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I had an excellent weekend.  After spending all of last weekend with a significant portion of the charter members of the OMC, I had all of this weekend with Bay.  I won’t go into the stuff that you didn’t come here to read, but I highly recommend meeting someone that makes you a better person and marrying their ass (and the rest of them too).  Your life continues to get better the more work you’re willing to put in to a relationship like this – win/win!

We hosted my parents on Saturday night to cook them dinner, play crokinole, and slice off a portion of my finger.  My finger didn’t ruin the night, and fortunately it didn’t affect my crokinole playing.  I also successfully managed to raise my Dad’s blood pressure by playing my shots before he had the time to tell me “aim for my finger Adam!”.  I’m pretty sure my Mum had the exact same look on her face that she did over 15 years ago in Majorca when he did the same thing at the pool table.  Ah.. fond memories.

Before that, however, I took the afternoon for myself to go down to Centenniel Square and dance.  I didn’t start with this intention, but no one else was available given the short notice I had provided, and it had been too long since I’d danced in my hometown.  I wasn’t going to let anyone else’s lack of availability affect my need to get some creative release.  I gathered up my stuff and headed down.

Centenniel Square is actually a pretty great spot to go and share some culture.  The main part of the square has been fixed and is much more open than it once way.  While there was an event happening (and I heard at least one deep house song that I like playing), there was plenty of room further back and closer to the road.  One of the great parts about this area is that there are a number of businesses along one side, and all of the glass there is one-way mirror.  Not only that – it’s covered.  No issues with weather.

For a good solo session, having a reflection can go a long way to making you more comfortable dancing in public.  And that’s the other great benefit about the Square – it’s got a steady stream of foot traffic, but enough open area that no one ever has to feel about having their space violated.

One of the biggest things I’ve been working on this term has been opening myself up more when I’m dancing.  Not just physically, but emotionally and, if you can handle this, spiritually (it probably doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it does to me).  Having a consistent flow of foot-traffic offers plenty of opportunities for an audience, and if you can’t be comfortable with an audience, you’re never going to be able to achieve what you’re fully capable of.  If you have trouble getting yourself to this point, check out my post about opening yourself up more – it’s a great starting point that will naturally lead you to what I’m describing.

I was practicing in front of the windows (after being told,  bemusedly, by two commissionaires that there were people that could see me on the other side and were watching me), and taking a break from really dancing (when the goes off, I have to too!) and sat there grooving.  I made a surprising discovery – I figured out how I could teach gliding.

The problem

Gliding has always been an elusive technique for me.  I’ve never really felt how it connects to the music.  When I first started trying to to learn, it was by watching Graham.  Graham’s an amazing dancer and a great glider, but he is highly intuitive.  Without anything technical to grab on to, I was never really able to pick up the foundation.  Graham picked the technique up so quickly and seamlessly that I couldn’t find a space in his movement to pick apart and build on my own understanding.

With a lot of time, practice and classes, I was able to slowly pick up the technique.  But I never really learned how it connected to the actually dancing that I was meant to do.  Without an ability to ground the technique in the dance, it was a very dead move that I had taught myself to do.  Don’t kid yourself – anyone that is actually listening to the music will notice straight away if you’re just doing technique without any dancing.  Without an ability to dance with the technique, I could never really figure it out.  The way I taught the class was the same way I felt about learning the technique myself: it was slow, arduous.. it was frustrating.

The seed

The seed for my own epiphany was initially planted by Jamieson – a good friend, dancer and teacher.  In Jamieson’s class, he had us performing the stationary front glide (almost a forced walk) to the beat of the music.  This was the first time that I had actually seen a glide properly connected to the music.  (Much to Jamieson’s credit, I have never seen him teach anything that wasn’t connected with the music).

Ready for the music to pick me back up, I stood in front of the mirror doing the following to the beat playing in my ears:

• Simultaneously raise my left toe and my right heel (1st beat).
• Simultaneously lower my left toe and right heel, and then raise my right toe and my left heel (2nd beat).
• Repeat

This is a simple motion, but it’s rhythmic, and that means that it’s a way to keep time with the music.  You should always strive to have part of your body moving to the music – this is how you stay connected to your dance, the rhythm, and the feel.  It’s how you know you’re actually dancing.  Have you ever watched a great dancer and seen them move like they had already heard the song before?  They haven’t – they’re just feeling music to the extent that they know where it’s going to go next.

The epiphany

Standing in place, rocking my feet up and down to the beat, I let my mind wander and focused on the music.  Rather than trying to think of what to do next, I allowed myself to sit in the groove.  I let myself know that it was okay to not do something new – I could do this for as long as it felt good.  This might sound trite to those that don’t understand, but this is the most fundamental principle of dancing that I can conceive at the moment.  If you can do this, you can dance.  If you can give yourself permission to enjoy a groove you’re sitting in, you don’t have to worry about how you look to anyone.

Reaching this conclusion is part of the greater (and ongoing) epiphany I’ve been having this term, thanks in part to the talented influences of my friends and teachers Dennis, Kyle, Kim, Johnnii and Jamieson.  Sitting with the groove in this position, I suddenly felt the tumblers in my brain fall into place.  I had gotten inside the glide!

Moving my feet up and down rhythmically, I was able to do the same while floating (the first is a foundation for the second), and almost magically felt everything snap into place.  If I could float to the rhythm, I could glide to the rhythm.  If I could glide to the rhythm… I could dance.

At the moment, I can’t provide any greater a breakdown of the technique I’m describing.  I need to teach it in order to understand it better myself.  What’s that?  You shouldn’t teach something that you don’t understand completely?  Why not?  Shouldn’t the teacher be allowed to learn with the students as well?  Surely this is teaching at it’s finest.  This is part of my process, and it’s part of why teaching, for me, is never just a one-way – it’s a two-way interaction.  Articulating an idea for someone should be a learning experience for both of you.

The good news is that I can promise more articulation in the summer months, for those of you that will be taking classes with me.  I’m looking forward to sharing what have been some profound changes in me as a dancer, and mutually working through those discoveries together in classes.  I have not yet found the right space for what I want to do, but that is currently in the works and once settled, I will be posting more information right here.  Suffice to say for now that I’m really excited about what is in the works.

TLDR

While the audience for this post may be different than some of the others I have written, I still think summaries are a good practice.  If not for you, certainly for me.  Here we go:

• If you want to excel as a dancer, you need to be open to your audience, whoever and wherever they may be (don’t be selective)
• If you’re nervous about dancing in public, find a place with a reflection.  Make sure you spend time facing away from it, but it can act as a security blanket when you’re feeling intimidated by those around you.  If you insist on staring at the mirror, make eye contact with your audience through it (it’ll catch them off-guard, I guarantee!)
• If you can give yourself permission to sit in a groove, you can dance (yup, step-touch and two-stepping counts – don’t move on until you’re ready to).
• No matter what you’re doing, try to keep some part of your body connected to he music (if you’re not sure why, see the point above)

And of course – I’m going to be teaching this summer somewhere in town, and it’s going to be awesome.  (and you should be there too!).

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I’ve been in a bit of a creative rut lately.  Work is good (great, even), I’ve adjusted to living in another city, and I’m starting to form a bit of routine.  But creatively, I just haven’t felt engaged or energized.  The result of that is little energy to actually create something like a blog post, and less energy overall (the more you can put out, the more you receive – it’s funny that way).  In the process of the last few days, this has meant that I’ve had an abundance of time to sit with nothing to do but meditate and reflect.

Spending time in this state is valuable, but it can be tiresome too.  As a driven person, I reach the point where I’m once again ready (eager, even) to feel traction under my wheels and start driving myself forward.

One of the aims I have this Spring is to continue my growth as a dancer.  This process has been ongoing for years, but recently I have taken note of three specific landmarks.  The first was during the Summer of 2009.  I was still working in software, and took a week-long trip over to Vancouver for the opportunity to dance and train with some of the originators of Popping, House, Locking, and HipHop.  It was an amazing opportunity, and was the first time I had been exposed to this depth of knowledge.  I left this week feeling like I had been shown what I needed to know, rather than what I had wanted to know.  This feeling was a bit disconcerting at first, but is ultimately an indication that you have learned something deep, and fundamental; something that will stay with you for the rest your creative pursuit.

The second milestone occurred this Summer, and culminated with the second Get Down workshop.  I was opened up to the social element of dancing, thanks to the fantastic teachers that I got to train with and the warm and welcoming people that make up Vancouver’s dance scene.  This too was an experience that caught me off guard, as up until this point, most of my dancing had been at home or doing drills with friends in front of a mirror.  I had been opened up to a side of dancing that I had been sheltered from for the better part of my first ten years spent dancing.

