abilities, and finding the fun;
– knowing how to stop, chillax and find the groove, then restart and start dancing again with many different partners (esp after ‘making a mess’);
– working on a problem or challenge before asking for help (independent and team problem solving);

Social skills:
– how to ask for a dance, how to accept one, how to introduce yourself;
– how to ask a partner how to change how they’re touching you, how to accept that comment from a partner;
– stopping, then chillaxing, then restarting with a partner to manage stress or making mistakes;
– staying calm and cheery under pressure, and accepting challenges and obstacles as a useful part of learning, without getting angry or anti-social;
– respecting partners’ bodies, and when they ask to stop, change, or adjust a physical contact;

Musical skills:
– finding the beat;
– swinging the beat;
– finding the 1;
– finding the 8;
– accenting 2, 4, 6, 8 (as in boogie back);
– difference between 20s and 40s jazz and how it affects charleston emphasis;
– finding a phrase (consciously and also implicitly);
– recognising a 12 bar blues and 32 bar chorus format;
– finding the right place to start in the music, then getting started and dancing;
– moving between different rhythms (single time, half time, step step triple step, charleston, a range of other rhythms) in partners and alone as solo dancers, and also as solo dancers with a partner;
– being able to recognise, retain, then repeat a given rhythm (as in I-go, you-go);
– being able to transfer a rhythm from clapping to different parts of the foot, to stepping, to physical movement through space.

They learnt so much!
I’m also happy that I’ve learnt how to rethink a class and course structure. I used to teaching thinking ‘ok, what moves will we teach’, and now I can think ‘ok, what skills do we want’, then develop a class that fosters these skills implicitly (rather than through lots of talking). But still uses and shares historic vocabulary and musical knowledge.

Figuring out how to teach content in class is lots of work

Lian noted in the teaching swing dance group the other day:

…in the past few years when planning class material, I’ve found it super helpful to focus on HOW we’ll teach it… Will we have them do it solo first, how about shuffling through geography before diving in with footwork, or a progressive series of movement leading to the final concept.

I commented:
[comment]
I think this is the most important thing ever. Making a shift away from moves= content to skills = content has been so important for me. From ‘we’ll teach moves x, y, x’ to ‘our goal is x or y this class. We’ll do this game, then this move, then combine the game with the moves in a section to teach this skill.’

It takes ages, but when we work through how we’ll teach, it’s so much better. Especially if you’re working with a new teacher, or if you want to be a better teacher. Breaking down how you’ll teach makes you more self-reflexive, and actively engage with how you understand a move, how you articulate it, how you can take most of the words out, and how you can encourage students to learn by trying.

Super fun. But it really challenges a teacher to try to improve and change their habits.
[/]

I’m interested in the idea of class planning as a discipline not only for its effects on teaching practice, but also for the way it organises labour before, during, and after classes, and also contributes to teaching team morale and relationships. The time you spend planning helps you figure out how you’ll relate to a teaching partner.

But a very important of my current teaching process, is moving from seeing class ‘content’ as a bunch of moves, to seeing class ‘content’ as much more.

This includes lots of different teaching tools, and knowing how they work individually and cumulatively to develop students’ skills:

– Having ‘goals’ for that specific class
eg ‘integrating different charleston rhythms with lindy hop’
That means knowing what you want to achieve before going in there (because you know your students’ needs), or going in there, observing the students, and thinking ‘ok, they need some X.’

– Having fun games that develop skills required to reach that goal
eg some solo work to learn how your body works
I’m beginning to think that the whole class should be treated like a series of games. ie just making classes a bunch of fun challenges and tasks.

– Beginning every class with a warm up that includes key rhythms or shapes that we’ll use in the class later, but set the tone of the class.
eg kicks for charleston, or pivoting on one foot, or syncopated timing, or dancing across two 8s rather than one
This warm up teaches specific rhythms and shapes, but also teaches them how to learn-by-doing (ie we literally say “Just join in; the goal is to get warmed up”), how to deal with ‘mistakes’ and challenges, and how to move on from one step to another, or from one challenge to another without giving up. It also trains the eye (what do you _see_), and the ear (each move takes a phrase, and uses specific rhythms across moves).
NB We all practice our warm ups very carefully, and don’t just ‘wing’ them.

