And there are some dancers who become teachers because they want to share what they know or they are able to teach, because of their experience/skills.

If I had to bet on which one would care about their students, I would bet on the first one. Because you can teach and share what you know and inspire your students. Or you can do everything so your students dance with you because you need friends to dance with.

Rotation that makes everyone equal.

I haven’t felt satisfied with only leaders or followers rotating during the class. It’s not fare for students that only one role has to travel/has a spot. It’s not fare for some students who don’t get enough attention from teachers just because they stand in some spot that is too far or too dark.

So let’s make everyone rotate. Followers rotate clockwise, leaders rotate counter clockwise. Everytime everyone walks to meet their partner. Perfectly they will meet in the middle. Though I don’t care if it’s not perfect. Everyone rotating feels already satisfying and fare enough to everyone.

I have been practicing this at What a Jazz dance studio for a while and sometimes in workshops. No downsides yet except for a bit of confusion the first time students do it.

There’s 3 qualities Lindy Hop or other couple swing dancers I believe should aim for while practicing.

Rhythm – being on time with the music. It’s not being off-beat, it’s controlling your every step and every movement so it has rhythm. Rhythm in general is timing. It’s when things happen.

Comfort – being comfortable to dance with. When we are comfortable with ourselves and with our partners we create space to try things. That’s where magic can happen.

Aesthetics – the looks of the movement. I haven’t integrated this one a lot in my teaching, but I try emphasizing looking good while dancing. First step is usually having a straight back with shoulders back instead creates better connection and makes your body ready to react and control the movement. And it looks good on photos and videos.

So, if you have good timing, are comfortable to dance with and you look good you’re probably one of the top dancers.

I want to get back to writing and sharing my experience. But to be motivated, I need to have a conversation. I need questions, problems and comments. I need you to tell me if something I said doesn’t make sense. I need you to tell me this is BS if you think it is. Otherwise, I will only speak with other teachers when I meet them, because I can have a conversation and not a speech. I’m not good in giving speeches

To begin with something – here’s my rant #1.
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I want my students to become better dancers and better themselves. I want them to understand what works, what doesn’t, how to match and how to adjust. I don’t want them to look like me or move like me. Even if I would be the best in the world, I wouldn’t want that. The swing dance scene doesn’t need another Martynas (please, get the joke). The scene needs you.

In the beginning you have to copy your teachers and other dancers. As soon you understand what works and what doesn’t, pay attention to yourself. Try things. Find out what does and what doesn’t work for YOU. Film yourself dancing. Watch it. Get inspired from yourself. We need you. Better you!

As a teachers, help your students to figure it out. Understand If they are experienced enough to try things themselves instead of just copying you. Teach them ideas, how to think and how to experiment. Ask them questions so you could understand how they think and help them if they need help.

It just sounds better, but the subject should be “when to twist and when to rock step”.

This post is about followers. How soon twists/swivels (from here twists) should be introduced?

First of all, I believe twists is not a styling but rather a basic step. Twists can be substituted to rock step in some occasions, but it should be default whenever a follow is rotating her body counter clock wise (swing out, sugar push, basic change of places). She should open up and continue with twists. While rock step should come after every tuck turn and all moves where follower is rotating her body clockwise.

In most cases it’s not a choice but rather a continuity of follow’s movement.

How soon should it be introduced? ASAP. That means before the first class where your students will go into open position.

In the first two/three classes I usually teach only closed position moves. But already on the third class I would do a warm-up with twists. Starting only with twisting hips while standing on both feet and moving on to add steps while twisting.

Having your students to keep their arms up is essential. That’s where connection exists, that’s how it comes and goes. That’s how we connect with a partner. Make your students twists their hips and make sure their arms are moving.

So for that class that’s it. I love introducing a twists in one class, but working on them in the following class. It helps students to be more relaxed because they already know how to twist and then they can think about when to twists or rock step.

First move? Send out. Leader sends the follower with a send out ( six count move), follower opens her hips/twists her hips counter clock wise and twists on 7&8 while leader does a rock step.

Whole class working on this move and coming back to closed position.

Next class, recap. And then three move sequence – tuck turn, change of places and coming back to closed position. This sequence happens pretty often on the social dance floor and helps to understand where to rock step (after a tuck turn), and where to twist (after change of places).

Why does a cheetah have a tail? For balance. Why do human beings have arms? For using a smartphone. But it helps to keep balance when dancing.

Ask your students to keep hands up for the whole class when they are dancing and see the change. Notice how dancing becomes easier. Notice how much more control they have with their hands up and how much faster they are learning new stuff.

Did it work? Not? Tell me.

The first step to making your students dance to the music is talking about it and teaching how to dance to the music all the time. It should come along technique and be taught in most classes, not just a few.

When teaching a move you should add some variations that students could use. But when doing that you shouldn’t forget to explain why there are variations at all. It helps to master leading and following, but the point is being able to adjust your move to the music.

Variations come from music. You start doing some move, and you follow the music. The music takes you to a particular variation. On a different part of the song the music will make you do a different variation.