The third milestone was this Fall.  I returned to Victoria with a greater sense of what I wanted to have exist on our own island, and took steps to plant the seeds that would hopefully develop into something greater as time went on.  I also came back with a wealth of knowledge that I hadn’t been able to articulate, let alone been truly aware of for the first part of my time spent teaching dancing.  This time I had worked with better teachers than I, and been shown so much more that I wanted to share.  Although my classes were smaller this term, I felt like it was the best set that I have taught since I’ve begun teaching.

Now I’m back in Vancouver for another term, and the creative rut that I’m determined to climb out of has lead me to consider what some of my personal projects should be.  I’m talking about dancing, so it’s obvious that that’s the goal I’m going to be talking about today.

Before we go any further, “dancing”, by itself, is not a goal.  How do I know when that goal has been accomplished?  How do I gauge if I have made any progress in that goal?  Does doing anything related to dancing qualify?  If I think about dancing for ten minutes tomorrow, does that count?

I’m of course using hyperbole to make my point here, but I think that what I’m describing makes intuitive sense.  A lot of times, we tell ourselves we’re making a goal, and then leave it utterly vague.  ”Budget more”, “Eat out less”, and “Save” are goals that I’m sure more than a few of us can relate to.  However, no one ever teaches us that a goal needs to be broken down to be meaningful.  Until we have a handle on something like this, our goal is nothing more than an abstract desire to do something differently.  Most importantly, it’s no help.

My goal is ultimately continue to improve as a dancer.  Now, while this is already a violation of what I’ve described above, I’m deciding up front that the means by which I will accomplish this more abstract goal is to take efforts to put myself in situations where I’m not the best dancer.

Let’s talk about that.  This does not mean that I think I am a fantastic dancer (But I do know that I love it and work at it), nor that other people dancing with me are bad.  This goal is purely an articulation of my desire to train with the people that are best going to be able to pull me up in terms of my skill level.  Truly talented people can be intimidating, but the key is to replace that intimidation with an awe and a genuine desire to soak up what you can from them.  The more often you can surround yourself with talented people, the more their particular talents and way of looking at the world will rub off on you (genuinely a positive thing).  Of course, the opposite is true as well: the more time you spend with people that are narrow-minded and have a cynical view of the world, the more that will wear off on you.

So the goal here is actually quite simple: seek out those that are better than I, and spend time dancing with them in whatever capacity I can.  Taking classes is one way that I can ensure that I achieve this aim.  Actually committing to going out to practice with other dancers at any jam-times available is another way.  If I only ever dance by myself or in front of a mirror, I will only be able to improve within the confines of the box that currently defines my working set of creative knowledge.  If we want to truly achieve greatness, we need to ensure that we associate with people that help us continually push at the boundaries of our own knowledge and conceptions about how the world works.  (Incidentally, one of the tragedies of ignorance is that it causes people to turn inwards and get defensive toward the very type of personalities and concepts that would help shed them of that very ignorance).

I have another goal this term.  I intend to teach my own classes somewhere downtown in Victoria.  I have already been teaching classes, but up until now have been doing it for Vibestreet Dance (big ups to VSD).  However, VSD does not have classes this Summer, and it seems like an excellent time and opportunity to begin putting my own thing together.  I’ll be working with my friend Jesse to put something together, and we’re also planning to teach a Soul class together, focusing on grooving, feeling the music, and ultimately, just learning how to get down and be funky.  Jesse is one of the most creative people I know, and I think the opportunity to work with him will be fruitful.  I’m excited to see what our synergy will result in.

Time, weather, and city permitting, I’m going to be giving very informal classes at Centenniel Square, right downtown.  These classes will be very cheap (probably no more than $5 to drop-in), and are basically a way for people to continue to grow as a dancer.  Focus will be on fundamentals, and this kind of class is an excellent way to get more comfortable dancing where people can see you.  This is one of the biggest challenges that many dancers have to face (I certainly put myself in that category), and it’s hard to get much more legit than getting down, outside, in an urban setting.

If you’re interested in hearing more about these classes, join my group on Facebook here.

So, it’s back to Vancouver that I go, now with a new goal, and some personal projects to work on over the coming term.  I sense that I’m starting to move out of my creative rut, and can begin to apply some focus in a direction that I’m excited about.  Stay tuned as I will continue to blog about my progress, anything new that I learn, and the status of the projects I’m working on.

Lastly, I want to give someshout-outs to the great teachers that I get to work with in Vancouver: Johnni, Jamieson, Kim, and Dennis are all contributing significantly to my growth while I spend time in Vancouver, and it’s a honour to get to work with people that share their passion and talent for dancing so generously.  These guys help me become not only a better dancer, but a better teacher.  Thanks guys!

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I’m still here, there just hasn’t been much recently inspiring me to write.  In the meantime, here are some excellent dance videos to entertain yourself with:

• Crazy Scandinavian’s

These guys may look goofy, but they’ve definitely put some work into their isolations.  Although I think there’s room for them to work on their technique, this video’s giving me a few ideas for what I’ll go over next drop-in class.

• Hilty and Bosch, Featuring Co-Thkoo

This is an excellent video to see the difference between popping and locking.  Most people that don’t have any experience with the different styles think that they are the same thing.  Locking is actually the older dance (and was created before hiphop, breaking, and popping), and is based more on funkiness and a limited move set.  The guys wearing black shirts are two of my favorite lockers from Japan (a country with a lot of incredible lockers). 

The guys in the white vests are performing popping.  You can tell the difference if you look closely.  The poppers movements are punctuated with sharp hits, and are generally more angular in appearance.  The lockers movements are defined by faster movements with more flair and funk.  Wrist rolls, arm rolls, knee drops, and and points are all some of the locking techniques to look out for.

One very cool thing that my friend Jesse pointed out in this video is the symmetry of the choreography.  Although the two dance styles are often quite disimilar, the choreography that these guys are doing has been put together such that one group of dancers will perform a movement, and then the next group will perform similar movements and angles, but using the techniques associated with their respective styles.

• JRock and Pandora, Tutting

This is a very coo
l routine showing the technique of tutting.  You can tell just from the YouTube preview what the general idea is: assume geometric shapes with your body and arms that are reminiscent of egyptian hieroglyphics, and the way Bugs Bunny used to move when he would mimic egyptians in those corny cartoons.

This routine is especially cool because they’ve choreographed it to use two people.  However, this isn’t a necessary aspect of tutting, and it works just as well (well, maybe not quite as striking, but still cool) with one person.

Tutting is a technique that I have only been working on for about two months, as I was always averse to trying to learn it because of the problem I had getting my wrist to make some of the angles.  While you can train your wrist by stretching it out each day, you can also eliminate the need to hit certain angles through creativity.

• Poppin’ John

An excellent video submitted by Poppin’ John for Mr. Wiggles internet video contest (correct me if I’m wrong).  Poppin’ John does awesome things with waves, and is always frustrating for me to watch and try to fathom how the hell he’s come up with his vocabulary.

I especially like his technique of putting one hand over the back of his head, and then using that hand to push waves down and out his other arm.  Very cool.

Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got for today.  If any of these videos or techniques interest you and you’d like to learn more, come check out one of my classes at Vibestreet Dance.  The techniques look complicated, but with practice, you can master them and trip out your friends too!  Seriously though, popping is an awesome style of dance to learn, and a ton of fun to play around with.  It’s never too late to learn..

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It’s been a little longer than normal since my last entry.  That’s mostly because I’ve been keeping myself fairly busy.  The stuff that is keeping me busy is stuff that I don’t really want to set down only to come home and spend even more time writing about (don’t get me wrong – I’m extremely passionate about dancing, I just haven’t felt inclined to write about it lately), and I haven’t really felt inspired to write beyond that.

However, this Saturday was the end-of-year wrap-up for Vibestreet Dance, and so it seems a good time to reflect a little bit on how things have gone.  When I look back to only two months ago, when I first started taking popping classes from Dillon, I can barely fathom how much things have changed.

The Show

Before I talk about my own thoughts, it’s probably worth talking about our end-of-year show.  Three weeks before the show, Brooke mentioned that our breaking instructor would be putting together a routine for it, and it would be great if I could as well.  This would pretty much be the first time I’d ever done any choreography, so I was a little bit nervous – I spent about a week putting things together, and then went over it with the class.

I also bumped in to two other guys that had been popping for about a year as well, got them out into one of our cyphers, and then got their information and told them to come out to the jam sessions I’m trying to get going.  All in all, the show was awesome.

Instruction

The biggest change that has occurred since starting at Vibestreet has obviously been that I’ve moved into the role of teaching, from that of a student.  Teaching is something that I’ve always wanted to do, and that I’ve always enjoyed.  My own experience has been that teaching people the art that I am interested in is one of the best ways for me to gain a better understanding of it myself.  Breaking techniques down requires thinking about each part of the technique and understanding it at a very fundamental level.  I’ve always felt this way, and indeed, studying calculus with friends in University, I always appreciated being asked for help with various questions.  My friends would apologize for bugging me with another question, but I was secretly being selfish and gaining from the questions they were asking me.