– Following that with a teacher-led exercise or game like I-go, You-go to teach rhythms.
This second game continues the idea of learn-by-doing, and is lots of fun. These two ‘warm up’ games also begin introducing students to the skills they need for later in the class. So in week 1 of the beginner block we teach the ‘basic rhythm’ using I-go You-go. But we might also use this to teach a particular jazz step or skill.
This game can be made more complex/challenging for more experienced classes. eg from week 1 to week 6 in the beginner block, it gets trickier as their skills increase.

– Paired or small group exercises which are actually dancing.
eg an I-go, you-go exercise where they echo the teacher’s role of calling the step, but take turns being the ‘responder’ as well as the caller, working in turn rather than together.
This then moves them from ‘doing one’ to ‘teaching one’. They learn to ‘teach’ or communicate a rhythm or shape or musical concept with their bodies in a small group (a pair) which is less threatening. It also teaches them to work with a partner (which is central to lindy hop). This develops skills like communication, visual learning (learn by watching), seeing success as a collaboration not an individual victory or competition (eg they ‘win’ if their partner completes the rhythm successfully).
NB These are NOT isolated ‘exercises’, but actually dancing games, where they are literally dancing and experimenting with movement and rhythm.

– Moving to a dance move or figure that employs these skills.
eg a call and response rhythm that happens on 1-4 and then 5-8 of an 8 count swing out.
This is the application of their solo dancing skills to the lindy hop setting. They usually figure out that they’ve been dancing lindy hop all along anyway.

– Teaching specific lindy hop vocabulary.
Historic moves are wonderful because they incorporate all the things we value: music, swing, collaboration, etc etc. I try to teach at least one jazz step per class. But I may teach it in a variety of ways. I try to collect ways to teach these steps to keep my brain interested, and theirs. So teaching a jazz step isn’t just about passing on a nugget of knowledge. A specific jazz step teaches other things. eg boogie forward teaches how to dance alone with a partner, dancing in blocks of 8, using half time, experimenting with simple shapes to get interesting styles, how to move through space (including floor craft), etc etc etc. I might teach this step by “Watch me, and when you’re ready, join in” or I might break it down into pieces. Or I might say, “Let’s walk into the circle (big apple style), then back out. Ok, let’s use this timing. Nice, now let’s give it some boogie.” And build up the step from a recognisable real-world movement (eg walking).

– Plenty of individual/unguided practice or experimentation time.
They count themselves in (start when you feel ready, or when the music tells you it is time), learning to pause and take a breath, communicate with a partner to figure something out, navigate a crowded dance floor, ask for a dance and how to touch someone, etc etc.
These unguided sessions are ESSENTIAL as they teach improvisation, and other social dancing skills. This is the point of it all.

– Giving dancers without a partner specific tasks.
eg explaining how to practice a rhythm on your own, experimenting with size, shape, bounce, groove, etc.
I find that most students figure out how to do this on their own, if you begin a class with a strong solo component. The last thing I want is students looking at their phones or blanking out. Even if they’re not actually dancing, I want them to be watching, engaging, or simply taking a real break or breath and learning to realise when they need to take a time out.

– Whole-group demos from teachers
eg we’ll do it three times then you do it. This brings all the dancers together, and they can ask questions and listen to each other. It’s important for teachers to use this time to model how to speak to a partner respectfully, etc etc etc.

– Whole group synchronised dancing through a step or sequence.
“Let’s all go together as a team.” Dancing as a synchronised team builds cohort feels, but it also strengthens rhythmic sensibilities and collaboration. They feel where it’s going wrong or right, and they learn to start and stop at a specific time (eg with discipline).

