= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ltx comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (150)
I want to be able to dance at weddings and parties, but I don't know how to break this down into a sequence of learnable subskills. To pick just one step that's not obvious to non-musical me: how do I tell what kind of dance fits the music that is playing? Do any of you have advice on how to quickly achieve a minimum viable level of competence?
I'd recommend beginner swing lessons. You'll learn all the basic turns, the basics of leading, how to fit moves in to a basic step, how to time the dance to the music. Many places have an hour lesson followed by several hours of social dance for cheap.
Once you have these basic skills it's not too tough to learn new dances. Look up nightclub two step, that one works well with lots of types of music. I second blues dance lessons, though I don't really like blues. Learn basic jazz steps by looking up solo jazz routines and copying them.
+1 to swing dancing. Exercise, coordination, social interaction and fun.
Uh...I'm a London Lindy Hopper. Is it possible we've met?
Nope, I haven't done it since I lived in Melbourne :-)
A few questions:
Do you do any other activities requiring physical coordination, such as martial arts, sports, juggling, yoga, etc.?
What kinds of music do you enjoy listening to? Do any make you tap your feet or fingers?
You say you're non-musical. Can you readily identify the beat in a piece of music? Can you tell if a note is higher or lower than the previous one?
Do you find you learn better from directed instruction, or personal experimentation?
No.
I enjoy many kinds of music, including pop music like Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepsen.
Sometimes. If there is no obvious bass, or if the pattern is not simple, I have difficulties.
Yes.
I don't know. I do learn most things by myself, but this does not mean that directed instruction would not be superior in some cases.
The good news is that most people (especially men) have absolutely no idea what they're doing on a dancefloor, so the bar for being seen as a good dancer by the general public is quite low. The bad news is that you can't think your way into being a good dancer, so you will have to practise.
The easiest way to develop dance skills is to take some sort of dance class. It doesn't really matter what kind, because they all involve the same transferrable meta-skills. If you're looking at developing improvised solo dancing skills, I'd recommend a solo vernacular dance style, like jazz, tap or hip-hop.
If you wanted to learn a partnered dance (and I wish everyone did, because it's great), you could look into one of the many varieties of partnered dance available. If that doesn't interest you, learning the mechanics of lead/follow would probably be a needless distraction.
If you don't want to attend a class for whatever reason, you have other options. The internet has a wealth of dance-related resources. This is the first in a long series of YouTube videos teaching the iconic dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Don't laugh. The instructor on the video takes you through warm-ups, exercises and drills, and then eventually pieces together the choreography of the routine.
Warm-ups, exercises and drills are more important in this case than the overall routine. They teach you body awareness, how to move specific parts of your body in isolation to others, and help put certain types of rhythm and movement into your muscle memory. Eventually you should be able to carry out dance movements without thinking.
There are other songs than Thriller, but this is just to get the ball rolling. Try making similar movements to other music. Think about whether it feels good to move in a certain way to a certain song. Think about the shape of the music. Is it big, loud, brash, quiet, precise? If the music were an object, what would that object look like? What would it move like? Try moving like that.
Above all, the easiest way to get good at anything is to enjoy it, and to want to do it. Find something dance-related that you enjoy doing, and that exposes you to novel ideas, and then keep doing it.
I'm pretty uncoordinated, and I found that I learned a lot in one well-executed blues dance lesson. According to the teacher, "going limp" is an acceptable strategy for a follow out of eir depth. If you're female (or willing to issue a short explanation to prospective dance partners), you could pick up a few ballroom dances for different numbered beats with a couple lessons per, as a follow, and then let partners pick what's going to happen.
I'm male, unfortunately.
Lowest hanging fruit: You need to learn the difference between "1, 2, 3" and "everything else".
As an example, find "Hijo de la Luna" on YouTube and listen to the song. This is an example of the "1, 2, 3" rhythm -- I hope you hear it, because I can't describe it well in text. Often in this type of music, the "1" is accompanied with a drum, or is otherwise louder. On this music, you can only dance some variant of Waltz, nothing else. You should learn it, because it probably will appear at weddings.
For the "everything else" category, I can't really tell the difference between "1, 2, 3, 4" and "1, 2, 1, 2". For me, they are mostly compatible (all I need to know is that they are not "1, 2, 3"). Here I have a set of solutions, most universal among them are Jive and Foxtrot, and depending on the speed of the music, usually one of them can be used. (I simply try, and if the music is too fast so I am unable to move at the given speed, or if the music is too slow so the dance feels boring, I stop.)
For ballroom dancing: I would recommend finding a lesson that includes Waltz, Jive, Foxtrot, and optionally some Latino dances. You don't need to learn much: cca 3 figures of each will be enough, and then practice, practice, practice. (Muscle memory needs time.) Dance with different girls. Focus on leading -- don't dance the figures in predetermined order, but choose them randomly and use your body to communicate the decision. This is very important, because it will allow you to dance with new partners; you can't expect to bring your dancing lessons partner everywhere.