Dancing On Flat Ground

He Goes:

The plateau, the scourge of long-term dancers. If being swungover is the physical equivalent of an alcoholic hangover, the plateau often presents itself as the twilight time in between being drunk and sober in which weighty and depressing questions fill the mind: what am I doing with my life? Is this all there is?

I travel a fair old way to the dances I go to, what with me living in the borderlands of London rather than the swinging centre, so the bus ride back to Waterloo or the train out is often a time of glum reflection on my dancing. Sometimes it feels like I spent a whole evening doing nothing but tuck-turns and change-of-places, and surely my follows my have been getting pretty bored by all of that?

I'm a great fan of thinking, don't get me wrong, but I realise that there's a dark side to it. Just like you can psyche yourself out by watching the really good dancers and worry that you'll never be that good, you can also think too much about what you did yourself, forgetting the sweet little moves you thought up, forgetting the music, letting everything get away from you apart from the feeling that you're not making any progress.

It's strange that I can be enjoying dancing one minute and then the next minute be sitting halfway down a double-decker bus (I'm not usually cool enough to sit at the back unless Spoon's there) having a psychological dance crisis. But it happens - and it doesn't seem to have changed a lot as I've got better at dancing. Obviously when I started dancing - as a ballroom dancer rather than a swing dancer - there was so much to learn that it seemed obvious to me that I'd just slowly get better and better until I was competent, then if I put more and more time into it I'd get slowly better still. But those early days were deceiving. When I began I was learning easily quantifiable things - I'd learnt a move, for instance, or I'd worked out how identify waltz music from foxtrot music. Later on it starts getting a little trickier to work out what I'd learnt in a given lesson, or what I'd practised in a social dance. Perhaps a class had a slightly different version of a tuck-turn, or I went somewhere new that taught a swing-out slightly differently. But had I actually learnt the difference enough to understand when that type of swing out was more appropriate than the type I was used to? If I danced with ten new follows in a social, had I actually improved my ability to lead new dancers or had I just done the same old thing?

I learnt before I started swing dancing that writing down everything I learnt in some form or another was a key to progressing more quickly. I must have forgotten a third of all the ballroom steps I ever learnt simply because we'd learn them and then only go back to that dance months later, when I'd completely forgotten what I could do. Writing down helps, but has it helped me stop getting onto plateaus? No. No, it has not.

There are two parts to my plateaus, I guess - there's a rational part and an irrational part. The rational part is the part that's susceptible to analysis and fixing, the Rebecca Brightly model of dance problem solving: since there are things I know I do badly, I can focus single-mindedly on fixing one of them and then at least I'll know that if I fix that I'm still improving.

The other, irrational part? Well that part is a bugger. But at least there's one treatment for it that seems to work - the same treatment as a stubbed toe: Dance it off.

Welcome to base-camp on Dancing Lady Mountain

She Goes:

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The dreaded plateau. Have you had one yet? I think I’m on my third in under a year!

Symptoms include (at least, for me), getting totally bummed out at social dances for no apparent reason, getting ‘psyched out’ by watching other dancers be absolute ninjas on the D-floor, and feeling like I suck during lessons. Plus an overall sense ofdissatisfaction with my quality of following, overly criticising myself when I have an off-the-boil night, feeling guilty about back-leading and generally not having the fabulous time I normally do.

Sucky!

So what does a girl do about it? Well, there are many ways to tackle such an obstacle.

Chill out with your bad self- and by this I mean try having a break! This weekend coming I will not be dancing. At all. Gasp! That’s 3 days- count them- Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. No swing for spoon. I’m kind of looking forwards to it.

Feedback loop- find someone you don’t dance with quite so regularly but still dig the style of, get a little space away from a social event, and dance! (Feeding back to each other what you think about the others’ dancing, in a safe and focused space.) I’ve got something pencilled in for mid February with a lead I respect and I can't wait.

Break it down- take it back to basics. Strip away your stylings and focus on your bounce, on the connection with your partner, stay light but aware. Yeah I know it’s easier said. I find I prefer to think in those general terms- the last two plateaus I had I tried to focus on improving one or two moves and I actually ended up getting very stressed out about them- not what I wanted!
Wild card- try something different! I'm going to dip my toes into some blues and balboa. Yes, there's a risk I may neglect my lindy- but there's much to be gained in approaching something you love from a slightly different angle. I figure that if I don't get on with those then at least I'll have picked up some styling variations and the ability to follow those moves socially. And, a change is as good as a rest, right?

Mix it up- break outof the routine! Dance with different people; go to different socials and the one I find hardest of all- try different teachers. That last one is a toughie.Here’s my reasoning; My Monday night is literally just down the road. My friends teach it and I do more leading there. On Tuesdays I’ve just started learning the Big Apple, something I wanted to learn so badly that I actually chose to not audition for a troupe in favour of it. Thursdays is my one guaranteed night where I can get a few grooves in with Keith. Sundays I regularly help out and it’s a different crowd to the rest of the week. Plus I'm a creature of habit in the extreme... So I’m hoping doing the first two is enough for now!

And, if none of these work, then just shrug that shit off and keep on swingin'!! I mean really, it’s dancing, people, not forced labour! I recently saw a clip of George Lloyd talking about dancing. I’m not so good at quotes (so excuse my rough outlining of his words) but what he said really resonated with me. ‘Some dance like it’s a job… I dance like I’m on cloud nine.’

Wise words indeed. Happy dancing, y’all xx