More than gender neutral language

Update on using gender neutral language in class:

It’s easy.

I like it.

It’s no big deal.

So now I’m taking it a step further. Yes, there is a point beyond gender neutral language.

I find that I don’t like referring to ‘the follow’ or ‘she’ as though they were some sort of universal object or being, while I’m teaching. I prefer to use my teaching partner’s name. For example, I might say, “If I want *partnername* to move straight ahead, then my right hand pushes (gently!) in that direction, and *partnersname* moves that way. What does it feel like for you, *partnersname*?”

I think that this stops me making massive generalisations about leading and following and dancing, and encourages me to think about how each dance is a unique interaction and negotiation of space and time and rhythm and creativity with each partner. Which if course is the point, right? That’s why we go social dancing – to really sample as wide a range of experiences as possible? Or is that just the hippy in me?

I mean, last night we were teaching double top turns to complete noob dancers, and I found myself explaining in abstract terms why you don’t (as a lead) hold your partner’s hand too high above their head: because it’s uncomfortable. I reached a point where I was just annoyed by myself and said, “Look, this is just common sense, right? You’re gentle with your partner and don’t twist their arm behind their back because that’d hurt them? Stay with them, watch out for them, watch them, because that’s the nice way to dance.”

Sometimes we (meaning me) seem to pursue these abstract essential universal qualities of ‘good dancing’ as though they were divorced from the actual humans involved. I mean, the reason why we make sure the follow’s hand isn’t too far above their head isn’t mostly about good technique. It’s mostly because we are trying to stay ‘connected’ (in a social sense) with our partner, and not hurt them. We want to be with them in a personal as well as technical sense. The pragmatics of this (ie where you actually position your joined hands), is a consequence of this recognition that your partner is a whole, complete human. Someone you want to get to know, if only for three minutes. And as a lead, the follow is trusting you to watch out for them. So it just feels like the right thing to do is to justify that trust by not being a dick.

There is no universal, fixed ‘correct’ way of dancing (ie you don’t hold your joined hands an exact 170cm above the ground and 80cm in front of your face). Partner dancing is about negotiating a series of ongoing, constantly changing relative positions and relationships. My partner takes large steps because I take large steps. I lift my right hand higher on their back because they are taller than I am, and than my last partner. I stop dancing like a crazy adrenaline fool, and take more care and pay more attention if my partner is heavily pregnant, or feeling a bit unsure. I begin each dance with some time in closed, so we can get connected and ‘get in tune’. If I feel them disliking what I’m doing, I stop and try something new. I’m constantly alert to the possibility that they might bring something consciously, or that their change in weight or timing might inspire me to try something new. And that I can then integrate that into our dance. This is much more than a conversation (and what a boring, limited idea that is). This is a dance.

And this is why I think I’m happier saying “I do blah blah if I want *partnersname* to do X” rather than “I do blah blah if I want the follow to do X.”

Let’s put the gender back into the description: “I do blah blah if I want her to do X” or “I do blah blah if I want the woman to do X”, then this depersonalising and essentialising is made even clearer. My partner is defined by her/their gender, rather than their role or even their individual personality. And this essentialising discourages you from thinking of all of your partners as unique people, and each dance and dance partnership as a series of compromises, adjustments, active engagements and meetings of mind.

So, you know, adopting gender neutral language is just a tool, or a gateway to much more exciting thinking and dancing.

[An aside]
As I re-read this, I wonder if this bizarrely abstract, technical approach to teaching is culturally specific. I’d suggest began in the 2000-2003 period, partly because some people got obsessed with technique, micro-level leading and following, groove (and the slower tempos which made all this possible) and blues dance. And most of these dancers came to lindy hop with no dancing, and almost certainly no partner dancing experience. They also tended to be people from technical or academic backgrounds: IT workers, programmers, etc etc. People who like to logic their way through problems. People who mightn’t (and here is where I make a gross generalisation) have much experience touching and interacting with other humans in a physical way. Beyond sex. So they needed to invent a ‘technology’ for partner dancing.
When if you had grown up with touching other humans, with partner dancing and dance in everyday, normal, ordinary spaces, as part of your ordinary day, you’d be all “Well, durh, if I do this dick like thing, my partner won’t want to be my friend/gf/bf and that’d be crap.”

Now, however, as we move into what’s really functioning as the second or even third wave of lindy hop revival, partner dancing has become so normalised, so much a part of normal life and social interaction, you don’t need to explain every little thing in tiny detail. You can be much more pragmatic and socially oriented.
I mean, one question we get repeatedly from brand new dancers in class is “We did this move, now the handhold is weird – how do we fix it?! [paniiiic!]” I love this question, because the answer is beautifully simple: “If the handhold feels weird, just change it.” And everyone lols, because it’s funny that we’ve gotten so caught up in the mechanics of what we’re doing we’ve forgotten how to hold hands. Of course, the nicest part of all this talk about hand holds is that if you preface all your thinking about hand holds with “Have relaxed, gentle hands, and be cool with letting go of each other,” then you quit worrying about hand holds and get on with feeling the good adrenaline feels.

