damage avoidance
**Follows: It is imperative that you feel the exact speed, and type of turn through your lead’s arm. In the Cuban style of Salsa, the arm in the air is not a visual signal to let you know a turn is coming. It is a line of communication and all details are contained in your lead’s fingertip pressure. You have to listen with your body.
A guest post by Joe
In class we spend a lot of time working on connection and how to lead and how to follow. The fundamentals.
Eduardo and Stephanie have devoted several blog entries to connection and our roles. And as a lead I have a lot of things I need to do.
Sometimes it seems overwhelming.
I need to react to the music, keep tempo, keep my follow safe, remember the turn pattern that I am about to lead, and not bore her just to name a few things.
A follow with intuition that recognizes when something is not quite right and can recognize what we leads are telling her through physical connection is just…super.
All of the above hit home for me recently during a dance at Cuban Revolution.
At one point in the dance I had a lot of space available on the floor and wanted to start a turn pattern, as soon as I started to prep her, I noticed another lead hop into the space right behind her that I was about to lead her into.
If we kept on going my follow would have had a hard collision with another lead, and she couldn’t see it coming. Since screaming “look out” didn’t seem appropriate my instincts said to lighten up the prep and not to move my arm much.
Without missing anything she recognized not to step back very far and when I continued to lead she continued to do the turn pattern.
She understood something was wrong, and what I “said” to her, when all that was going through my conscious mind was look out, and OH NO! Here comes a chain reaction of collisions on the dance floor.
Follows, we leads appreciate you and what you do.
In my case, a light prep and my arm not moving much told my follow, “Warning! Danger! There is something behind you, don’t move back very far.”
When considering that one simple gesture said so much I recognized the importance of connection at that point more than ever.
Related posts:
- it’s dance, not damage control.
- feeling your fingertips
- oversteering vs understeering
- The social dancer’s guide to leading.
So well said Joe! It’s a critical reminder to us follows to stop thinking and start feeling our lead! Even when we ‘recognize’(note: thinking required there) a turn pattern we think we know, the reality is that much like every other part of life the unexpected always occurs, and we have to be ready to follow wherever our lead takes us – even (especially?) if we don’t know why. Intuition is such a powerful thing…and something I am always trying to remember to listen to… thank you for the reminder.