ROUND DANCING — CHOREOGRAPHED BALLROOM

LEAD AND FOLLOW

I like to recognize five different styles of lead and follow: the traditional man's lead, the somewhat less structured "Isadora" style of leading, a more collaborative style, the woman's reverse or back lead, and finally, no lead at all. Of course they are not discrete styles, but grade from one to the next. Furthermore, a couple will not choose one style only, but will use the style appropriate to the moment and will gracefully shift their emphasis as circumstance and mood dictate.

Each style of lead also has its "evil" side. To some extent, it is something like a dirty little secret, a bit embarrassing, not much talked about, but I know that I sometimes slip over to that dark side. I have no illusion that I am unique, so I suspect that others sometimes fall victim, too. If we are aware of the potential threats, then we can be alert to avoid them. The "evil" styles are the caveman, the loose cannon, plain walking, dominatrix, and clueless.

MAN'S LEAD

LEAD AND FOLLOW

The traditional, modern style of lead and follow expects the man to direct the movements of the couple, much as a conductor directs the playing of an orchestra. I like this metaphor, because the orchestra knows perfectly well what it will play, just as the woman round dancer knows what she will dance. The orchestral players have the scores right in front of them, and the woman dancer hears the cues as well as the man. But as an orchestra must not play until the baton rises, so must the woman not dance until the man leads.

One of our teachers once said that the woman must assume her position, poised and responsive, and then she must simply "wait for something good to happen." Of course, that "something good" is the man's clear and unambiguous lead. (But as a wit has quipped, "Sometimes it's a long wait.")

The man's lead comes from throughout both dancers' frames. In closed position, the arms are up, the back is a bit arched, and both man and woman have their muscles well-toned. When the man steps forward, he lowers a bit in anticipation of the move, and he moves forward as a whole. Again, muscles are toned and frame is firm. The woman feels the lowering. His knee may contact her leg before his foot starts to move. She feels his center move forward; Stephenson & Iaccrino call this a "diaphragm" lead. She begins to respond. He doesn't push with his left hand, but his toned frame maintains its shape, so she feels pressure at her right hand and hip, and she feels a release of pressure at his right hand. She moves to regain that pressure in his right arm and to maintain her position on his right hip. She feels the movement along her left arm. Especially in the smooth rhythms and in closed position, your frame is a single, integrated unit, and your lead is transmitted at many points of contact. Such a lead can be very clear.

Again, don't try to steer your partner by pushing and pulling with the left hand. Don't pump your left arm up and down to the beat of the music as if you are trying to get water out of a well. Don't pull or shove with the right hand. Don't lift or drop a shoulder. These sorts of local or focused movements break the frame and move you out of position with respect to the other. They destroy the smooth lines of your dance position. They are often jerky movements and impediments to smooth flow. A strong lead comes from the legs, hips, torso, and both arms, all at the same time; it comes from the whole frame moving as one.

The whole frame is also used to move from closed position into semi-closed and back again. One might think that the man could simply push with his left arm to open the woman, but this will only push her off balance. Instead, stretch the right side. Your frame will sway left, her head will open to her right, and your bodies will open that little bit to semi. You may use the heel of your right hand to apply a little pressure to encourage this opening. To return to closed position, lose the right stretch and use left stretch to sway right. This will close her head and return your bodies to dance position. You may use the fingers of your right hand to encourage this rotation to closed position.

As the man takes his first step forward, the woman's step back should be long and from the hip. The man lowers and begins to step forward with his left foot. The woman follows by lowering and stepping back with her right. Reach back. Allow the tip of your toe to touch the floor, but don't transfer weight until you feel the man transfer his weight. You might think to yourself that you must not commit until he does. Otherwise, you may cut his step short with a bump, or you may get your toe stepped on. If he is taking a long, flowing stride, you can let your right toe slide along the floor. When he begins to shift weight, you do, too. If he shifts sooner, you will be in position to shift as well, and you will remain together, your movements smooth and not jerky.

This delayed commitment means that the woman always steps just a bit after the man does. It also means that there is always some tension or resistance between the man and woman. This tension can be thought of as part of the overall tone in the dance frame, and it is crucial to both leading and following. This tension or tone is the connection between the man and woman. It is the line of communication. It is how the man invites the woman to do a particular figure, and it is how the woman can hear or sense what the man is trying to convey. If the woman hears the cue and moves exactly with her man, then the connection between them is lost; the lines of communication are broken. Ladies, listen to the cues, but delay action and respond to your lead.

In the latin rhythms, the hold is looser, and the partners are usually farther apart. One feature that improves the lead, now that there are fewer body contacts, is that almost every latin figure returns to a facing position as a base for the next lead. Do your movement, whether it is a New Yorker or Hand-To-Hand, and then come back to a facing position, with a firm frame and clear awareness of each other.