This all really brings me back to that point: if you’re used to holding hands with people, you’re pretty comfortable with figuring out how to make a hand hold work. But if you’ve never walked down the street holding someone’s hand, or never touched someone casually, or never partner danced, then you are acutely aware of hand holding and are paralysed by HOLYFUCKHOWDOESITWORK!?! panic.

[/aside]

[aside 2]You know why my posts get so long? Because I start writing and thinking, and write as I think, and one idea just prompts another, and another and another, and suddenly the post is a million words long and my brain feels like it on fire with ideas. A long post is the sign of a happy and excited brain.[/aside2]

meh

I am 99% likely to buy your album on bandcamp if you are a modern day jazz band playing recreationist swinging jazz.
I am about 10% likely to listen to that album and 3% likely to DJ anything from that album.

If you’re a dancer, the odds of my playing or listening to your album drop even further.

See, I love to support modern bands, but, frankly, there’s a lot of mediocre music played by inexperienced musicians out there. You need to do more than be a high profile lindy hopper who can plink out a tune on a piano or a guitar to impress me. And don’t get me started on vocalists.

So, sure, he’s my $20 or $15 (that’s what I’ll pay for an album or e.p.). But I’m not sure I can give you my speaker time. Not when there’s Basie I haven’t listened to in at least a week.

wassup

Doods!

You must listen to this song while you read this post, because I watched a doco called ‘Sound City’ and now I am listening to NOTHING but Fleetwood Mac.

linky

I would love to be writing more, but FUCK I am busy. I have so many thoughts about teaching dance, about solo dance, about the way ‘rhythm’ has become the latest ‘sexy’ thing in lindy hop talk, and how we actually use it as the core of leading and following in our lindy hop class and thinking, about music, about events, about everything!

I wanted to write a post where I said: the question should not be ‘why aren’t there more women leads and male follows in your scene?’ but ‘If you don’t have women leads and male follows in your scene, you’re doing something wrong – what will you do to fix it?”

I want to write a rant about the tranky do, and how I think it’s actually a less than awesome routine, so why is it so freaking popular?

I need to write about choreographing solo dance. I need to write about what you should teach beginners in a weekly solo class, versus what you should teach more intermediate and advanced students. Do you do ‘level 1’ and ‘level 2’, or is that bullshit, and you should teach a ‘technique’ and a ‘choreography’ class instead?

I need to write about fucking lindy hop and how fucking wonderful it is. That shit is goddam crack. WHY CAN’T I QUIT YOU? I need to write about pilates and solo dance and how they have fundamentally changed my lindy hop lately, and how I have realised that there is NO DIFFERENCE between solo and partner dancing. It’s all just one pool of syncopated jazz rhythms.

I wanted to write about the differences between ILHC and ULHS comps, in terms of music and regional culture, not to mention ethos. And I wanted to write about the limitations of lindy hop competitions that push dancers to dance faster and faster. And their strengths.

I wanted to write about the weird heatwave we’ve had here in Sydney. 37*C yesterday. In OCTOBER. What the actual fuck?

I NEED to write about this fabulous event I’m running in December. I’m so excited about it. The thing that’s making me so excited is that teachers and performers and musicians just keep emailing to say “Oh, we want to come to your weekend and dance and make music with you! No, we don’t want pay – we just want to come and DANCE and PLAY!” People just keep emailing and grabbing me in person and saying “I want to do X on the weekend – is it ok if I do that?” and I say “OF COURSE!” It’s really exciting to be part of a scene where people are just really keen to do things, and then they DO them!

But I can’t write about it, because I have a list a mile long, mostly made up of things like ‘confirm this venue’ and ‘go look at that venue’s sound gear’ and ‘resist urge to add more workshops or dances’ and ‘send apologetic email to people trying to volunteer – the list is full.’

The hardest thing in the world is keeping a little event little. But you got to.

Oh, and I HAVE to write about sewing and satin and costuming!

And plantar fascia injuries (boo!) and working with great DJs.

