Notes on technique in Zouk (and other dances)

[AlZouker]

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Leading and following 'paragina'

This is a practical tip; reaction to issues some might have. The man needs to have a clear way how to indicate to the lady that he’s leading her into paragina and not a regular back basic or other ‘back-walking figure’. The natural way of leading it for me would come from the natural way the bodies move when doing the figure. With regular ‘back basic’ the man moves straight back and the lady follows straight after him. With paragina the man has to leave one foot forward and step with the other one back. This necessarily means his hips will naturally be diagonal - not going straight back. So, if we lead this using connection in hips – then leading using hips going straight back means leading into a regular ‘back walking figure’ like back basic or even following in opening into ‘lateral’. Leading with connected hips going in diagonal means leading into paragina or other figure of this type.

Questions?

[AlZouker]

The problem of 'heavy lead'

What it is
In short, the term ‘heavy lead’ is used when the lady requires the man ‘to move her’ - to shift her from one place to another, while she should be using the power of her own body, her own legs to move herself ('lead' in 'heavy lead' as for 'leading the partner'). (For completeness, the term ‘being heavy’ is used when the lady (in most cases) lays too much of her weight on the man. ‘Too much weight’ is more than is needed to keep good connection or when she ‘hangs’ her weight on him. When she doesn’t support her own body weight enough.)

Both partners are responsible for supporting their own body weight and moving their own body themselves most of the time. The connection is mostly used for sending signals only. NOT for ‘moving’ the partner. When the signal ‘we are moving here’ is sent, both partners use the power of their own muscles to transfer their body there. Both ‘being heavy’ and ‘heavy lead’ are not about physical weight but about technique used and having muscles trained well to be able to support own body weight and move own body. For more experienced female dancers ‘being heavy’ or ‘being heavy lead’ is something like ‘being heavy’ for models - It is something they are very cautious about - not to feel ‘heavy’ for the partner because then he wouldn’t want to dance with them.

Why is ‘being heavy’ or ‘heavy lead’ bad?
The reasons are many. If you are fine with a short basic answer: As a lady, try to make sure you use your own muscles to move your own body. Do not require your partner to pull you / push you to move. Lady - giving your partner a little bit of resistance from moving and a part of your body weight helps to create good connection and better feeling in a number of figures in Zouk, however this should only be a smaller part of your body weight (in some figures up to about half of your body weight but not any more than that and only if you are already moving, not stationary). Not full weight and especially not full weight with resistance. If the lady is ‘heavy lead’, it is a frequent cause of getting the man – and so the whole couple - out of music or to be ‘too slow’ (details why are further if you need to understand why). (lady) If you find you are getting out of music with some partners, check if it is not possible that you could be ‘heavy lead’.

It is good to remember that the fact that something ‘works’ for us with certain partners doesn’t necessarily always have to mean it is correct (it may be; it may be not). The fact is that it is common practice that people learn to adjust and compensate for each other’s mistakes when they dance together for a longer period of time. However, compensating for incorrect way of doing things will not allow anyone to progress to a higher level of dancing. Improved technique is needed for that.

Guys – Leading, when the lady requires ‘heavy lead’
Guys, the above paragraphs are mainly for the ladies, however if we are dancing with a lady that requires ‘heavy lead’, we still need to be able to handle that somehow (though it’s not ideal.) I’ll leave up to you if / how you like to let your partner know if you think she requires ‘heavy lead’. That depends on how much you know each other and you want to help her improve. Regardless of that, we need to try to finish each move on time (both partners to be at the ‘destination’ on time; not too late). One way of dealing with this is to use more power and / or push (pull) faster to be able to finish the move on time and give both of you the feeling of ‘doing the move on time’ (though it requires stronger push than there should be). Another way is to use intentionally ‘lighter’ lead. Then you won’t get the move done (on time or at all), however that it gives both the opportunity to realize there is something that needs to be done about the amount of force needed in the lead.
Why is ‘being heavy’ or ‘heavy lead’ bad? – answer for more advanced
If you are feeling confident in more advanced stuff and need to understand why … If you as a lady are ‘heavy lead’, you pull / push your partner out of balance (Your partner has to get out of his balanced position to counter-balance the power needed to push / pull you to get you moving.)

If the lady requires ‘heavy lead’, it can cause the man - and so the whole couple – to get out of music or to be ‘too slow’ because “he sends her signal to start moving, she doesn’t respond by moving herself on time, so he spends extra time creating the counter-balance needed to pull / push her full weight and then to pull / push her to move her where he intended to go.” Another reason is simply if the man has to pull the full weight of the lady for a long time when dancing together longer, he’ll get tired and will not want to dance with that partner any longer. A large part of technique in dancing is about doing things efficiently – not to waste energy inefficiently doing something that is not necessary. Then both partners have the energy to play with all the details more and enjoy it more. (I’ll probably write something on “how to give your partner only part of your body weight, not full weight” as mentioned above - later. This may not be that easy to guess how to do that. Let me know.)

Questions?

[AlZouker]

Doing Basic step in Zouk

Note, the basic step as described here applies to the Zouk style we do in Dublin. There are some differences in other styles. The first step is a long step over 2 beats of music followed by 2 quick short steps (or steps on spot) - each on 1 beat. Basic step is taken in closed hold with man starting with the long step back on his left foot – right foot forward for the lady. Two short steps changing weight between the feet and then man starts with right foot forward (lady left foot back) long step, followed again by two short steps changing weight between feet.