AVOID "NOISE"

It can be especially difficult to avoid extraneous movements as you dance. An extraneous movement is any movement, from head to toe, that might be a lead, but it is not. Extraneous movements are "noise" in your lead/follow communication system. Men, I know you are groovin' to that music, and it is telling you to shake your bootie. It is saying, "get down!" But don't do it. Don't shake. Don't bounce. Don't look around the room. Your partner will assume you are communicating with her, but she won't understand, and in truth you're not talking to her; you're just talking to yourself. You must stay toned and quiet. Each movement must be smooth, conscious, a clear signal, a clear lead.

A woman with a noisy lead must try to ignore the noise and catch the signals. She just won't be able to do it every time, and the dancing will be rough. With a clear lead, she knows every movement is meaningful, she will be able to respond consistently, and the dancing will be smooth and graceful.

If the lead tends to be noisy, then a look to reverse could mean anything or nothing. The man may just be checking out the refreshment table. But if the lead is relatively noise-free, then a glance to reverse does mean something: get ready to go that way. It might work something like this: You are in butterfly, and you are doing a side, close, side, touch; cucaracha; (notice that I am using punctuation to describe timing: a comma marks the end of a beat and a semi-colon marks the end of a measure). These step cues can come fast. Tone in the man's left arm leads the side step, and continued tone there helps insure that we both close and step side again. As you begin your "touch," relax that tone, turn your head slightly to reverse, and strengthen the tone in your right arm. All this primes the woman for the change in direction. Then your cucaracha to reverse comes as no surprise, and she is smoothly with you. These little movements and glances work only if your lead is noise-free.

MANUAL AND VISUAL LEAD

This might be a good place to note the two very different categories of lead:

• manual lead - movements that are felt
• visual lead - movements that are seen

A good follower is paying attention with all of her senses. You can lead a reverse underarm turn with your lead hand, bringing it through, between your bodies, but you can lead it with a deliberate turning of your head to your right – leading with your chin. It might even be that the wafting of your aftershave in that direction might help lead the figure, an olfactory lead. I don't think I can stretch this enough to propose a "gustatory" lead.

Actually, I get the impression from the experts that a visual lead with the chin is not something especially to cultivate, but sometimes any help you can give is worthwhile, and how are you going to lead a latin Chase? In loose closed or butterfly, you can begin with a clear manual lead, but you must quickly let go. From that point on, it is only visual information and knowing the figure that will get you both through the figure. And how will you lead a Peek-a-Boo, instead of a regular Chase? Even in free-style, clear visual leads will do it. You are not touching, but when you stop your forward motion, do a right cucaracha, and peek back at her, she can only mirror you and return the peek.

Even less "proper" is a third category of lead, the vocal lead. Notice that I didn't have the nerve to include it in the bulleted list above, but there are times when you are unable to give a clear manual or visual lead, your partner has not heard the cue, and a little whisper from you can make all the difference. Maybe a transition is called for, and I will whisper, "left foot." Or a spot turn needs to be overturned, and I will say, "face the wall." These whispered cues could so easily be overdone – a steady buzz that would absolutely ruin the romance and music of the dance – but once or twice in an evening might smooth out a figure or two and be well worth the impropriety.

So, be aware of your manual and your visual leads (and maybe a few vocal leads), and keep them clean.

LADIES, IGNORE THE CUES

Perhaps you can tell that the cues we so enjoy in round dancing can really interfere with good leading and following and therefore with smooth dancing; and if this occurs, it is probably the woman's fault. You may gasp at the heresy of such a statement, for we all know that mistakes are usually the man's (he didn't lead me clearly enough). However, if the woman hears the cues, if she knows the figures perfectly well, and if she steps off into what she knows she is supposed to do before the man leads her to do so, then they will go bump, bump, bump, down the ballroom floor. She steps producing a little separation, he steps to catch up, and they bump. The next cue comes, and they do it again.

Women, you must learn to wait. Confidentially, you may know that you are the smarter one with the better sense of rhythm. You hear a cue, and you know that you must step back, but don't do it. Wait for your man. Wait for him to lower. Feel his knee bending and moving toward you. Use these actions as signals for you to lower and to move your free foot back, but don't take the step. Instead, keep your free toe on the floor as long as possibel. Let it slide back freely. Don't let the toe catch; don't let the toes begin to bend. Keep the tip of the toe gliding over the surface of the floor. As long as he is lowering and moving forward, you too stay with him and move back. If you anticipate the step, you will cut him short. Instead, keep your weight balanced over the arch of the supporting foot for as long as possible, lowering, and sliding the free toe back. Only when he finally steps do you take weight. In this way you will be dancing as a couple, rather than as two dancers, each responding to the cuer. Yes, you do hear the cues, so you are forewarned. You know ahead of time what you will do. But let the man tell you when to do it.

