Gareth & Jeryl
Rock 'n' Roll is:
- easy to learn. Most people can do it -
- extremely versatile. It suits a large range of modern and older popular music -
- a great social activity for meeting new friends and partners -
- inexpensive. Anywhere there is suitable music you can dance -
- suitable for young and old -
- well established. Its practised around the world -
- very suitable for amateurs as well as pro dancers. You don't need to be perfect for fear of being laughed at -
- a great fitness activity -
- a socially acceptable way for ladies to show their knickers in public (but gentlemen don't notice!) -
Sandra trusts Trevor
to have a firm grip on things
James and Ann
dance with color and style
Sandy and Annette
strut their stuff!
No butterfingers here!
Hands up those who
love to dance!
George & Sue can step
with the best of them
Sandy & Annette have a
laid back approach
Gareth & Jeryl
What time is it? Time to dance!
Dancing Doubles
Heather, Rod & Leslie
reported by Gareth, November 15th, 2007
Wildly flinging your weight around in a neatly controlled fashion is a contradiction in terms. Trying to do such a thing in time to music is a forlorn hope for most people. Every expert in every form of physical pursuit from origami to heavyweight wrestling will tell you that it is how you use your body that counts, not simply how much force you apply.
Dancers move with grace and style. Finesse is implied in the essential fact that dance is an art form. Sheer force is more the method of the brute than the ballerina. If you want to impress on the dance floor you need to know the difference between fine technique and merely throwing yourself around.
For a woman, a simple rule is that her weight should almost always be downwards rather than outwards. While it remains downwards, she and her partner will remain well in control without expending energy unnecessarily. Flinging your weight outwards requires energy to achieve and further energy to stop yourself - that means extra energy expenditure without adding anything sensible to the dance. It risks losing control, over-balancing, looking untidy and most importantly, it risks strain injuries through the shock of using yours and your partners arms as a brake. Women who dance in that fashion often manage only a few songs before needing to sit down and rest. Men who either dance in that fashion themselves or attempt to make a woman do so also often find their partners needing to sit down after just a couple of songs.
A woman can act as a spindle, spinning around while moving laterally across the dance floor. The technique of doing this must come from the legs rather than launching the upper body into the move and hoping that the lower body will somehow manage follow where it's meant to go. This takes practice to achieve, but it's not too hard to master for women with reasonable dance aptitude. It looks elegant, stylish and well controlled. Frankly, until a woman has learned the art of spinning on the spot, she ought not to be performing more than one turn or spin in succession. Men working with novice ladies need to be mindful of that.
Dancers often need speed. This comes as much from compactness as it does from motion control. It must be remembered that an untidy dancer who ends up traveling twice the distance that a tidy one will has to travel at twice the speed to arrive at the same point in the same length of time. Usually this cannot be accomplished so timing suffers badly. Beginners most often attempt to gain speed by putting a lot more energy into the moves. Their dancing founders in a flash, resembling more a flail than a Fandango. The knack of generating speed comes through moving your body quickly rather than more energetically. In fact, fast Rock n Roll when executed well doesn't actually require much more energy to perform than does medium pace dancing.
Men should remember that launching a woman forcefully into a move can destroy her ability to remain balanced and in control of herself. Women should generally be self-propelled. In Rock n Roll, when the lady turns, the man can simply give the woman a cue to turn, then leave it to her to perform the move.
That doesn't mean that gentle help can't be given with some moves, but unfortunately 'gentle help' means so many different things to so many different people. If men observe their partners carefully they can get valuable clues as to whether or not the lady requires any muscular assistance from her man. Some do, but many don't. Since women have to adjust to each different man they dance with, it's not unfair to expect that the men should make some adjustments to suit the style of each lady.
Trying to dance mainly on the spot instead of traveling around the dance floor is a great way to develop fine Rock n Roll dancing technique. To do so requires accuracy and compactness of movement along with economy of energy expenditure - the very things that good dancing relies upon.