When teaching you shouldn’t forget to tell students that the music makes you do this. And they should listen to the music and let the music guide their choices. There will be lots of not hitting the music, but eventually your students will understand what’s going on.

To make it easier you should play only a few songs in a class. And then play those songs again. And again after a few months. I understand that it might be boring for you, but let your students learn those songs. Then practicing new variations to already known songs becomes piece of cake.

Come and join to Balboa & Shag Rebirth in Vilnius – Swing Paradise. It’s Balboa and Shag event that will take placeon April 8th – 10th, 2016. I have a great team working together to make this happen. Check it out.

SWING PARADISE 2016 ]]> https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/12/11/s01e14-musicality-part-2/feed/ 0 https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/12/04/s01e13-musicality-part-1/ https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/12/04/s01e13-musicality-part-1/#respond Thu, 03 Dec 2015 23:19:52 +0000 https://www.martynasstonys.lt/?p=1027 Read More →

Your students will mostly dance what they have practiced in your classes. You are the one responsible for what they are practicing and what their focus is.

I felt that my students could do better in dancing to music and I would talk about it a lot. However, musicality was the topic I would teach only once in a while. Now I think it should come along all or most of the time.

If you are teaching lots of moves and rarely bring up technique, don’t expect your students to be good at it, even though you explained it in the best possible way. If you’re teaching a lot of moves but a few footwork variations, don’t be disappointed seeing little footwork on the social dance floor.

Your students will do most of what you taught most. So you should teach what’s important most. Everything you teach should be accompanied with great technique AND musicality.

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Come and join to Balboa & Shag Rebirth in Vilnius – Swing Paradise. It’s Balboa and Shag event that will take placeon April 8th – 10th, 2016. I have a great team working together to make this happen. Check it out.

SWING PARADISE 2016 ]]> https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/12/04/s01e13-musicality-part-1/feed/ 0 https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/11/27/s01e12-slow-tempo-music-lazy-teacher/ https://www.martynasstonys.lt/blog/2015/11/27/s01e12-slow-tempo-music-lazy-teacher/#respond Fri, 27 Nov 2015 00:58:48 +0000 https://www.martynasstonys.lt/?p=1015 Read More →

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In classes we teach people to dance. They should be able to dance on social dance nights and parties. But are they practicing to the same music or at least tempos you or your DJ / band is playing during parties? Are you playing similar music on classes and parties?

It makes sense to teach at slow tempos. On slow tempo it’s easier to practice and understand for leads and follows what’s going on and anticipate what’s next. But if you keep only slow tempo during classes, don’t expect your students to be able to do the same stuff while they’re social dancing.

I encourage you to play the same music for socials and for classes. That will make you teach stuff that you would do on social dance floor yourself instead of some moves that work only in classes with only dancers who have been to that class practicing only with slow tempo.

Slow tempo makes you a lazy teacher. Stop being lazy and teach something that matters.

Look for what your students are doing on the social dance floor to real life music. That’s their base. Work from there. Build up from there. Add something to that kind of dancing.

The last Lindy Hop beginners group I started had this song for their first class. That’s 134 bpm. For the first class.

So please, don’t say it’s impossible to teach to the real life tempo music I know its slow, but it was first class.

On the other hand, I’ve seen some scenes where DJs would play slow tempos (100 – 120 bpm), because teachers teach with slow music and students are not able to dance to medium or faster tempo songs. That works. For a while.

So update your playlist, think about what you’re teaching next, go and do it.

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I’m organizing an event – Swing Paradise. It’s Balboa and Shag event that will take place in Vilnius on April 8th – 10th. I have a great team working together to make this happen. Check it out.

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What I’ve noticed among my students and with myself, with every change of the service you use, you might stop using that service.

What I mean by that?

Every time you change timetable for the group of your students, some of them will not like it and drop out. You change the room, somebody won’t like it. You change teachers for the group, some of the students will not like it and drop out. Even if you bring better more experienced teachers, somebody will not enjoy them.

Do you have a super talented students you believe should try harder and move up a level. New teacher/material/time table might brings troubles.

Don’t change teachers unless you must

I want to emphasize the part about teachers most. I hear that quite often. In big studios, that have a few couples of teachers, there’s a rotation between groups/levels and teachers. For example a group of students will get different teacher each 1 month.

You might think “That’s so cool. Students will try different styles and different aspects of dancing from different teachers. They’ll improve faster.”

Yes, ones who keep taking classes might have a chance to improve faster.

But there will be students who don’t want to improve faster or don’t want to see different angles of a Swing Out. Your students try different teachers and they’ll pick their favorite. And they will want that couple and that’s it. What would you do in that case? What would you tell other teachers?

At Hoppers’ dance studio, where I teach, we don’t rotate teachers unless we have to. If one couple started teaching one group, they’ll stay together until changes must happen. But we don’t switch teachers around just because someone thought it might be better for students. It isn’t.

When people start taking classes, they stay because of the teachers and not because of the dance itself (in most cases). Teachers make their students fall in love with Lindy Hop. Students who fall in love, they do it because they connect with their teacher. They understand and like the way the teacher talks, thinks, explains, jokes and dances. So keep the same teachers for the same group until the changes has to be made.