Back in the very early days of the world wide web, a friend and I ran a dance website called “Shaddup and Dance”.  It was a piece of garbage, and would make web browsers explode from having to render the sheer ugliness of colours that we jammed onto that page.  Not only that, but there was also negative feedback from the original gangsters that took exception to my tutorial videos (many of them were indeed quite poor), or our attitude that just because you’d been around for a while didn’t mean that you were above critique.  Still, there was an awful lot of positive feedback that accompanied the negative, and the opportunity to provide some advice and direction to other dancers that were attempting to learn the same techniques I had was one that I relished.

The first day that I started teaching was with the junior class.  I hadn’t met any of the kids before, and I had no idea what they had learned up to that point.  Brooke told me that they were passionate about popping, which was promising, but I didn’t realize how accurate she was.  These kids have been awesome, and really stuck it out with me.  They were patient with my fumbling starts, and have given me lots of inadvertent advice that I have taken to heart.  The opportunity to work with them (and hopefully to continue to do so), has been really great and has provided ample opportunities to learn myself.

Working with the adults has been slightly easier, though no less of a learning experience.  It’s been easier because adults are generally more willing to focus on the foundation, and because I had the benefit of being attending the four classes previous to my taking it over.

When Brooke asked if I wanted to keep teaching, I didn’t even have to think about the answer.

Choreography

I’ll be posting updates as we move further into the Summer.  Until then, stay tuned!

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently took over teaching the popping classes put on at Vibestreet Dance.  The story behind this is that our existing instructor fell into a wormhole and is now selling potted meat at Zarglon-7.  Or something to this effect.  Whatever he ended up doing, he sent Brooke a text message saying “Sorry, I can’t teach any more.  Good luck”, and that was the last we heard of him.  Pretty flakey.

Taking over for Dillon is/was pretty intimidating.  Dillon is, by my standards, a pretty good dancer.  His technique is simply much cleaner and refined than my own.  Although I believe that I have a lot of innate dance talent, I’ve struggled to motivate myself to practice, because Victoria has never had a culture surrounding the styles (we’re working to change that).

While Dillon’s ability on the dance floor certainly surpasses my own, it’s my own belief that his teaching ability is severely lacking.  This isn’t a diss on Dillon or anything, as I’ve already stated that I have great respect for his ability to bust out; It’s simply an observation.  Some people are good at breaking things down and explaining them, and some people understand things on an intuitive level but are unable to share that knowledge with others.

The main thought I try to hold in my head each time I start to doubt my own ability to teach is to remind myself that while I may not be a super advanced dancer, I do spend a lot of time thinking about dancing, and I am naturally inclined to break things down and think about the fundamental units that make up each technique.

Yesterday marked the last of the six classes that I initially signed up for this term, and the last of two lessons that I was due to teach after taking over for Dillon.  This term, I’ve taught a total of four classes: two of them to teens, and two of them to adults.  The adult class is the one that I was previously taking, but both classes are roughly operating on the same skill level.

This post is simply an opportunity for me to reflect on the experience so far, talk about some of the things that I’ve learned, challenges I’ve had to overcome, mountains I’ve had to climb, and other clichés too numerous to mention.

Taking on the role of an instructor instead of an annoying student that asks too many questions has not been without challenges.  The least of which simply having the confidence in myself to accept the fact that I know enough to break down and teach the styles of dance I’ve been pursuing casually for all these years.

Fortunately, I’ve got some experience to draw upon, mostly from teaching friends tricks here and there.  Teaching Michi to pop when we first met has given me valuable experience to draw upon, and helped me appreciate the fact that everyone learn things at their own pace and in their own manner.  Incidentally, be sure to check out some of Michi’s videos – the student has truly become the master!

Lesson Plans

Putting together lesson plans has been another challenge to overcome.  Figuring out the right number of exercises to review with a class is something that I think will only come with experience.  The first class I completely underestimated how much time we would need to take to review the Fresno.  As an example, I started off with the assumption that we could go right into covering both leg and upper body hits.  However, as we started this, I realized that we would probably be better served breaking things down even further, focusing first only on leg hits, then on upper body hits, and then bringing them both together into the Fresno.

The second class, I had put together some more work for our Fresno, but this time overestimated the amount of time that we would end up spending working on this (based on my observations from the previous class).  After covering off the basics thoroughly the previous class, we blew through the other stuff I’d put together, and sticking to it for longer seemed like it would only frustrate students who wanted to progress and tackle something new.

What’s the lesson here?  I think basically the best approach is to underestimate how much time will be required to cover each technique, and plan more stuff than will likely be needed for each lesson.  I can then move anything in excess over into next week’s lesson, and will have ample material to iterate over if the class progresses faster than I anticipate.

Quantity over Quality

Another item that I’m still learning is how much should be covered in a class (quantity), versus how much time we should spend on drilling each technique (quality).  The longer we spend practicing each step, the better the class will grasp the concept and technique, and the easier it will be for them to practice that technique later on their own.  However, the longer we spend, the less new material the class are given to work on, and the more likely they are to become bored with the class and what we’re working on.

This too feels like something that will come with experience.  I have a reasonably good grasp of how the class is responding to what we are working on, but I would really like to tighten this up.  I suppose my desire is the same as most teachers – I want to see my students get stoked, really improve, and become great dancers.  Finding a balance between drilling good technique and keeping things fun is going to be one of my main goals throughout this summer.

Tediousness

One of the things that has always been challenging for me, and for people that I have attempted to teach, is the fact that some of the techniques in popping are difficult and take time to learn.  And when I mean they take time, I mean they require putting some effort into drilling basic movements that initially will not immediately be obvious as to how they connect with the end result.

The most prominent example of this occurred last night when I was teaching the class gliding.  Gliding is a very popular technique, and for a number of reasons.  First, it looks ridiculously cool when it’s done well.  Second, gliding is a technique that is easy to integrate into whatever other techniques you are doing.  You can Fresno for a while, glide over to a new space on the dance floor, and then start your Fresno up again.  Lastly, when done well, gliding appears effortless and graceful.  The dancer just stands there and moves gracefully around the room.

These three elements combine to make the perfect storm. The student sees how smooth and graceful the glide looks, and immediately wants these results.  Unfortunately, gliding is not a technique that comes easily, and it requires practicing some basic drills and honing your balance before you are able to see the results that you want.

The biggest problem I felt I was encountering was taking the class through the fundamentals and the basics while maintaining their interest and avoiding discouraging them.  Becoming discouraged means that the student gives up hope that they will be able to glide with practice, and that puts an end to their progression.  A discouraged student is always going to be a signal to myself that I have failed in some way and need to adapt my learning plan.

I have not yet figured out the best way to work with the class towards learning gliding, but this is something I will definitely be working towards.  It may be the case that it is better digested in small chunks, having the class learn only floating in one class, then moving on to the sliding transition the n
ext class, then the transfer of weight the following class, and so on.

Planning

Keep it locked, and get out and start dancing! 

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This is part of my ongoing series related to the popping classes that I’m taking at Vibestreet Dance studios, you can read last week’s entry here.  The most recent class focused almost purely on tutting, a style that I have never gotten into.

Before I get into the details of the class, I want to provide a quick update on myself, as I haven’t been able to sit down and write as much as I’d like to.  If you are hear to read only about the dance class, you can skip past this stuff.

This was the last week I had to occupy myself before Bay got back from Brazil, where she was taking part in the international emerging markets aspect of her MBA degree at UVic.  She has been gone for three weeks now, which is the longest her and I have been apart from each other in about four years.

The time apart has been very healthy.  When I say healthy, I don’t mean “Thank god we are away from each other!”.  What I mean is that it’s good for a couple to spend some time apart from one another now and then, remember who we are as individuals, spend some time recalibrating ourselves, and learning to appreciate each other and what our relationship means to us all over again.  I make a point of saying this every time we teach the marriage preparation course – it is imperative that the two people in a couple can function independently, if they’re going to be able to function together in a healthy relationship.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve accomplished a bunch of things.  Some of those are:

• Started and finished some Spring cleaning, organizing our condo and storing some things that have been left out for far too long
• Come up with a couple of new systems for managing my tasks (nerdy, but it does feel really good to come up with a new system that makes you more productive)
• Officially resigned from the VEMF management team this year (a difficult decision to make – more on this later)
• Hung out with good friends
• Caught up with old friends
• Started getting up early in the mornings to fit an hour bike ride in before work
• Continued training hard for squash

In Bay’s absence, I’ve tried to treat the three weeks as something of a working vacation, starting with Easter weekend, and then taking the following two Monday’s off work as well.  This has given me more spare time than I would otherwise had, and given me some spare to let my mind be creative and wander.  Although this has been a bit of an experiment, I think that the results have been really good.