I’ve ended with this last tool, because this is where a lot of teachers begin and end all their classes: teaching a series of set moves that everyone dances together as the teacher counts the time, and then they rotate. I think it’s a nice tool, but dancing it this way in class every class, all the time neglects 90% of the skills you need for dancing lindy hop. Even if you break the step down before they do it, using something like a standard – geography, shuffle through, now add rhythm, now refine the leading/following.

If they experiment on their own, they learn to count themselves in, experiment with leading and following naturally, work with a partner, listen to music and dance in swinging time, learn to hear phrases (when the music suggests they start), take a breath and just stand and watch, retain their social skills by communicating with a partner, etc etc etc.

Teaching: follows’ skills

Someone asked in the teaching group this week:

Planning a workshop focused on follow mechanics. What skills do you think separate great follows from good follows, and how would you train those skills?

There were some interesting comments from people asking if there would be leaders in the class (yes), a male lead chimed in to say how much he learnt as a lead participating in this type of workshop, and there was general chat about how to run this sort of thing. All fascinating.

Me I tend to feel that leaders and follows have very similar goals and skills. I do think of leading and following as very distinct roles within the partnership, though. Leaders have the map, the follow is driving the rally car. The leader points out a side road ahead, the follow decides whether to turn, how fast to turn, whether to u-turn etc. An approach I learnt from Jenny and Rikard. So my response below reflects this.
I also see this question as a consequence of a general push in lindy hop teaching to address follows more directly in class.

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Things I might look at with follows:
– “You are responsible for carrying the beat, and for maintaining your own rhythm. Don’t sacrifice that for the lead.”
This means that you take the steps and move across the floor in a way that feels like the music, and is also a choice. So not always reacting to the lead, but completing each movement, giving each piece of the rhythm the right amount of time, whether it’s a quick weight change or a slow one, a tap or a jump or whatever.

– “Know what you are doing.”
This might not be a conscious brain thing, but your body should be making confident choices about your movements. I _choose_ to echo my lead, to synch with them, to add something new. Just as I _choose_ to echo the music, synch with it, or add something new.
This is about being PRESENT in the dance. I am right there in the moment, in my partner’s arms. I’m not predicting the next step. I’m there, with them. Emotionally, physically, rhythmically.

– “Both partners find a shared sense of groove.”
This means that it’s not the follow’s job to just ‘match’ the lead. It’s both partners’ responsibility to listen, express their groove (ie dance, not just ‘wait’) and find a nice ‘connection’ (both physical and social – communicative). I think of it as ‘taking the measure’ of a partner before you start to do moves.

– “If leads call the rhythm, follows respond.”
In the first few steps of the dance, a leader might ‘call’ step step triple step, or step-step kick step, kick kick-step with their bodies: swing out or charleston. As a follow, I respond to this. I might (as I describe it), listen for a second, and then say “ok, yep, I’m on board with this” and then pick up that rhythm. I hold that rhythm until the lead suggests a change. eg I hold down that step step triple step until the lead suggests a new one ( eg step-step kick step, kick kick-step).
I think of that as the first sort of ‘finding consensus’ part of a dance. As a follow, I say with my connection and facial expression, “Ok, I’m paying attention. Where would you like to start?” and then we do that rhythm together. It’s like the lead lays down a time step, and I get on board and do it too. Until we change it up.
From here, as the music changes, and I get the measure of my partner, I may add in rhythms – ‘call’ a rhythm. The lead can ‘get on board’ by joining in, or by listening, or by holding down that time step/basic rhythm while I improvise on top. It’s all good. But the the type of relationship you have with that partner depends on who you are as people, what the music says, how you feel, etc etc.
So as a follow, you pay attention to how the lead is feeling about all this.

-> As a lead, I don’t want the follow to just copy everything I do, and try to synchronise with me. It makes me a bit sad (and frustrated, really), as a lead when a follow apologises for ‘not getting it’. It’s ok. If we’re together in our embrace, we can do completely different stuff below the waist.

