Let’s face it. Every Follow wants to dance with a great Lead, whose leads are clear and strong and whose frame is solid and secure, a Lead they can trust and feel safe in his arms. Every Lead wants to dance with a perfect Follow, who connects completely, follows what is led and flows effortlessly through the dance.
For those who want to be that highly in-demand Lead or Follow, we offer: An intensive, 1-evening, 2-hour techniques class on the finer points of leading and following.
- Good skills for every Lead, every Follow, any dancing style.
- Essential skills for social dancing with many different follows; especially someone you’ve never danced with.
- Skills to make your leads very clear, ensure a fun dance experience & how to keep the dance from falling apart.
- Skills to follow any lead, even bad ones, and when styling is appropriate.
In this class you will learn:
- Lead & Follow Theory: the 3 ½ minute social contract between a Lead and a Follow.
- Connecting completely with your partner.
- How to establish and use connections points and lead not only with your right and left hands, but also with your wrists, forearms, shoulders, hips, knees, feet and more.
- The “Secret” connection point that advanced dancers use, even if they aren’t aware of it.
- Six connection points on a Follow’s back and when to use each.
- The “no lead” lead: how breaking a connection point is used as a lead.
- Shifting your Follow’s weight and controlling your Follow’s center of balance.
- When as a Follow, it is okay to be off-balance and use the Lead for support.
- Leading and following in the Third Dimension.
- Leading & following pauses, breaks and non-movement.
- Connections and techniques that can be used with any move, any style of dance.
- Tricks and work-arounds for when a lead doesn’t work.
What you won’t learn:
We will not be teaching moves as such. That is, we won’t be breaking down and teaching a tuck-turn, for instance. Rather, we will be focusing on the specific leads used in various moves. Each lead technique may be applied in many different situations and to multiple moves. Whatever moves are used in class will simply be to illustrate specific leading and following techniques.
Pre-requisites:
Dancers taking this class must know the basic 6-count ECS rhythm and be able to dance inside/outside turn variations, tuck-turn variations and free-spin variations. We will be using these moves to illustrate connection points and leads. Other moves not required but helpful to be familiar with are: Swingout or Whip variations, side-by-side Charleston & kick-ball-change. The same lead techniques can be used in these 8-count rhythms and will be demonstrated. The kick-ball-change step will be taught as a bonus if time permits.
No partner necessary.
We will be rotating in class to experience as many different leads and follows as we can.
