Lincolnshire Lindy Hop Clubs - Swing Dance in Lincolnshire

Just keep going!

Okay, this is something that came up in class last night and it’s definitely worth sharing.  It’s aimed more at leads than follows, but bear with me as I know follows will strongly identify with what I’m saying here.

What do you do if things go wrong? Imagine you are having a great dance and you try and lead a Lindy Turn: it really doesn’t work and your partner seems flustered. You stop, right! No-one wants to fluster their partner. Wrong! (In my humble opinion!!)

Many follows I’ve spoken to say that they are often frustrated with themselves if a move doesn’t work out, particularly if it’s something they were waiting for such as a Lindy Turn.  They would rather have another go either straight away or after a short recovery to get back into the comfort zone. The move is in their head and it is more likely to work. Of course it benefits us leads too. It may well be that the lead or technique wasn’t quite right the first time and repeating gives you another shot to make things work.

You do need to gauge your response though. Listen to your partner - and not just them shouting out, ‘I can’t do that!’ - and use this to help you decide whether to repeat or move on. If your partner is smiling, give it another go. If they look uncomfortable, move on to different moves. The dance can then be enjoyable for both lead and follow.

This is an general message about learning too. I sometime hear dancers saying, ‘I just can’t do that!’, and the answer is always keep going, keep practising and most importantly keep enjoying dancing to the music. Don’t rush to get good enough as you’ll always want to improve, enjoy what you can do now.

I hope this helps. No blog posts now for over a year! I must make a change so expect more from me soon.

If there’s anything you’d like to know more about, just ask.

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