How to deal with absolute beginners in social?

Offbeat said:
If I were hypothetically running a school with 5 or 6 levels, I would have a class structure where all level one dancers in a class partner with level three. In return the level three dancers in their class get to partner with level six. Some level six may be worse than level three is bound to happen :D Hence the rotation in the class. A question is how do you teach level six since if it is the highest and there is no level seven in this hypothetical school. Well, at level six, you should assume they have sufficient skills to grow while taking lessons with their peer level counterparts.
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If your goal is to piss off everyone who joins a class, you just might succeed...

You'll need some pretty godly diplomatic skills to handle the ensuing firestorm.
 
Peason said:
Mixing levels works in other sports (I'm thinking of martial art sports). What's so different in dancing that you couldn't make it work here as well?
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Have you ever met a student in class who enjoyed being paired with someone of lower level?

There is already a lot of backlash over advanced congress workshops that don't screen out participants beforehand. What results is a lot of frustrated students, both for those who are under-leveled and also for those who are appropriately leveled.

Partner dancing is best enjoyed when you are partnered with someone who is similarly skilled. It's not like you can show off your skills like you can in Martial Arts by sparring with lower leveled students. In dance class, being paired with a substantially lower level partner means you are doing a lot of hand holding, which is not enjoyable for either person, IMO.
 
Peason said:
Mixing levels works in other sports (I'm thinking of martial art sports). What's so different in dancing that you couldn't make it work here as well?
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With partner dancing, continued connection is harder to practice alone and maintain due to a myridad of factors (skill & musicality are the two I see most impacting connection). Being paired up with a lower skilled person in martial arts isn't as problematic for both parties; usually the lower skilled one d/t frustration of not "winning."

I feel the learning curve for dancing is harder d/t the need for continued "balance" of connection, musicality while maintaining "fun" for the full 4-5 minutes. In martial arts, it's over in matter of seconds so you get to start again "fresh."

Maybe I'm biased since I'm a complete newbie for dancing compared to martial arts but I also found much more humility and comraderie with those doing various martial arts so elitism isn't as significant; more cross branch/division rivalry.

In partner dancing this attitude can impact either partner whereas in martial arts, as long as the "loser" has a good attitude there is this unspoken sense of respect. I observe this to be not the same with the elitism I feel in dancing.

With dancing, holding back one's skill (to me) hurts more with not being able to express since it's so dependent on the partner whereas except for "vital" techniques, holding back was something we didn't do.
 
Yeah, a key difference is that in dancing, the more experienced student has to drag the less experienced dancer through a pattern above their pay grade. That's a lot of work and it's pretty unfair to both. Not only that, but the better dancer is forced to do less than what they're capable of doing. This brings down the enjoyment and increases the resentment.

In regular classes, you already have a tolerable amount of skill variance among students. Imaging if students were forced to endure this kind of variance with every partner! To have a core requirement for classes being that you must dance with someone of lower skill sounds strange and totally un-fun.
 
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Chris_Yannick said:
If your goal is to piss off everyone who joins a class, you just might succeed...

You'll need some pretty godly diplomatic skills to handle the ensuing firestorm.
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I do think it can work. It can be sold to higher level students as a way to improve their dancing too. I am assuming they are not so in students but regular students at a school.

Classes are not for fun. You have social dancing for that. At beginners level one for leaders the school asks higher level followers to come. At beginners level one for the followers, the school asks higher level leaders to help out. The largest school here did something similar 12-13 years back. Not the way I outlined but mixing levels of followers and leaders for class/training. They would ask their monthly paying students to mix the levels for training/classes. For example to teach leaders to lead spinning they had all of their advanced followers attend. By advance I mean semi-pro and pro levels. The type of followers who could quadraple or quintuple spin themselves. This is a school where you had to know 100 shines and were tested for it before they let you move to the level. Needless to say they produced some of the best local dancers. Both performers as well as social (they had two separate programs for each.)
 
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Asking higher levels dancers to help out in beginner classes has been going on since forever. Some schools have an army of assistants who do exactly that.

But it's quite a different thing making higher level students partner up with lower level students.

I still wouldn't build it in the curriculum to purposely have mixed level classes, but it depends on the material. Some open work classes invite all levels but they wouldn't consist of advanced partner work which only half are able to do.
 
Chris_Yannick said:
Asking higher levels dancers to help out in beginner classes has been going on since forever. Some schools have an army of assistants who do exactly that.