Finally, if you are really good, you will even let the man tell you what to dance, as well as when to dance it. Imagine a dance in which the cuer cues a Reverse Fallaway, and somehow your man thinks a simple Reverse Turn, and he's dancing and leading a Reverse Turn. What will you do? Will you jerk him into that fallaway position, where you know you're supposed to be? If you do, it won't look pretty. Instead, dance the Reverse Turn with him, and do it with a smile on your face. He will know something is wrong by now. You don't have to tell him. The Reverse Fallaway is a one measure figure and the Reverse Turn is two, and the cuer is telling him to do something he can't do from there, and he is dancing and trying to hold this partnership together. The woman's job is to follow. Eventually, a cue will come along that you can do from where you are, and you will be back on track. Those on the sidelines might not quite recognize what you are doing, considering what is being cued, but mostly they will see how smoothly and pleasantly you are dancing together. Once, years ago, Mickey Moore confided to some of us that Brent, "liked her to dance a little fuzzy," a little compliant: You want to turn left, hon? Sure, I'm with you.

LEADING ISADORA

Often, the woman is thought of as the picture, and the man is described as the frame. His job is to show her off but remain relatively inconspicuous, himself. When the woman is a relatively wild and expressive work of art, then the man must subtly shift from the toned, but gentle and structured traditional lead to a stronger and more constraining lead. She is a bright jewel, a butterfly in a sunbeam. She sparkles. There may even be a bit of chaos in her expression of the music, and his job is to contain this exuberance. We can think of the woman as "dancing in a barrel."

In the traditional man's lead, he provides a toned frame that includes a strong right arm, and his partner makes an effort to dance into that arm. In a more "Isadora-style" of leading (and I assure you I mean no disrespect to this wonderful and influential modern dancer), that right arm needs to be stronger. His frame is not stiff. It gives to accommodate the moment, but she is a bit more "in flight," and he becomes a stabilizer.

Isadora Duncan, American Dancer, 1878-1927

Indeed, we have some pretty basic physics here. The man leads a movement, but "a body in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by another force." Without firm constraint and steady stabilization, she will spin out of control like a planet breaking free of its orbit. He is leading, and she is responding to that lead and more. Therefore, he follows to a small degree, too. He is a Lepidopterist chasing with a butterfly net. No, that is too extreme an image. He is simply containing her within the barrel.

COLLABORATIVE LEAD

Many round dancers want the toned frame and pretty, smooth look of a good ballroom dancer, but round dancing is very different from social, ballroom dancing. Obviously, both partners get to hear the cues, and the man is not responsible for the couple's choreography. That choreography has been determined beforehand and is written out in detail in a "cue sheet."

Using the round dance cues involves several steps or skills:

• hearing the cue
• processing that cue and getting a mental image of what is to be done
• actually executing the move, with appropriate movements in the right direction
• leading your partner through that same figure
• hearing the beat of the music; counting the time, either consciously or subconsciously
• of course, moving to that beat

In an ideal world (see above), the man is supposed to do all this, and the woman is supposed to follow. In the real world, the man and woman are not so one-sided, not so specialized, and not so focused at every moment during the dance. Sometimes he misses the cue, but she hears it. Sometimes he is momentarily bewildered, but she understands. Sometimes he does not have as good a sense of rhythm as she has, and all this creates a more collaborative style of leading.

In the collaborative style of leading, he leads when he can, and she leads when she can. Both are sensitive to each other and are prepared to follow, and the dance becomes more of a balanced conversation, back and forth, a give and take, a discussion, maybe even a civilized debate between colleagues; rather than the more one-sided or even autocratic relationship in traditional lead and follow. When he is sure of himself, he strengthens his lead, and off you go. When he is not so sure, he softens, and perhaps she is able to step into the breach and carry on.

So, is it okay for the woman to step out, before the man does? Essentially, that is what leading is, or it is the preparatory stretching of the body or rotation of the upper body before you actually take that first step. For instance, in leading an open telemark, lowering and a little left-face body rotation is maybe just as important as the initial movement of the lead foot in leading the figure, and the woman can do that as well as the man can. The important thing is that you both develop this dance relationship together and that you both agree that this is how you want to do it. Hypothetically, he might not be very motivated to learn the figures and the dances, or he might not hear the beat very clearly. If so, he might be perfectly happy to have you lead, and the result can be comfortable and smooth. Or, you both might be dancing at the limit of your ability to hear, interpret, and execute (as you learn more and more and rise through the phases), and sometimes he is on top of it and in control and sometimes you are.