I really enjoyed watching Marc Lesser’s talk at Google about accomplishing more by doing less.  One thing he said that has stuck with me is his mantra that you should take time during the year to “retreat, in order to move forward”.  By retreat, he means remove yourself from your daily life and give yourself the opportunity to think about it from outside of the box (at least, this is how I interpreted his advice).  I look at the past three weeks as the first opportunity I’ve had to practice this advice, and will certainly be looking to continue this practice.

Now, isn’t it about time that we started talking about dance?

Tutting

At the start of this entry, I mentioned that in the past, tutting was never a style that I had pursued.  The reason for this is a simple one really: I just didn’t feel that I was anatomically capable of performing the dance.

Tutting, as a style, is all about moving your body in and out of positions that incorporate right angles.  Wrists bent at right angles, elbows bent at right angles, shoulders bent at right angles, etc.  The name derives from King Tut, and the stereotypical angles created by the body parts that mimic some hieroglyphs, and certainly Steve Martin and Bugs Bunny mimicing “walking like an Egyptian”.

The problem is, my wrists don’t bend back at a very sharp right angle.  With a lot of effort, I can get them bent back at about 80 degrees, but when I see this in the mirror, it just looks ugly.  I can take my hand and pull on the my other wrist and get a good sharp right angle, but surely this isn’t what the dance is about.

So, tutting was a style that I’d watched dancers like Tommy Boy do, and always appreciated, but had put a mental barrier in place and wasn’t going to bother trying to progress further with it.  It turns out, many of my concerns are fairly unfounded in the dance.

The most important thing to keep in mind with tutting is that you don’t need to be perfect. We should always aim to make sharper cleaner angles, and to be as tight as possible, but there are limits to what the human eye can perceive, and by and large, if you’re making an effort to keep the lines created by your hands parallel and tight, you should fare just fine.

Some basic positions

Unlike the rest of what we have worked on so far, tutting didn’t come with a set of fundamental moves that Dillon taught us.  However, I’ve tried to break out some of what I perceived are fundamental positions that you will find yourself moving in and out of frequently.

Prayer position

This is a very common position, and you’ll find yourself starting and ending a lot in this position (at least when you are beginning, as I am).  It is exactly as it sounds like.  Feet at shoulder width, arms in front of you and close to your stomach, with the palms of your hands pressed against each other as though you are praying.  Ideally you want to make an effort to bend your wrists back at 90 degree angles, and keep the line created by your forearms parallel with the ground.

You have now mastered your first tutting position!  Congratulations.

Variations on the prayer position

From the prayer position, there are a number of movements that you can make.

• While maintaining the angle your wrists are bent at, you can slide one of your hands up one hand-length, so that you now have one hand in the previous position, and the heel of your other hand touching the fingertips of your bottom hand.
• While maintaining the prayer position, move your hands over to the left or right side of your chest.  As always, try to maintain the angles created by your wrists, and keep the line created by your forearms parallel with the ground.
• Pivot one of your hands downward, with the base of your wrist as the pivot point.  When you are finished, you should have one hand fixed in the same position it was at the start of the move (pointing upwards), and one hand pointing downwards.  The heel of both of your hands should be touching.
• Do the same pivot as above, but at the end of the pivot, continue your movement to bring the back of one hand against the palm of the other hand.  One hand should remain as it was in the prayer position, with the other hand bent downwards at the wrist, with its back flat against the palm of your other hand.

King Tut

Although I’m not sure that it’s actually called this, I noticed that a lot of our movements tended to flow in and out of this position.

The king tut position is what I call the position where your arms are out, your elbows are bent upwards at 90 degrees, and your wrists are bent again at 90 degrees.

The most common position I found us moving into was done from the prayer position:

• Start in prayer position
• Moving your arms up and out, you want to end up with your elbow bent upwards at 90 degrees, and your wrists still bent back at 90 de
  grees.

That’s it.  The transition from prayer position to this one is simple, as you don’t actually have to move anything – you simply pivot around your elbows.  The hard part in this position is maintaining a 90 degree angle with your wrists.  When I asked about how on Earth this is possible, Dillon said that it’s most important to make sure that your hands remain parallel with the ground.  Imagine that you’ve got a heavy book resting flat on the palm of each hand when you’re doing this position.

Some transitions from the King Tut position

From this position, you can transition into a wide variety of other angles.

• You can fold your wrists over and bend them from an outwards angle to an inwards angle.  In this position, your arms and elbows remaining the same, but your fingertips will go from pointing outwards to point inwards.  This is an easy one to make tight 90 degree angles with, so make sure you look in a mirror and get this right.
• You can roll your wrists in a circle so that your fingertips remain pointing outwards, but your wrists are now bend forwards at a 90 degree angle, rather than backwards (again, a much easier angle to make)
• You can pivot your arms around your elbows, so that your elbows now bend downwards at 90 degrees, and your wrists remain bent backwards, this time with your fingertips pointing inwards at roughly your stomach level

Head tuts

A number of angles we ended up working on were created by taking a tut and shifting it to the top of our head.  For example:

• From the King Tut position, bring your left arm over top of your head.  Your wrist should now be resting on the right side of your head, pointing up like a horn.  Now bring your right arm over top of your head as well (you’ll have to put it either in front or behind your left arm), and make the same position with your right hand as you are with your left hand.  Ideally you want to maintain 90 degree angles with your wrists, so that both of your hands remain pointing straight up.
• From the King Tut position, make a transition similar to the one above, but bring the palms of your hands together, and rest them together on the middle of your head, with your fingers pointing up (to my eyes, this position always makes me think of Indian dancing)

Box tuts

Box tuts are just the term I use to describe any tut that mimics the shape of a box.  The most common box tut is done by:

• Take your right arm, and put your fingers just against the inside of the crook of your left elbow joint.  Use this elbow to bend back your wrist at a 90 degree angle
• Take your left arm, and bend your left wrist downwards just above your right arm’s elbow, putting your fingers lightly touching your elbow.

In this position, your forearms and wrists should be forming a box.  From here, you can collapse and recreate the box by:

• Straighten the wrists of both of your arms.  Your left arm should be resting flat on top of your right arm.
• Smoothly slide your left arm behind your right arm and downwards.  As you do this, the fingers of your left arm need to sit just inside the crook of your right elbow joint – remember, this is how you are going to bend back your right wrist.
• While you’re doing the above movement, simultaneously bring your right arm in front of your left arm and upwards.  As you do this, the fingers of your right arm should gently touch the elbow of your left arm.  Continue moving your arm smoothly upwards, bending your wrist to create a 90 degree angle.
• You should now have a box tut again, but with your right arm on top instead of your left arm.

This motion in itself creates a nice visual, although doing it over and over again will get boring for the audience.  Nevertheless, you can see that you can do a lot with a little bit of movement.

Wrist twirls

Wrist twirls were a movement that Dillon showed us because he found them useful as a way of moving in and out of various tut positions.  Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to describe in writing the motion that is used for a good wrist twirl.  I know this, because I’ve just spent five minutes trying to get it down, and I haven’t really had much success.  However, the gist of the motion is:

• Hold your hands out, with the inside of the wrists of your hands together
• Pivot your hands in a circle, around the inside of the wrists. 
• As you do this pivot, you want to make sure that the fingers on your left hand are always pointing away from the fingers on your right hand.

That’s it.  If it sounds easy because there’s so few steps mentioned, that’s because it is.  But it only becomes easy once you get the hang of it.  If there is anyone that wants me to show them this move, just ask me in person and I can give you the goods very quickly.

Another wrist twirl that we learned is to transition from the prayer position at your chest to the one on top of your head.  To do this, you:

• Starting in prayer position, start raising your hands upwards.
• As you move your hands upwards, slowly start to open up your hands, showing the backs of them to the audience (so you’re looking at the palms)
• Press the backs of your hands together, and imagine that the back of your wrists are now glued together
• Pivoting around the back of your wrists, rotate your hands inwards (towards you), then down, and then out and upwards.
• When you are done this motion, you should have the backs of your hands stuck together, with your fingers pointing either outwards or upwards (depending on how far along you’ve moved them)
• You can now continue moving your arms upwards and place your hands on top of your head.  The backs of your hands should be against each other, with your wrists bent backwards at 90 degrees angles to your forearm.  Done!

Footwork

One thing I was curious about was what kind of footwork we would use to complement tutting.  Back from my earlier days of liquid dancing, one of the things that always drove me nuts were dancers that stood in place with their feet fixed on the floor, and then proceeded to totally trip people out (their own words).  I found this annoying for a couple of reasons – One, it’s contrived and obnoxious to make the assumption that you’re totally tripping people out, and two, standing fixed on the dance floor for an entire song is not dancing.

