UKSALSA CHAT | ON2 CHAT | SUZYQ CHAT 
Subject: leading and styling
From: andy
Date: Sunday 29th September 2002, 11:18 pm

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I don't delibarately avoid my partner's hand (except in situations where I feel that my partner is going to injure me). Usually though the man isn't consistently late, but is sometimes on time and sometimes late. So I can't tell the difference between a late offer of a hand and no offer of a hand until it's too late.
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So I stand by what I said on that. Cut the styling down to cope with your partners ability - partner dancing should be about dancing with each other.

In any case, just what is it that makes you so certain that he's late rather than you being early?

Avoiding injury (if it comes to that) is a different matter of course.

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 verdoing it. It's supposed to be a social

Just because I'm styling frequently, doesn't mean it's heavy styling. Sometimes you would barely notice it. I'm not talking about stage show styling, just subtle movements in keeping with my dancing.

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Well, I don't know you so I don't know. I was just going on what I see women doing, especially after someone has just taught a styling class

 BEGIN QUOTE 
Styling is something which needs to be learned as much as any other part of dancing. It just takes time to get there. It's like learning the basic step. To begin with, you'll get the timing wrong and your steps will be the wrong size and your balance will be off.
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Undeniably true. But certainly in my view the important thing at a dance is keeping the dance going. Trying out new things to the detriment of that (and missing hand catches is undeniably to the detriment of that) is wrong. You should reserve practicing things like that either for classes or at the very least till you're dancing with someone you know well and you know won't mind you trying something out with them.

By the way, that paragraph applies equally to men - I just happen to be making the point in relation to women's styling as that is the immediate subject of discussion.

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Nobody says very, very few men do the basic step well, so they should stop doing it, they give them the opportunity to improve.
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Quite a few women don't do the basic step well either.

Concentrating on basics as opposed to the frills would improove most peoples dancing.

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Same with styling. It's a mess at the moment, but that's because we're all still learning.

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I think the jury is very much out on whether styling will ever be anything other than a mess, but still.

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Like you said, it's a partner dance. I want to be able to express myself in the dance and not just be something for the men to drag around. You've got your moves to express yourself, I've got my styling to express myself.
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No, I don't really agree with that. If you want to express yourself as an individual in dance then you shouldn't be doing partner dancing.

Few leaders or followers actually ever get good enough to do this, but lead/follow is supposed to be a two way conversation between the partners re-acting to and interpreting the music. The way a good follower responds to a lead tells the leader a lot about what he should lead next. If you are both really good you can tell the lead more or less exactly what you would like to do next.

Concentrate on that if you want to be a *really* good follow. And I can tell you from personal experience that it can be done between strangers - it doesn't rely on knowing your partner well, it relies entirely on how you respond.

Styling is (or should be) merely a decoration used by both the lead and the follow to improove the look of the dance.

One of the major problems is that one or two teachers (to my knowledge, possibly more) have started teaching styling as a means to itself. That is bad for dancing and merely shows how little those teachers know about lead/follow dancing themselves.

 BEGIN QUOTE 
Too often the men don't want women to style because they feel the dance is all about doing moves and that by easing off the moves and giving us time to style they are somehow weakening their part of the dance.
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That raises a whole bundle of worms. You are absolutely right in saying that the dance isn't all about doing moves for their own sake (or shouldn't be) and if you said that there are a considerable number of men (women too) who don't understand that I'd completely agree with you.

It's equally not about doing styling for it's own sake either.

However you also have to be pragmantic about it. Theory about how dancing should be is all very well (and something to aim for as an ideal) but, if you want to have a good evening's dancing, you have to make allowances for whoever you are dancing with. For men that particularly means don't lead overcomplicated moves that you are not able to lead well enough for your partner to dance and for follows that means compensating for poor leads wherever practicable.


 

   
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