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Spy Report: Head Position
Oct. 16th, 2007 10:17 pmToday I learned two hints about which way to point your head while dancing.
In west coast swing, we learned to just face two or three directions at all times. It's a slot dance, so you should usually be looking ahead at the end of the slot in front of you or behind you at the other end of the slot. Women can also look ninety degrees off to the side when they are facing the side. Otherwise, either gender can look where you're going, or you can keep looking at what you were just facing for a bit before switching to where you're going, or you can look where you're about to go. Each technique has a different effect. Although the teacher demonstrated that even the followers can look where they are about to be going, I am not going to be doing that. Because I do not know where I am about to be going. Yes, some leaders are a bit predictable, but not totally.
This definitely improved my dancing in the "new" style; it has the effect of making one's head snap dramatically from one position to another. However, I was automatically doing this using my current "old-fashioned" style of doing west coast.
In waltz, I learned that you should always point your nose the same direction as your chest is facing. Trying out this technique makes me much more conscious of which direction my chest is facing which, as one can imagine, is not generally on the top of my list of things to be noticing. (Let's see, partner actions, musical beat, obstacles, feet, cuban-motion/rise-and-fall, arms, shoulders, skirt whooshy-ness, whether glasses are in position to get knocked off...) So that was definitely interesting and gives one an added incentive for keeping the body facing the way it's supposed to be facing, especially in those pretzel-like positions, such as during the continuity ending of silver-level steps.
This technique has the effect of making the head move in a very gradual and graceful way. We also got to see that just keeping your chin up (or level, really) and pointing your face this way while in contralateral positions makes it look like you're practically doing a back bend even though your back is perfectly straight.
I already knew how to change head positions when switching between closed and promenade position, but the rest of the time I think I have a habit of looking down or off to the side or other more random places. Currently, trying this new thing makes me feel a bit robotish and Barbie-doll-like, as if I have a plastered-on smile. We were told that a neck brace would make this very easy. But it's still kind of fun, and I'm sure it can become more natural with practice.
In west coast swing, we learned to just face two or three directions at all times. It's a slot dance, so you should usually be looking ahead at the end of the slot in front of you or behind you at the other end of the slot. Women can also look ninety degrees off to the side when they are facing the side. Otherwise, either gender can look where you're going, or you can keep looking at what you were just facing for a bit before switching to where you're going, or you can look where you're about to go. Each technique has a different effect. Although the teacher demonstrated that even the followers can look where they are about to be going, I am not going to be doing that. Because I do not know where I am about to be going. Yes, some leaders are a bit predictable, but not totally.
This definitely improved my dancing in the "new" style; it has the effect of making one's head snap dramatically from one position to another. However, I was automatically doing this using my current "old-fashioned" style of doing west coast.
In waltz, I learned that you should always point your nose the same direction as your chest is facing. Trying out this technique makes me much more conscious of which direction my chest is facing which, as one can imagine, is not generally on the top of my list of things to be noticing. (Let's see, partner actions, musical beat, obstacles, feet, cuban-motion/rise-and-fall, arms, shoulders, skirt whooshy-ness, whether glasses are in position to get knocked off...) So that was definitely interesting and gives one an added incentive for keeping the body facing the way it's supposed to be facing, especially in those pretzel-like positions, such as during the continuity ending of silver-level steps.
This technique has the effect of making the head move in a very gradual and graceful way. We also got to see that just keeping your chin up (or level, really) and pointing your face this way while in contralateral positions makes it look like you're practically doing a back bend even though your back is perfectly straight.
I already knew how to change head positions when switching between closed and promenade position, but the rest of the time I think I have a habit of looking down or off to the side or other more random places. Currently, trying this new thing makes me feel a bit robotish and Barbie-doll-like, as if I have a plastered-on smile. We were told that a neck brace would make this very easy. But it's still kind of fun, and I'm sure it can become more natural with practice.