Dillon commented that tuts do not have a specific style of footwork that is used with them, though some dancers will raise their feet off the ground to create angles that complement those being done with their hands.  The main footwork to use with tutting is the same as that which we have learned previously.  Gliding will complement tutting, and the Sac-step will as well.  On that note, I noticed that in spite of all of the good foundation we’ve covered so far, Dillon has not broken down the Sac-step for anyone, so…

Sac-step

The Sac-step is a very simple motion, but allows you to fill a few beats with your feet.  The name is derived from Sacramento, where Boogaloo Sam (the creator of boogaloo) was from (I believe).  The motion works as follows:

• Start with left foot slightly in front of the other
• Take your left foot, lift it up, and then put it down beside your right foot
• When you touch the ball of your left foot down, shift your weight to this foot, and then
• Take your right foot, lift it up, and then put it down in front, r
  oughly at the same distance that your left foot was at the start of this move

That’s it.  The step isn’t complicated, and it certainly won’t trip people out!!  However, this is a valuable step to learn, and lets you add in additional footwork while you’re doing something more complex with your upper body.

Practicing

This session left me with a lot of things to practice.  One of the things I was most interested in finding out was how Dillon went from this very rough set of fundamentals to actually being able to use tutting as a dance.  The main suggestion that Dillon offered was to start in any one position, keep one hand fixed, and then practice as many transitions and angles as you can with the other hand.

The main art of tutting is maintaining clean angles and transitioning in and out of various positions.  Once you’ve developed the muscle memory for these positions and transitions, it becomes fairly easily to string them together into a dance.

Conclusion

Towards the end of the session, we went into a bit of liquid, as all of us had aching shoulders and wrists from holding the tuts for so long.  Liquid was the first style of dance that I ever really got into, so most of what we were working on came fairly easily.  However, I did notice that I am a bit rusty at this style, and my liquid isn’t quite as smooth as I would have liked to see.  I’m alright with that though, as there’s simply too much other stuff that I want to practice right now.

I believe that the remaining two classes will be devoted to reviewing of what we’ve picked up so far, which is good.  There’s been so much material that we’ve covered that an opportunity to go back and solidify it will be a very good thing.

More updates to come!

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It’s another Tuesday, which means another popping class has passed.  This past class was related to glides, slides, and floats – essentially all different ways of moving yourself around the dance floor.  I’ll dive right in to the material we covered, adding my own thoughts throughout.

Floats

Dillon started out by showing us the most basic piece of foundation for gliding: the heel-toe pivot. This is a very simple movement (in theory), and forms the basis from which the glide flows out of.  To do this move, the motion is:

• Start with both toes pointing inwards, almost, but not quite, touching
• Pivot on the toe of your left foot, bringing its heel around so that it is now pointing to the right (and your toe will now be pointing to the left).  While you do this, you also:
• Pivot on the heel of your right foot, bringing its toe around so that it is now pointing to the right (and your heel will now be pointing to the left).
• When you have completed this motion, both of your toes should now be pointing out
• Repeat this process, this time pivot on the heel of your left foot, and bring its toe around so that it is pointing inwards (and your heel pointing outwards), and, simultaneously:
• Pivot on the toe of your right foot, and bring its heel out so that it is pointing outwards (and the toes pointing inwards).
• At this point, you should have your feet in the same position that you initially started in, but be a few feet to the right of where you started.

As you can see, this is a fairly simple movement. I have been shown this motion a couple of times, not just from watching popping instructional videos, but also in a few workshops that I’ve been fortunate enough to take.  However, I’ve never really gotten it to stick.  What I mean by this, I guess, is that I’ve been lazy and neglected to practice the move.  I suspect that this is because when I first started teaching myself, I didn’t realize this was the foundation upon which glides were built, and just started right into actually working on the glide.  My glides aren’t horrible, but they could certainly be better if I put in some time to practice proper floats.

This is really pretty unacceptable.  Since this is the foundation upon which gliding is based, I’m making a mental note to make sure that I get this down.

As we were going through this, I noticed that a couple of people were having trouble alternating where they were placing their weight on their feet.  Having worked with a couple of friends to try and help then get this motion down, I can totally appreciate this difficulty.  One of the techniques I would recommend is a good starting point is to get the first pivot setup (so raise up on the ball of your left foot and the heel of your right foot) and then just pivot back and forth, into and out of, the first and second position.  Don’t worry about changing where you’ve got your weight positioned for now.  Just practice going back and forth between these two positions.  After you’ve put some time in to that, work on the pivot from the second position back into the starting position (but this time continuing in the direction you started, rather than back to the original position).

Breaking the move down into these two steps will help you solidify it in your head and ensure that they can happen without you thinking about it, and this is really the key goal to establish when we’re learning new techniques.

Glides

Okay, on to the meat of what everyone has been waiting for.  First, a quick note on glides.  This is, hands down, the single technique that I get asked about the most.  Gliding is a simple movement, but is very visually confusing.  People always want me to show them how to do it, but don’t realize that it only becomes a natural movement with a little bit of practice.  Not a ton, but some, definitely.  I noticed in class that some people were getting a little discouraged as we went through the various techniques, and I got worried.  I have a vested interest in seeing people getting stoked about popping (and the rest of the funk styles as well), so I want people to be pumped on these techniques.  Hopefully some group practice sessions will help with that – more on this later.

Before going any further, there is an important point to make that Dillon didn’t cover in class.  The key, in my opinion, to the glide’s visual effectiveness, is making sure that the foot that is raised up on the ball of its foot is not the one that is moving.  The movement will always happen with the foot whose sole is flat to the floor.  There is a good reason for this:

Imagine someone walking, running, moving normally.  Which foot is doing the movement?  It is always the foot that is raised.  During normal locomotion, the foot that is flat on the ground remains stationary (and is being used to push off forwards with), while the raised foot travels forward, then gets placed flat on the ground, and is then used to push forward (and the back foot is now raised and moved through the air). Our brains are trained to understand this kind of motion, and to expect it.

A glide works by flipping this rule on its head.  The raised foot never does any movement, and the flat foot does all of the movement.  When the brain tries to parse this visual input, the viewer focuses on the raised foot expecting movement.  However, no movement ever happens, and before you know it, the dancer has moved halfway across the dance floor.

When practicing glides, keep this cardinal rule in mind:  The raised foot does not move.

Side-Glide

The side-glide is the second most well-known type of glide, after the back-glide (popularized by Michael Jackson, incorrectly, as the moon-walk).  This glide is actually much simpler than it looks, though it does require some training to understand exactly what is going on.

Dillon indicated that the motion for the side-glide flows directly out of the floating technique we covered earlier, and as soon as we started working on the glide, I was surprised how closely it really does.  The motion is broken down as follows:

• Start, again, with your toes pointing inwards, and your heels outwards
• Raise up (and put your weight on) on the toes of your left foot, and the heel of your right foot
• Pivot on the toes of your left foot, and the heel of your right foot, so that your toes are now both pointing outwards.

So far, this is identical to the float.  Here’s where the change comes in:

• At the end of the last pivot, you need to shift all of your weight to your left foot (which remains up on its ball), because…  As you drop the heel of your left foot down to the ground, you want to slide your right foot away from you.  I find that the hardest part most people (including myself) have to deal with is getting their right foot to remain as flat to the ground as possible, but without it touching.  You want to avoid generating any friction between your foot and the ground.
• At this point, you should have both your toes pointed out, with your feet about two feet apart (or shoulder-width).
• Now, again, as with the float before, put your weight on the ball of your right foot, and the heel of your left foot.  Pivot to bring your toes pointing inwards again, then shift all of the weight onto your right foot and slide your left foot back in towards your right foot.  At the end of this motion your toes should just about be touching each other, and you’re back at the position you started in.

Another aspect of this glide that people have trouble with is the weight transfer.  Ideally you want to do both the weight transfer AND the pivots at the same time, in one smooth motion.  However, I’ve always found this fairly tricky (possibly because I ne
ver learned to float properly).  I would recommend just taking things slowly for now, and focusing on the individual steps.  If you have trouble with the weight transfer and the pivot, then just repeat that motion over and over, until you get it right.

One other thing that we worked on that was helpful was simply going up on the ball of your one foot, and sliding your other foot away from it as you brought the heel of the raised foot back down to the ground.  This is a great way of developing the muscle memory for half of the motion for the glide.  You could apply this same principle to the second half of the glide, ensuring that you get these two aspects down tight.

One last principle that is very important here.  Ultimately, you want to learn to do this motion smoothly that you can carry it out without making any movement in your upper body.  Initially, you will find it difficult to maintain the balance required to stop yourself from moving around, but with practice, you should be able to glide while keeping your upper body perfectly still (and then once you’ve got that down, you can start doing contrasting movements like waves through your upper body while gliding.  But save that for later).

Cross-over Glides

Next up, we focused on cross-over glides.  These are done identical to the side glide, with the exception that your trailing foot either crosses in front of, or behind, your lead foot.  This glide is definitely more advanced than the side-glide, due to the high level of balance that is required to sustain the isolation that you need.

As soon as you cross your feet, it becomes much more difficult to maintain balance and keep your upper body stationary.  At this point, the class was starting to get frustrated, as we were nowhere near getting the regular side-glide down.  Adding in this additional step was simply too much to handle at that point.