Right now I am:
– Doing the final things on our dance next week, Hot Foot Stomp, where I’ll be DJing, and which suddenly has twice as many people coming as we’d planned for. FARK!
– Trying to reshuffle the DJ program for MLX because another band’s been organised to the program, and that means less DJing which is sad but also exciting.
– Getting some practice DJing in for my own sets at Hot Foot Stomp and MLX and swingpit. Good luck.
– Getting the Little Big Weekend under control, and resist its demands to become a really HUGE event.
– Memorising these two routines, and really get them solid in my brain for teaching.
– Teaching three hours on Wednesday, practicing two hours on Thursday, social dance on Tuesday and not asplode my foot.
– Reading and reading and reading. Latest thing:

16002136

and this:

shipping_news

which I reread because I’d just picked up:

bird-cloudx-large

Which reads like a fancily written version of Grand Designs. I love houses and interior design stuff, so this set of photos is just added YUM.

argh! too long! must go! have work to do! and muscles to stretch!

fuck off

‘If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been “f*** off” because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we?
‘And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, “No, f*** off, leave me alone, thank you very much.”
‘You see, I couldn’t help saying “Thank you very much”, I just couldn’t help myself. (Helen Mirren)

I’ve had a torrent of comments and contact on fb about that post about how we should deal with difficult male students in class.
Most of the complaints (98%) have been from men, and included:

– I am too angry, and this will intimidate men.

– I should be nicer to those difficult men, and then they would behave better.

– I swear too much.

– My posts are too long.

– The tone of my posts is too aggressive.

– I am overreacting.

– I hate men.

Seriously, male lindy hoppers, learn to concentrate for more than 3 minutes. And get used to the thought of a woman swearing, loudly and aggressively, telling you she is just not interested in what you have to say.

One of the other parts of this that really annoys me, can be illustrated by something I saw on facebook. A woman lindy hop teacher had linked up that post with a comment like “This was my class this week, argh it was frustrating!” I can’t remember exactly what she said, but that’s how she prefaced linking the blog post.
Then there were about a dozen comments, all but one or two by men. Quite a lot of the comments included those lines above.

Now, it’s ok to engage in a discussion of a provocative post like this in a public discourse, but the part that made me quite sad and more than a little angry, is that these men were her ‘friends’, and that, instead of saying “Oh, it’s crap that you had a bad time in class!” they were all “oh, your feelings are invalid because that woman described them using swears.”

The irony, in this instance, was that some of those men also added the comment “Oh, I recognise myself in that description of difficult guys!” and I thought ‘Oh, yes, you might have, but all these other men in this thread haven’t recognised themselves. No, and they are doing just the same thing here, that these difficult men in do in person: they are challenging a woman’s authority to comment on her own experiences. They are challenging the thought that a woman dancer might be more knowledgeable and have more practical experience with something than they do.’

I wish I could remember who’d posted that link, because I’d go back and send her a private message and tell her, “It’s ok. You didn’t imagine it. Every other woman and most of the men who teach classes recognised your frustration and thought it was valid and important. It’s just these douches who feel the need to challenge you.” But I had to unfollow the post, because it’s a bit upsetting to read those sorts of things about yourself in a public setting.

So if you’re reading, Frustrated Lindy Hop Woman, you didn’t imagine it. That guy gave you the shits, and you were a gun.

And all you other arsehats, seriously, fuck off. Just fuck off.

[edit: I read this, and thought ‘oo, relevant’:

“It’s easy to be considered a misandrist when men are socialized to feel entitled to women and our time. So, if you ignore them, you’re a misandrist. If you insist they leave you alone, you’re a misandrist. If you focus on building healthy female-centered relationships over relationships with men, you’re a misandrist. Misandry is basically, prioritizing your agency, autonomy and fellow women, over men in a society that teaches you that being feminine relies on giving into men’s feelings of entitlement” (confusing citation, but start here).

So, basically, when you note that that one guy just. won’t. shut. up, you hate men.
Guess I’m just going to have to live with it.]

[edit 2: as I write these posts tonight, I’m listening to eleven charming songs)

pleasing smiles

“In my own case, I had to train myself out of that phony smile, which is like a nervous tic on every teenage girl. And this meant that I smiled rarely, for in truth, when it came down to real smiling, I had less to smile about. My ‘dream’ action for the women’s liberation movement: a smile boycott, at which declaration all women would instantly abandon their ‘pleasing’ smiles, henceforth smiling only when something pleased them.”

Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case For Feminist Revolution (The Women’s Press, 1979), p89 (via radtransfem)

via somethingchanged

Oh, don’t you hate it when some random stranger guy (they’re always men) tells you to “Smile!” on the street. As though you were obliged to decorate their public space with a ‘prettier’ face.

I think my new thing will be experimenting with fake smiles in dance performances. There’re a lot of fake smiles getting about from women dancers, but I don’t know too many women who use fake fake smiles. I think it will be discomforting. Like Snake Hips Tucker’s expression while he danced. Terrible and terrifying.