Build a good connection – A road map to becoming a good leader or follower –

I taught a workshop a few month ago where we focused on how to be a better partner.  Wanting to be thorough, I made some notes.  John V. asked me if I was going to have copies for them.  I want to share the notes with you, to help you become better dancers and partners. Start with Posture This is the carriage of your whole body.  It is important to Engage: shoulders, upper body (back and chest) and core When dancing, you want to have tone in your muscles.  You want energized muscles ready to be used, neither too tense nor completely relaxed.  The word we use a lot of the time is ‘tone.’  Tone means to keep the muscles in a constant state of partial contraction.  As dancers we engage both opposing muscle groups at the same time.

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The easiest way for most people to understand this is with the arms – even though for good connections we don’t want to use (or over utilize) the arm muscles.  If you want to straighten your arm, think of flexing the triceps (concentric contraction) at the same time as you resist the straightening with the biceps (eccentric contraction).  When thinking about creating good connections we will use the back and pectoral muscles more than the arms. Next: How developing your own dancing is important to being a better partner…