Circular Glide

The circular glide is based on the same principle as the standard side glide (most of the more advanced techniques are), and as always, the cardinal rule continues to apply: The raised foot does not move, while the flat foot does.

The motion for this glide is performed as follows:

• Start in the same position as the side glide, toes inwards
• Raise up on the ball of your left foot, the heel of your right foot, and pivot your toes outwards
• Slide your right foot away as you lower the heel of your left foot
• Now, pivot your toes inwards, and raise up on the ball of your right foot
• This time, you pivot around your right foot, in a semi-circle.  Your left foot traces this semi-circle and remains flat to the ground
• Your back should now be to the front of the room, and your toes should be facing inwards.
• You can now carry on the glide as you normally would for a side-glide, or continue to rotate in another semi-circle.  The motion is the same, raising up on the ball of your lead foot, pivoting your toes outwards, and pivoting around the lead foot in another semi-circle

You can vary this glide by see-sawing back and forth as well if you like, always leading the turn with your front, or, with your back.

Snake Glide

The snake glide is one of the glides that does not actually move forwards directly from the side glide.  All of the movement is produced by one foot, while the other foot simply traces out a path beside it as you travel along.

The motion for this glide can be broken up into two distinct movements.  For the first part, your back foot will be doing the moving.

• Start with the toes of your left foot pointing to the left, and your right foot held up off the ground
• Put all of your weight on the heel of your left foot
• Pivot on your heel to move your the toes to the right
• Now shift your weight to the toes and ball of your left foot, and pivot on them to move your heel pointing to the right
• Repeat

This is the half of the motion that will actually move you across the dance floor.  The second half of the motion is should initially be practiced with all of your weight on your left foot, and leaving that foot stationary:

• Start with your right foot beside your left foot, with your toe pointing forwards
• Slide your right foot (flat against the ground) forwards
• As you the heel of your right foot reaches roughly your the toe of your left foot, rotate your foot around your ankle as much as you can, so that your toe is now pointing to the right (and hopefully somewhat to the back).  Then start to slide it backwards
• Slide your right foot backwards (attempting to lead with your toe as best you can), and when the heel of your right foot roughly reaches the heel of your left foot, rotate your foot again around your ankle, bringing your toes around so that they are again pointing forwards.

To bring everything together, you combine the pivots of the first motion with the slide on your right foot.  The visual you are aiming to produce is that your right foot is snaking along the ground, and your left foot follows along.

I’ve practiced this motion in the past, but I find it very difficult to get the balance correct that is necessary in order to avoid lurching your upper body all over the place.  Still, this is an excellent candidate to practice, and something that I will make a point of spending some time on, along with the floats.

Wiggles glide

The Wiggles glide is a glide created by Mr. Wiggles, of the Electric Boogaloos.  I remember the first time I saw this glide in my Mr. Wiggles 2 VHS tape, and not being able to comprehend what was going on.  The confusing part about this move is that the main amount of motion that is generated happens from a left-to-right (and vice versa) direction, while the dancer actually moves forward along the dance floor.  This makes it really confusing for someone watching to figure out how they are actually accomplishing this.

The glide is composed of a set of pivots on your heels and toes, and the rest flows from that.  First, the most important motion to train:

• Put the heel of your right foot directly in front of your left foot
• Pivot on the toe of your left foot, swinging your heel out to the left.  At the same time that you do this:
• Pivot on the heel of your right foot, swinging your toe out to the left.  Next, you pivot on the same body parts, and reverse the direction, so..
• Pivot on the toe of your left foot, swinging your heel in, through the center, and then out to the right.  While you do this, simultaneously:
• Pivot on the heel of your right foot, swinging your heel in, through the center, and to the left.

You’ll notice that you can get your heel and toes out much further for the second part of the pivot than the first.  This is okay, it’s just a limitation of your anatomy and the way our ankles bend.

Once you have this motion down, you’re ready for the more complicated part.

• Start with your feet as before, with the heel of your right foot directly in front of your left foot
• Pivot on the toe of your left foot, swinging your heel out to the left, and on the heel of your right foot, swinging your toes out to left.
• Now pivot again, swinging the heel of your left foot in, through the center, and out to the right.  Do the same for the toes of your right foot.  Now comes the new movement:
• Place all of your weight on the heel of your right (front) foot.  Leave this foot positioned as it is
• Take your left (back) foot, and slide it out to your side, and around in front of your right foot.  While you’re doing this, you want to pivot on the heel of your right foot, so that its toes swi
  ng out to the right.  This pivot should complete right as the heel of your left foot comes into position right in front of your right foot’s toes.
• Transfer your weight onto the heel of your right foot, and the toes of your left foot.
• At this point, you should be back in a familiar position – with one foot in front of the other, the toes of your left (front) foot pointing to the right, and the heel of your right (back) foot pointing to the right.
• Perform the pivot you practiced above, pivoting on the front left foot’s heel and swinging your toes to the left, and pivoting on the back right foot’s toes, swinging your heel out to the left.  Now repeat these steps as much as you like to continue moving forwards.

Dillon mentioned that this appears and sounds like a complicated movement, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite simple.  I can attest that this is the case, having practiced this glide a fair bit.  It takes a little bit of time to figure everything out, but once you have it, it creates a very pleasing visual without a lot of effort.  This is, however, one of the more difficult glides to perform on “sticky” ground, as the heel of my shoes always gets caught and throws off my pivots.

One amusing note to mention – I can remember just throwing out this glide when I was taking the Funky Stepping workshop a couple of years back, and Jake, the instructor, jokingly called me a biter.  Fair enough, I suppose.  This is a very distinctive glide that is absolutely the domain of Wiggles.  Having said that, I still think it’s valid to use a move that you’ve seen someone else doing.  Just make sure that you give credit when it’s due, and apply your own style and attitude to the move.  It’s okay to derive inspiration from other dancers – just take what you like and make it your own.

Practice

So that’s the whole of the class.  Dillon took things a little bit slower this class, which was good (perhaps part of that was due to my insistent prodding), but I definitely noticed that there were at least a couple of people that were getting exasperated as we went into more complicated glides.  This is definitely not what I want to see, because I have a vested interest in seeing people get enthusiastic about Popping (it means I’ll have more motivation to keep at it myself).

I’ve been talking with Brooke about the potential to set up a practice session at the studio, and I feel more strongly than ever that this is really something we should get going.  I was originally waiting to hear back from Dillon on this, but I get the impression from him that he has too many other things currently commanding his focus, which is fair enough.  However, I’ll see what can be done to take the lead on this and see if we can get something going (provided there’s some interest).

Next class is apparently about tutting.  This should be an interesting class, as I’ve always shunned tutting due to the fact that my wrists simply don’t bend back at 90 degree angles, and thus my tuts look like ass.  However, I’m sure there are a lot of techniques that I can take away from the class, regardless of how clean my angles end up looking.  I’m looking forward to the next session.

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Tonight was the second popping class of the session of six that I’m signed up for.  If you missed it, you can read the archive of the first class here.

• Fingers
• Wrist
• Elbow
• Shoulder
• Chest
• Stomach
• Hips
• Knees
• Pivot on heels
• Pivot on toes

The trickiest part of the wave for most people is getting their stomach to bulge out without including their chest (which should be tucked in at this point in the isolation) or their hips (which are pushed out for the next isolation).  Although I’ve practiced and used the body wave for a long time, I found that I was having difficulty hitting these isolations individually, and that’s usually an indication that I’ve been using speed as a way of cheating isolations.

When I talk about cheating with speed, what I mean is this: Many people when they first start out waving notice that if they do the wave quickly, it looks better to their eyes, and feels easier.  It is easier because you don’t have to spend time worrying about hitting the isolations, and because doing the isolated segments of the wave slowly looks awful until you’ve learned them correctly.  However, this is the nature of everything fundamental – you simply must learn how to carry out each move slowly before you can learn how to do it quickly.  More practice time in store for me.

Different Types of Waves

At this point, Dillon explained a specific difference between a couple different waving techniques.  The most common wave is the isolated wave, as specified in the above two examples.  An isolated wave always means that you move a body part (in isolation), then return it to its original location after the wave has moved on.

The travelling wave is a wave where the body part that the wave has moved through remains in the position that the wave has moved it to.  A wave like this can typically be used to move your body parts to a new location, rather than keeping them static.  Ultimately though, it’s just another technique to add to the visual complexity that your audience is presented with.

The main travelling wave that Dillon showed us was a kick-out wave.  This wave works as follows:

• Kick your right leg out and forward, then place it down
• Move your knees forward
• Move hips forward
• Move stomach forward
• Move chest forward
• Move shoulders forward
• Elbows
• Wrists
• Fingers

As you can see, the isolations remain the same as the other waves.  The biggest difference is simply that you are not resetting each body part after the wave travels through it.

