2024 "Soft and Clear Lead"

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Lead and Follow
- 1.1. Soft and clear lead

1 Lead and Follow

1.1 Soft and clear lead

I find it much more pleasant for leader and follower if the follower is not moved (pushed and pulled) around but if she is invited to move by herself. The leader proposes a movement, the follower has the choice to do it or not.
This is also essential for dancing more complicated figures, because it allows both partners to stay in their axis. Pushing and pulling throws the partner off axis.
There are a few exceptions to that. In the following cases there is some force needed.
1. Volcada
2. Colgada
3. Fast spin changes
4. Expansion and contraction
Whoever disagrees with points 1 and 2 (subject to 3) will probably not profit much from the following.
Since the purpose of the lead is not to move the partner but to propose a movement, the goal should be a soft and clear lead, soft because the partner should feel free to move by herself, clear because the partner should know exactly what the leader proposes, so that the dance can be harmonic.
'Soft' and 'clear' is no contradiction. Weber-Fechner's law states that the just noticable difference of a stimulus pair is proportional to the intensity of the base stimulus.
- That means, making a lead strong does not make it clear!!!
Decisive for clarity of the lead is the signal to noise ratio. If the signal is weak compared to the noise, then communication is bad, if the noise is weak compared to the signal, then communication is good.
I want to distinguish two forms of noise.
1. Superfluous movements! These are movements that are added to the lead movement and cover the actual lead signal. The goal should be to move accurately with no extra movement overlayed, e.g. don't wiggle with your arms all the time.
  - Exercise: Walk straight forward and control the quality of your movement by visually fixating two aligned points at two different distances but exactly ahead of your eyes. The points should not move relative to each other.
2. Incoherence in the different communication channels! That means the leader gives conflicting leading information. The right hand proposes to go straight, the left to take a turn. It is obvious that this results in poor communication, and the leader might be tempted to make it clearer by increasing the force, but that does not help at all, because the conflict remains. I distinguish four communication channels,
  1. his left / her right hand,
  2. his right arm,
  3. her left arm,
  4. her vision.
  Exercises: Dance with some of the communication channels turned off, idealy working with only one channel. It is amazing how much one can lead with only one channel, although this needs quite some practice. If you learn to lead with each channel individually, the combined lead will be coherent.
The goal of a coherent lead automatically implies that we lead with the body, not the arms, because that is what the vision uses in any case and that is the easiest way of getting coherence in the arm contacts as well.
Another reality to take into account is the follower's reaction time. It takes time for the follower to process the lead information, to decide whether she wants to do the move, and to actually do it. This has at least two implications:
1. Think way in advance. Think the next three to six steps rather than the next two. Think intensely, visualize. Combine the steps into a smooth flow. This prepares your body for the whole next six steps and the figures to come will have an influence on how you move. Your partner will subconsciously pick that up and be prepared for the movements when they come.
2. Leave slack. Don't insist that your partner reacts immediately. Leave room for a delay. Wait for your partner. Actually you could even say, you propose a movement, your partner accepts and dances it, and then you follow her.
  - Exercise: Walk forward in the four-track system, then change direction relatively suddenly going backwards. Don't pull your parner into the change of direction. Be flexible in the arms, anticipate that your partner goes a bit further than you and extend the embrace. Lead with your body, your hands belong to her.
Use inclination to tell your partner early where you want to go. This is like riding a bicycle or flying an airplane, or, even better, like balancing a broomstick. You first incline and then you take the turn.
- Exercise: Go straight forward and backward without holding each other. Change direction at some arbitrary point. Lead by inclination. Timing is key here. So give each other (mainly the follower to the leader) feedback about the timing of the inclination.
To be able for the leader to develop a soft and clear lead, the follower must have a strong axis and move by herself. If she keeps leaning against the leader, holding on to him, pulling him out of axis, he has to use a lot of force to keep her in balance and then also a lot of force to propose movements.
- A typical mistake is to transfer the logic of close embrace to open embrace:
  1. The left hand is on the back of the leader. Inopen embrace it should on the arm and flexibly shift to the back only in V-position.
  2. The follow rises on the ball of the foot. S/he should be grounded, usually with the whole bottom of the foot touching the floor, knees slightly bent.
  3. The body leans forward. It should be straight vertical in its axis.
- Exercise 1: Dance one dance and focus for 20 sec on the left hand, then for 20 sec on the grounding, then for 20 sec on the vertical axis, keep cycling through these three aspects.
- Exercise 2: Dance one dance and touch each other only very slightly with the tip of the fingers, so that you notice whether you move by yourself and keep your axis or not.
The leader should assimilate misunderstandings in the communication. If the follower does something else than the leader has proposed, the leader should immediately incorporate this into his choreography. Don't force the follower into a movement. You may repeat the proposal once or twice (but not more often) and try to communicate clearer, work on the timing, the inclination, etc., but do not use more force.
- Exercise: The couple dances and occasionally the following does an unexpected move. The job of the leader is to follow that move and assimilate it into the flow of the dance.
Try to adopt the style of the follower, because this then she can follow best. Are there some kind of movements she likes, repeat them. Don't insist on moves that she doesn't like. Take her style as an inspiration to widen your repertoire and horizon. This includes her preferences for figures as well as for the way to move.
- Exercise: Change partner and try to find out what she likes. Talk about it afterwards.
Focus on the quality of the connection and harmony of the joint movement, not figures. Start very simple, try to develop a good connection and mutual understanding of the way you move. Check out, how the follower likes to move. Give her/him the feeling of safety and confidence by starting really simple. Do that for two dances or so. Only then slowly increase the complexity until you feel you reach the limit of your partner. Then step back a bit and dance within her/his limits, occasionally going beyond. As a rule of thumb: At least 80% of the moves should work without problems. (In the rare event that you get to dance with a really good and confident follower. Then it can also be fun to kick start and do complex movements at the very start to wake her up and set the stage for an exciting firework of figures, but quality of the connection should always have priority over complexity of movements.)
- Exercise: Change partner and for a whole dance, propose only very simple moves and focus on the quality of the connection and joint movement.