But it's quite a different thing making higher level students partner up with lower level students.
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What is difference whether you call it helping out or partnering.

If school has five or six levels and students move from one to next every two months there is not too much difference between higher level and lower level student.

Most local schools had only two levels. Beginners and regular or intermediate. Many beginners trying a regular would quickly go back into beginners till they developed enough skillset to keep up with shines and intermediate level partnerwork. I don’t remember any class levels labeled as advanced across major schools then and now. Which makes sense. The workshops by visiting celebrities aren’t called advanced either. Though what people like Adolfo, ET Jr, FD, etc teach (at our local weekend workshops) can be called advance (80% or more body movement and shines). Those workshops also tend to attract a significant number of skillful dancers so that might perpetuate celebrities to teach more complex or challenging stuff.

If someone is a solid intermediate there is no such thing as too advanced of a class.
 
This thing you guys call mixing up people of different levels happens all the time at social dancing. The equivalent in martial arts would be sparring. A good sparring partner adapts to the level of the beginner.
 
I knew social dancing vs class dancing would come up.

In a social setting, I don't care who dances with who.. all levels welcome.

In a class setting, having too high skill variance in a closed studio environment isn't good for the class. Higher level students will complain and eventually stop coming to class. Lower level students will complain it's too hard and drop out.

Offbeat said:
If school has five or six levels and students move from one to next every two months there is not too much difference between higher level and lower level student.
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If the skill level is comparable, then fine. If there is too big of a difference, then it's not good.
 
Chris_Yannick said:
In a class setting, having too high skill variance in a closed studio environment isn't good for the class. Higher level students will complain and eventually stop coming to class. Lower level students will complain it's too hard and drop out.
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This is more a sign of incompetent teacher andor not well thought out material. I've seen many times how material is given in the manner that allows different skill levels to participate simultaneously.
 
1derpalm said:
I have a follow who always counts on2. It usually happens when I slip into Son timing. Maybe she should just count the 5. We don't dance together anymore. She became a teacher and I feel our dance goals and thus our dancing is no longer compatible. And our chemistry has disappeared completely.
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Also does not it feel weird to enjoy the music when someone is counting.
Image someone reciting grammar rules when we are learning a new language and trying to frame a sentence.
 
Offbeat said:
Some women who have never danced before are leadable. Some aren't. Not surprising that it is a wide spectrum.
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If we as lead, try verbal instructions, we are not doing the justice to their real chances and we are pre-judging their abilities and not allowing them to dance.

Even if they are not leadable, we as leads should try to create an environment to enjoy music. If a girl is enjoying the music, she is relaxed, she may be able to follow even if she does not have proper tension (spaggeti hands are leadable, tight/strong tensions are not).
 
Peason said:
Mixing levels works in other sports (I'm thinking of martial art sports). What's so different in dancing that you couldn't make it work here as well?
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I feel like levels are confusing. Even when I was a beginner, some advanced dancers enjoyed dancing with me. Even after dancing 10 years, some intermediate dancers do not like dancing with me.

Its more like having a dancing connection.
 
I saw a guy who took absolute beginners and made them comfortable doing quite advanced moves just within a few songs. He guided them through the steps all the time. Very impressive.
 
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Well I try to separate what I want to happen with what is reality, haha. I wish every partner I danced with was perfect for me. But that's half the fun too, learning to adapt myself to the situation. And I can get better at this skill by dancing with people that are different than me in level or style. Most important for me is just that I'm dancing with people that respect each other and encourage each other. If I've got that, then I'm happy.
 
Bostontraitor said:
I saw a guy who took absolute veterans and made them confused doing quite simple moves just within a few minutes. He forced them through the steps all the time. Very impressive.
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Those guys are (sadly) a dime a dozen in most US salsa scenes...

Also, experienced follows can compensate for a lot of crappy leading, so oftentimes someone watching may not realize what's going on -- but there comes a point when the lead is so terrible (rough, or off time, etc.) that the follow is like, f*** it, I will stop compensating. That's when a bystander can really see the train wreck.
 
Sabrosura said:
Those guys are (sadly) a dime a dozen in most US salsa scenes...

Also, experienced follows can compensate for a lot of crappy leading, so oftentimes someone watching may not realize what's going on -- but there comes a point when the lead is so terrible (rough, or off time, etc.) that the follow is like, f*** it, I will stop compensating. That's when a bystander can really see the train wreck.
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As a man who compensates for a lot of things in life, I can feel your pain. :kiss:
 
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