Side wave

This wave provides the illusion of a wave moving you sideways.  You could theoretically do this as an isolated wave or a traveling wave.  As a traveling wave, it would look like:

• Move your head to the right
• Move your chest to the right
• Move your stomach and hips to the right (I find it nearly impossible to isolate those two for this wave)
• Move your knees to the right
• Move your left foot beside your right foot, and then move your right foot over a step

To make this into an isolated wave, you would return each body part to its original position after each step.  Once the wave hit your feet, you would pivot on the toes or heels of both your feet to provide the illusion that the wave had travelled in that direction, then return them to normal and start the wave back up.

Trace Waves

A trace wave is simply a wave within which you use one of your hands to trace along the path of the wave.  The isolations are the same as any other wave.  The only difference is that your hand is tracing out the same path, and moves over each body part as the wave passes through it.

Dillon showed us a few examples of trace waves, but at this point I was actually starting to get lost on some of the techniques he was using to isolate the lower part of his body.  The two that I remember are using a pivot on your toe (moving your heel from inside your body through to the outside) to run the wave down through the bottom of your foot, then back again (by pivoting on your toe to bring your heel back up on the inside of your body), and dropping down onto one knee.  For this drop, think of the wedding proposal stance, but only moving your knees and legs.  Your upper body should stay facing forwards, while your legs and knees are in this stance facing to your left or right.  Also, the direction that you twist your knees to the ground needs to be consistent with the direction the wave has been moving).  You bounce the wave back up through your body by twisting your legs back into a standing position.

Dillon Wave

Rolling Wave

The rolling wave is a technique I’d never heard of before, and required a few isolations that I certainly need to put some time in practicing before I’m anywhere near a place where I can execute the entire wave.  This wave operates on the concept of travelling in a rolling direction around your arms as it moves through you.  At each isolation, it is essential that you bend and move only at the joint being isolated.

The Cobra

The last technique I’ll cover today was the Cobra.  At this point in the class, I think most of us were feeling fairly overwhelmed.  In addition to the techniques outlined above, Dillon showed us at least that many more ways of waving.  I’d like to keep track of them all, but it was too much.

The technique for the Cobra involves a number of different isolations happening all at once.

• Your left shoulder rolls in a circle, moving forward, then up, then back, and lastly, down.  This motion is repeated.
• Your right shoulder rolls in a circle, moving back, then up, then forward, and lastly, down.  This motion is a circle in the opposite direction to the one being made by your left shoulder.  This mot
  ion is repeated.
• Your chest rolls in a circular left-to-right fashion, going left, then out, then right, and back in.

The main aim here is for a circular wave to start at your left shoulder, carry through your chest, and then out your right shoulder.  Once you have this down, you aren’t yet finished!  Now you need to include movement for your lower body parts.

• Your hips move in a circle consistent with your chest
• Your feet and knees are making rolls in a direction consistent with your hips and your chest.  At the end of each roll, you should now be facing in a direction slightly to your side.  If you were to continue this movement indefinitely, you would end up moving around in a slow circle.

As you can see, this is a very complicated technique with a lot of moving parts.  Definitely something to break down and start focusing on the basics first.

Some parting tips

Some parting tidbits that Dillon passed along, before I go any further.

• Hit at start and end of wave

To  add to the effect of the wave, you want to hit at the beginning and the end of it.  This will provide a more powerful look to the viewer, and it will also provide a strong contrast between the two kinds of movements (waves, although they don’t have to be, provide a very fluid appearance, while pops are a very distinct broken appearance).

• Wave against a flat surface

I remember practicing this technique when I worked at McDonalds.  Because each joint in your arm should replace itself after the wave passes through it, you can use a flat surface as a good way to discipline yourself into doing this correctly.  Find a half-wall, if possible (if not, you can use a table, but will probably have to sit or duck down), and put your back up against it.  Lay your arms out along either side of the surface, and then practice waving back and forth along it.  Your arms should never drop beneath the surface, nor should a joint stay above the surface after a wave has passed through it.

Conclusion

That’s all I’ve got for this week, but I will continue to practice, and will be writing more after each individual class.  If anyone has any feedback or questions, it’s always welcome.

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Alright,

As promised, this is the first entry for the popping class that I’ve started taking.  I’ve been popping for around ten years, but I have never had the benefit of any formal education or training on the subject.  There is certainly something to be said for someone that is self-taught, but, without the benefit of instruction, there is the unavoidable consequence of taking many wrong-turns before you finally find the correct path for each new technique you wish to learn.

As my friend Dave (currently taking a photography class) and I discussed the matter last night, we both reached the same conclusion: If you want to continue to progress and improve, it is imperative that you find a mentor to help you do that.  Mentorship doesn’t have to mean something like a life-coach.  It can be as simple as a teacher, or a peer with a little more experience.  The key element here is having someone that has been down the path before you, and can help you avoid the same mistakes that they made, and stay on the one “true” path to improvement. 

Although there are many different ways to accomplish something (and finding them is absolutely imperative in dancing), there is always the most efficient and correct way to apply your foundations, and this is where a mentor will help you in a way that self-teaching can never quite achieve.

The class is being taught through Vibestreet Dance Studio, a studio run by Brooke Kilgore – a pretty cool girl that I started talking to about a year ago when I was looking for popping classes.  Onwards with the first lesson.

Oh yeah, one last thing before I go any further – the class is all about fundamentals.  If anyone has any interest in learning something like this, take it with me!

Popping

I showed up a little bit late, and the class had already started
underway.  I hadn’t missed much though, as our instructor, Dillon, was
just beginning to explain the process for creating a pop.  The warm up
exercises we did were simply holding our arm out, gently resting our
other hand on the forearm, and flexing.  Flex, hold for three seconds,
release.  Then, flex and hold for two seconds, release.  And lastly,
flex and hold for a second, release.

After the warm-up and brief explanation of what a pop actually is (a muscle flex), we started to move into different kinds of hits.  I’ve been popping for many years, but never had formal instruction or a mentor, both of which are key elements to consistent and sustainable growth over the long term.  Although I’ve done plenty of reading, I was glad to see that even at this stage of the basics, there were new things for me to learn.

The main hits that we covered were:

• Arm hits

This is simply the initial hit that we practiced while warming up.  Additionally, you want to do your best to maintain a relaxed wrist and set of fingers on your hit, so that you can isolate the hit to your forearm

• Chest hits

You hit with your chest by flexing the muscles in your chest, tightening and pulling in your abs, and opening up your shoulders.  You don’t want to go crazy with your shoulders, as a little will go a long way.  However, pulling them back only slightly will add to the visual strength of the chest hit

• Ab hits

I’d never even considered hitting with my abs before, so this was something new (and awkward) for me to work on.  The ab hit is a lot like a standing crunch, though much more subtle and faster than the exercise.  The muscle contraction is the same.  Dillon advocated adding a very slight twist to the motion, rather than moving your torso in a straight up-down orientation (as you would with a standard crunch).

• Neck hits

Although I never knew it, there are two ways you can hit your neck.  The first is done by using the muscles that attach your chin to your neck (doing this hit will naturally cause your Adam’s apple to bob a little bit).  The second way to hit your neck is by using the muscles at the back of your neck.  In both cases, Dillon mentioned that he doesn’t use these hits because he thinks they look a little goofy, but acknowledged that learning and using them properly will add one more dimension to your popping. I made a mental note to keep on practicing neck hits.

• Leg hits

Last up were the leg hits – a hit that Dillon made a special note to point out was one of the most important foundations of good popping.  I found it mildly ironic that I had been popping for over nine years, but only using my legs for the last three or so, given how fundamental these hits are.  Oh well

There are again two ways that you can hit your legs (unbeknownst to me).  The first is the technique that I’ve trained myself to use – hitting with the back of your leg.  You bend your one knee gently in, and then snap it back.  IN order to avoid over-extending your leg, it’s important to start this technique off gently until you have a feel for how much motion you need to generate the look of a hit (hint: It’s not much).  Dillon also mentioned that it was important to generate some additional power by slamming your heel down at the same time as your knee hits back into place.  It became immediately obvious to me that I had been neglecting this aspect of the hit as soon as I tried to get my heel to stamp down – the motion was completely foreign to me.

The second leg hit is a front hit, and is done by very quickly and ever so slightly bending your knees, then stopping.  The analogy I’ve been using to help myself is that which you make when you’re trying to get your cat (or someone) to flinch.  IT’s almost like you’re getting ready to pounce, except you never follow-through with the pounce. 

As we went through these, I noticed that although each of these hits will look better when you integrate them with the other hitting techniques, it’s important to practice each one individually first so that you can learn to isolate correctly.  Once you’ve done that, then (and only then), you can put them together.  The end result will be that your hits will look much cleaner and more precise.