But if the woman is to lead, then the man has to learn to follow. Following is a discreet activity, a unique skill, just as leading is. While the leader has to visualize the figure and communicate clearly what he wants his partner to do, the follower has to interpret that communication and then execute the request. It's like speaking and listening. Being a good listener is a rare skill. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you both want to lead and follow, then you both will have to work on both skills. Neither comes automatically.

I think I'm dwelling on this point, because I am only a leader and not a follower. So far, Meredith and I can't do the collaborative thing. Occasionally, she will try to lead something. Usually, she is not trying to lead a figure but is trying to change how we are doing a figure. For instance, we might be doing a promenade sway to an oversway. I use right side stretch to turn her to semi and we sway down line. Then I change my sway with left side stretch and soften my right knee to turn her a little left-face. But Meredith wants to have more rotation in her oversway, so she keeps turning beyond where I have led her. She tugs on me.

Now, think about this with me: Most of the time, I am dancing with a responsive partner. There is a softness there, a smoothness. Where I go, she follows, and we glide and float across the floor. I feel no resistance. It's like a knife through soft butter. (Don't get me wrong. This is the occasional ideal. We make plenty of mistakes in actual practice.) But when she tries to lead, it's like eating a pear and biting down on a seed. It's like watching a romantic scene in a movie theater, and a cell phone goes off somewhere in the audience. It's like driving smoothly north, hitting a hairpin turn in the road, and being yanked back south. I'm not saying Meredith is wrong, but I do not know how to follow. My own preference would be for her to finish the dance under my lead and then tell me later that she thinks we need more rotation in our oversway, and can we try for more next time?

I wonder if I'm simply being autocratic, stubborn; I want to be the boss. Probably a little, but it is still true that lead and follow are strikingly separate skills. If you are really focusing on leading, it is hard suddenly to stop and to become a follower. You can learn to do that, but I think that making those transitions might represent a third skill that will require its own work and practice.

REVERSE OR BACK LEAD

Carrying the suppositions in collaborative leading a good bit further, the man may be tone deaf and the woman sharp as a tack. This doesn't mean that he doesn't have many, many fine qualities, but on the round dance floor, it is she who has the skills listed above. She may routinely hear, process, and remember better that her man. She may be more attentive, more interested in the whole activity. It may be her "thing" and not so much his. Perhaps he is indulging her passion, and it is good of him to do so. In these circumstances, certainly let her be more assertive. Let her step out firmly and guide the figure.

Sometimes, male dance teachers will joke that on the dance floor is the one place where he is the boss, where he has the final say. I'm sure that such a comment is just a humorous exaggeration, but even so, it is only one style of leading. Other styles, other relationships between partners work well and yield smooth and graceful movements. Each couple should work out what works best for them.

NO LEAD

And finally, in Round Dancing, we can dance with no lead at all. Singles certainly do it. Usually a woman, but occasionally a man, will not have a partner but will enjoy a beautiful dance to beautiful music, dancing by him- or her self. On returning to his seat, he might be congratulated "on not stepping on anyone's toes during the whole dance," or she might be complimented on how smoothly she followed -- the cues, that is. For the cues can do all the leading that is necessary, even for a dancing couple.

Such a strategy may strike you as an unnecessary degree of independence between partners, but in learning a figure, he can master his movements, and she can master hers. In dancing the figure, he could do his part, and she could do hers, each simply responding to the cue.

I suspect that this is really a theoretical category, too, in that, no matter how loose the frame or how little the contact, information would still be communicated between partners, and so some degree of leading would occur. Even with no body contact, there would be the visual lead.

I suppose a couple could dance with no body contact and with their eyes closed. As I perform that little "thought experiment" here at my desk, I see clearly just how rarely it is that "no leading" occurs on the round dance floor.

And this brings us full-circle back to man's-lead, doesn't it? I think man's-lead is preferable, if you can do it. It is certainly the traditional style of dance. But it is not one thing that we all must aspire to. Dance styles are still strongly individual. I picture a clothesline stretched between two trees. The pecan tree is the strong man's lead and the oak is no lead at all. If you dance too near the oak, you won't be smooth because you'll each be doing your own thing. If you get too close to the pecan, again you won't be smooth because your movements will be forced. At the end of a dance, don't have your partner rubbing her shoulder and saying, babe, you took me way beyond the pecan that time. There is a wide range in the middle that can be smooth, graceful, and pretty. Let's strive for that strong, but controlled, middle range.