Is dancing with poor dancers good manners or good practice?

I was back out again the other night and for the second time running, managed to dance to pretty much every song with the exception of about three. Now I wouldn’t flatter myself that I was the best dancer there by any means – in fact I was distinctly average but I think it might have partly been my decision to ask and dance with everyone –including a couple of beginners who had just tried their first class. Now I agree this is less pleasant for me and can be a bit of a challenge but I was trying to follow the advice of S – one of my school’s advanced leaders. He had danced with me the previous week and told me that I wasn’t feeling the energy from my partner when I danced. He said that I needed to ‘locate’ this energy and then channel it into my moves. So far so good, but then he said it was all too easy to do this with a good leader but that if I really wanted to improve I should try and locate this energy in all my leaders, even the bad ones (!)

So this is what I tried to do the other night but I must confess that sometimes it was very, very hard and quite often I felt like we were both just doing our own thing while holding hands. Unfortunately, being on the dance floor meant that it was too tempting to ‘fill in’ the moves or ‘help out’ when my leader started floundering (both for their sake and mine); and now I’m wondering if I might have actually hindered my learning by dancing this way? At the end of the night however, a couple of the beginners leaders came up to me and said how much they had enjoyed dancing with me and ‘thanked’ me for dancing with them, making me wonder how many other dances they had managed?

So how should you behave at a milonga? Should I put up with poor dancers in the hope that I will be learning something from them or should I start to be more stringent and go for quality rather than quantity? Isn’t that a bit harsh on the newbies? And after all everyone is a beginner at some stage aren’t they?

Best,

Drina x

PS: On a side note, you never know which beginner will become an excellent leader so surely my good manners now might bode me well for the future!

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing …

Since Christmas I had been enjoying my first accelerated learning curve and I was loving it! Suddenly, steps which felt so slow and plodding just a few weeks ago, now felt whimsical and playful – my ochos were looking assured and steady and I’d had ‘those’ moments when I was so in tune with my partner, I was not consciously thinking of the next move but just literally gliding into it. These glimpses of bliss had been becoming more frequent and with various compliments from teachers and partners, I had been floating with my head in the clouds for the last few days. Of course though, the proper learning path of anything worthwhile cannot sustain such a course and yesterday I suffered a deserved knock.

In all honesty, I had become a bit too arrogant in my skills – I mean obviously I knew I was still a beginner but I had forgotten exactly how much of a beginner I was. On Sunday, I had danced at a milonga and been inflated by the compliments (which admittedly were probably partly encouraged by my pretty dress). This meant that come my class and practicá, I was ready to shine for everyone – to display how good I’d become in a few short weeks. Well, pride comes before a fall and I spent the whole practicá being told that my embrace was too weak, that my giros were too wide and most upsettingly that my ochos (my pride and joy) were over pivoted! I was a bit low as I walked home but in the harsh morning light, I realised that with the exception of one leader, the others are all dancers who I admire and so should really pay attention to what they say. So from now on, I’m searching for and hoping to maintain the energy within my frame (Leader 1), I’m keeping away from the ‘ballroom fingertips’ (the Teacher) and most importantly I’m not going to anticipate the next move (Leaders 1, 2, 3 and 4!). I might need to buy a bigger mirror for my flat!