We finished up the popping with an introduction to the Fresno.  Dillon confirmed a lot of what I thought I already knew (but was never 100% sure of, due to lacking any mentorship as I’ve progressed), and re-iterated the fact that the Fresno itself is a great dance to start off with, giving you a firm base from which to improvise upon.  Nothing new was taught regarding the Fresno, just that the key is to isolate and hit into each step back and forth.  I was really impressed with Dillon’s fresno and his ability to improvise in and around each hit and beat.  I made a mental note to practice this more at home.

Walk-out

We finished up the popping segment with a move that I’ve always seen performed, but never realized that it was even something you would consider “a move”.  The move is called a walk-out and learning about it excited me.  I got excited because it meant that there was an actual technique involved that I could make greater use of.

The walk-out is a fairly simply (in theory) means of moving around the dance floor.  The effect that it generates arises more out of the contrast with the rest of the motions that you’re doing, than out of the movement itself, since you are essentially just walking to a new spot on the dance floor, then starting up again with articulated and isolated movement.

The technique we learned for the walk-out was as follows:

• Start with the Fresno.  Fresno to your right side, and hit.
• Fresno to your left side and hit.
• Take your right foot and slightly cross it over your left foot.  Raise your left foot up on its toes, as if you’re going to take the next step with your left foot.  Be careful – you don’t move anything else here.  Even your body stays in the same position.
• Take your right foot and move it back across your body, so that it is now on your right side.  Your left foot should still be facing to the left (in the same position as when you started the Fresno) and with the heel slightly raised
• Pivot on the toes of your left foot, and turn your body and head, so that you’re toes are now both aligned and your body is facing in the direction they are pointing.
• Step forward with your left foot, and bring it together with your right foot.  Stamp it down at the end to generate the hit to complete the movement.

This is not a complicated series of steps, but generates a striking effect due to the fact that people don’t expect to see you suddenly break out of one style of movement into this.  The change of direction thrown in by the third to fourth step above also generates some visual confusion for the viewer.  Very good stuff to learn.

Boogaloo

Next up was some work on Boogaloo techniques.  We started off warming up our legs and knees by doing some gentle rotations.  We followed this with the actual goods – leg rolls.

Although I’ve practiced leg rolls to some extent in the past, I’ve never really felt motivated to push the technique anywhere, nor had any inspiration to add it into my dancing.  Hopefully actually working on them in class will change this.

Leg Rolls

Leg rolls were every bit as annoying to work on as I remember – a clear sign that this is a technique I need to put some focus on practicing.  One point that Dillon made that I hadn’t heard articulated in the past was that you generally want to aim to have your toe and your knee pointing in the same direction throughout the role.  The biggest implication here is that you can’t just leave your foot stationary while you wrench your knee around (worst-case
scenario, this would probably cause some damage if you went at it too vigorously).  The key to a good leg roll is to raise up the heel of the foot, and pivot the knee in a nice circle, using your toe as the the pivot point.  The part I had the most trouble with was hitting the leg at the completion of the leg roll, as you’re meant to finish the roll with your toe pointing slightly away from your body (the same orientation you began in) – however, this resulted in me trying to hit the leg in a direction that was opposite the one it was moving in to complete the circle.  I’m going to get to class early next week and ask Dillon about this.

The last set of leg rolls were double leg rolls, which require a good sense of balance.  The goal here is to rise up on the toes of both feet, pivot your knees in a nice circle, and then come back to the previous position with a hit.  A good leg roll means that you’re not moving your upper body at all, ideally completely isolating your upper body from your lower body.

Body Rolls

The next move we worked on was a popular one, called the Old Man.  I’d seen this move in many popping tutorials and videos that I’ve worked through, but never got the motion quite right, nor really felt enamoured with the movement (a common theme for me and most of the Boogaloo techniques).  The motion is as follows:

• Kick out your right leg (leading with your foot) in a wide circle.  The rest of your body stays motionless
• Now your upper body follows the same circle that your right leg moved in
• Lastly, move your hips through this same circle.  As your hips pull away from your left leg, bring it around and together with your right foot.  Hit your legs or stamp your heel into this final position.

We touched briefly on head rolls, which I’ve never thought about incorporating, mostly because it feels awkward.  However, the motion is fairly simple – just let your head fall to the side as though it’s been pushed, and then roll down and back up to the other side of your body.  This provides one more point of articulation and isolation for your dancing.

The last roll we did was a full body roll, which works as follows:

• Push out your right shoulder
• Follow the motion with your chest by rolling through your chest, from the right side to the left
• Follow the motion with your hips, rolling in a circle, out to the right, through the center, and then finishing the circle by moving your hips to the left, then back
• Follow the motion with your knees, rolling in the same manner as your hips – out to the right, through the center, left, and then back in place.  Stamp heels down at the end to complete this motion with a hit.

This roll was very tough for me, requiring multiple isolated body parts to work in unison.  Definitely one that I will be practicing.

Flexes

The next thing we worked on were the twist-o-flex, the master-flex, and the neck-o-flex.  I remember when I ran Shaddup and Dance, I put an absolutely humiliating (in retrospect) video of myself showing how to do a twist-o-flex.  It was awful.  My heart was in the right place, but I didn’t even know what a twist-o-flex was, and I simply didn’t have any of the foundation.  I’ve never really taken the time to properly learn flexes since then, so it was good to actually have some specific instruction in this domain.

Flexes, in general, are a set of segmented and isolated rotations of your body.  Think of how you might see a robot re-orient itself in a new direction, moving each of its main body segments in isolation (head, then torso, then hips, then legs, etc.).

Twist-o-flex

The twist-o-flex works is broken down like this:

• Take a step back with both feet (one foot at a time, but a quick step back).  As you do this, raise both arms up, bent at ninety-degrees at your elbows.
• Bring your arms down and place them akimbo on your hips.  As you do this, raise up on the toes of your left foot, bending your knee to do so.
• Pivot to the right, on your feet.  The only things that should pivot are your torso, your hips, your legs and your feet.  Stay on the heel of your right foot and the toe of your left foot.  Make sure that your head and your arms stay oriented in the same direction (since your arms won’t have moved, you’ll be holding them akimbo, with one hand on your stomach, and the other on the small of your back)
• Rotate your head and your arms, in line with the rest of your body.  Bring your arms to rest at your side, and as you complete the rotation, step with your left foot (still on its toes up to this point) to bring it into alignment with your right foot.  Stamp the left foot into position to generate a hit at the end of the movement

That’s a lot of writing.  The movement isn’t technically that complicated, but it generates a very pleasing visual effect when done correctly.  I’m very excited to practice this move.  As I suggested, the motion isn’t complicated, and it’s always been there for me to practice.  But now, I’ve got motivation to improve – I’m going to a dance class every week, and I really want to see some improvement. 

Master-flex

The master-flex sounds intimidating, but is actually quite a simple set of movement:

• Raise your arms up, bent at ninety-degree angles at your elbows, just like you the start of the twist-o-flex.  As you do this, drop your left knee down to the ground (gently!), with your right knee bent and raised (imagine the position someone takes when being knighted or proposing).  You should be on the toes of your left foot.
• Now you rotate your body around your hips.  Your upper body will turn and face the other direction, and at the same time, pivot on your left foot.  Bring your left knee up, and drop your right knee down to the ground.  If you’ve done this correctly, you will now be facing 180-degrees to your starting position, in the mirror image of the position above (hands still up in the air, left knee raised up, right knee lowered to the ground)
• Step up and forward with your right leg.  As you do this, bring your arms back down to your sides (for optimal effect, put them in the mirror image of the position you starting them in prior to going into the master-flex.  Bring your right foot together with your left foot, and stamp it into position to generate the hit to finish the movement.

This move generated some sore knees for me.  I’m going to practice it, but I may consider buying knee pads first – Squash already leads to some sore knees when I lunge a bit too far for a ball, and I don’t want to develop knee injuries.

Neck-flex

The neck-flex is probably the closest thing to my early abortive attempt at a twist-o-flex.  The movement is quite simple:

• Turn your head to the left, and look over your left shoulder
• Pivot your body on your feet, around to the left.  The pivot ca be tricky for a lot of people.  What you’re doing is taking your left foot, turning it and placing it so that your left toe is now facing behind you, and then rotating around that pivot point.  At the end of this movement, your body should be facing 180-degrees from your starting position, and your head should now be looking over your right shoulder
• Rotate your head to the left, so that you’re once again looking over your left shoulder

Conclusion

So, that’s what we learned in our first day of class.  That’s an awful lot of stuff to pack into
one hour, and I’m left with not just a large number of steps and moves to go away and practice, but also the motivation to actually do that practice.

I’m thrilled that after only the first day of class, I’ve discovered a ton of flaws that currently exist in my technique.  Flaws and bad habits are really annoying to work out, but they’re also milestones and things that engender more motivation when you finally do overcome them.  It’s the challenges that keep things interesting and worthwhile, so that’s really the only way to look at these opportunities.

I’ll aim to keep updating this blog each Tuesday with a summary of the previous night’s class, along with any other thoughts I have on the topic.

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