– “The follow’s feet are their own business.”
As a lead, I don’t try to tell the follow how to get from point A to point B. I do NOT demand they synch up with me perfectly like I’m the boss. NO.
I might suggest the speed and direction, but they choose whether to maintain that, change it, do something completely different. Because I expect this active response from the follow, I have to pay lots of attention: with my eyes and my body.

– “Take care of your body.”
If it hurts, let go. Stop. A lead who clenches your hand when you’re trying to let go is bad news. Leads: if a follow wants to let go of your hand – “Let it go, let it goooooo!”
You want a nice, natural posture with a neutral spine and engaged pelvic floor as default. Don’t ‘stand up straight’ or ‘squat’ or whatever as default. Your natural resting position should be whatever feel right for that dance with that partner. That first moment in closed, hearing that song will tell you what you need to be safe and ready. From here you can adjust or engage or disengage muscles as needed. You don’t have a ‘frame’, you have a lovely system of muscles and veins and bones and things, that you use in lots of different ways to respond to lots of different signals in the music and your partner.
So you want to be able to choose what to do when, not default to something out of panic or habit. So being mindful of your own body, and really present, is really important.

-> learn to read the signs. Sore shoulders? You may be tensing up in your upper body. So soften your knees, think about your pelvic floor, let your arms swing, maybe reorient to your partner from squared up to 3/4 profile (or whatever). See how that feels now. One sore knee? You might be overusing that leg, so perhaps make sure that the other leg is being placed on the ground clearly and with purpose.

etc etc etc. Basically, observe, accept, be ok and safe.

– “Check in with your partner”
Visually – look at them! How do they feel? Are they smiling?
Physically – do they feel ‘on’ all of a sudden? Are they relaxing in their muscles? etc etc
-> use your observation skills. Don’t worry about the next ten beats, be right there in this beat, with this person.

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Structuring a class: ‘bricolage teaching’ or ‘lots of little bits’

Georgia was just telling me about this great teaching method she’s experimenting with, where you do lots of different tasks in a class, but for only a few minutes or a short amount of time each. I’ve been trying the same thing with my teaching partner lately, and it’s been very powerful. Super fun and interesting, but also great dancing and learning and teaching. Gotta really _plan_ your classes like a focussed ninja, though. You have to tie all those little pieces together well.

I think the key is to be flexible, and totally prepared to jettison half your class ‘plan’ if things change direction. If something is fun – go with it! I also prefer to build technical stuff into fun games or little sequences, so we’re not standing there playing with a giant rubber band or something. Instead we’re doing a swing out with Frankie’s shake-it-on-down on 7/8 1/2 and _feeling_ that stretch through our connection.

If I have an overall goal for the class – eg I want to have follows get a bit more connected with the ground – I won’t actually talk about that issue directly. I’ll do a warm up, an exercise that focusses on each person being confident in their own rhythm. eg the follows have to ‘teach’ each partner a rhythm as they rotate. And they have to do this by demonstrating. So they might do it on 7/8 1/2 of an 8 count rhythm, and the lead has to observe, then repeat it back. They may have only 5 x 8 counts to achieve this.
Then they do the same game, except they have to ‘teach’ the leads while doing a swing out (instead of face to face in open). They’ll take the visual teaching/learning calling/responding, leading/following and apply it to their lindy hop.

This game will teach follows to be really confident in their movements, which will get them lower in their bodies. The leads will stop yanking and rushing, and will pay more attention to their own bodies and core. To really get follows low, I might offer follows a couple of ‘required’ shapes – eg lifting your toes while your heels stay down. I might demo this by making sure my butt is out (for balance).
…or you know, whatever.

The goal is to progress through this class from a visual lead-follow warm up where the teacher leads, to a social lindy hop lead-follow, where they each play caller or responder in their partnership, adjusting and figuring out how to do this with different partners.