The difference in body action to salsa - if you are coming from salsa background - is in the first long step. In salsa you don’t take long steps.  In Zouk you know you need to make the first step long. You don’t have legs long enough to make a really long step with your feet, while still keeping your body where it had been before you took the step. So, this means that your body has to travel some distance to make a long step. The most efficient way to get your body to move a distance is to balance your upper body over your body center and let your feet and legs drive your body center to the spot, where you want to move.

(If you don’t know about your ‘body center’ or ‘center of gravity’, for this, in very simple terms you can think of your abdomen and the lower back muscles as a ring contracting around your ‘body center’.) So, to make a long step (travel a distance), do not think of your upper body moving somewhere. Think of your body center - that your legs have to push off the floor and drive your body center where you want to go. Or, eventually you will be thinking of driving your _body center_ (when you have the muscles in the ‘ring’ strong enough and you make sure you don’t break the line of your lower back connected with your hips.) However, at the very beginning it may be easier to think of pushing with your legs to drive your _hips_ where you want to go. This will make the move smoother and allow you to travel longer distance.

Another thing worth mentioning is the distance between partners. People can be shy at the beginning and keep distance. However, if you try to dance like this, you are likely to keep kicking each other and you won’t move ‘as one’. One of partners will likely start moving earlier than the other one, etc. – especially if there is not good connection in the ‘top frame’ (another topic that I talked about here). When good connection between partners has been established, it is possible to dance with zero or larger gap between partners. We need to be able to do both in Zouk – dance in direct contact or with a gap between partners keeping the ‘top frame’. A relatively simple way of avoiding kicking each other when dancing close is to get into direct contact and working on leading / following skills – “listening to your partner’s body as they are moving.” If you can feel directly where your partner is and move your legs as they are moving theirs, you won’t kick each other. It needs a bit of practice but it works. Also, being in direct contact is needed to be able to lead with other body parts than just hands / arms. For instance if the man wants to lead something with his hips, the partners need to be connected by hips (like e.g. when leading paragina as I mentioned in another note).

Questions?

[AlZouker]

Extending your limits

Here I’ll talk just about extending physical limits of our body in dancing, though training one’s mind is closely related. Nothing happens in the body, unless it had happened in the mind first. Why should one want to extend their limits in dancing? (naturally only those, who want to improve their dancing) If you normally dance at your maximum, the performance won't be as great as it could be if you move your limits further. Then dancing completely comfortably the dance will look and feel much better. We have a proverb that has proven very true to me: “Tough training makes for easy and ultimate performance.”

However much or little you aim to improve, if you want to improve, don’t be afraid to experiment. Get out of your comfort zone. Don’t hurt yourself, your partner or anyone else but try and work on things that DON’T work as well as you would like to. Everyone has to learn. If you train your fitness, you only start increasing your level of fitness from the point when your body says: “I am tired.” One’s level of fitness / flexibility / stretch-ability / endurance, etc. increases by the amount how much they train and get past their current limits. (Please, refer to the Disclaimer in Intro - the first post in this series. I cannot be made responsible should you hurt yourself or anyone else.)

If we want to improve our dance performance, we need to know what ‘dimensions’ the dance style we do has. What are the areas of skills that improve our overall dance performance if we improve our skills in those areas? For instance if one improves their painting skills - picture composition, it can help their dance performance. That is if they are at a really high level in their dance development. At the beginning levels of dancing there will be other – more important areas of skills to improve. What are these areas? I will talk about three that I think are important in Zouk (there are other important as well): speed, flexibility and sensitivity to your partner’s body – “listening to what your partner’s body is doing”. Speed and flexibility are areas of skills to improve for both man and lady individually. 'Sensitivity to your partner's body' is an essential part of partner-work - both leading and following.

‘Speed’ as for being able to be fast enough when needed or to be able to create fluidity and move slowly over beats - that all while keeping well balanced and in good coordination with the music. ‘Flexibility’ to be able to use the whole body in dance and create large scale interesting shapes and moves to make the dance more interesting. Not to dance just straight up all the time. ‘Sensitivity to your partner’s body – listening to what your partner’s body is doing’ to develop good connection and mutual sensitivity between both partners to what the other partner’s body is doing. This is to allow good lead and follow in dancing and it also eventually makes it possible for the leader to be able to lead a good partner in completely new moves and figures unknown to her. Each of these three topics will get their own space further.
For more advanced:
From a certain point in my development as a dancer I think of a dancer for the purpose of improvement in dance as two parts: Dancer’s body as an instrument of dance and dancer’s mind as the ‘creator of the dance’. This view helps to see improvement in which areas can help to improve the overall dance performance. For optimum – best performance - both the dancer’s instrument – body and her/his mind as the ‘creator of the dance’ need to develop proportionally. If body can do something but mind cannot make it do it (well), it is of little use. If mind is capable of sending signals to the different body parts to create a great dance that would express the music but the body is not trained enough to be able to take those actions (well), it is of little use. So, I try to think of the areas that can help to develop those two sides and balance development in them.

There are lots of things that can be done to improve those two sides. For example for development of the dancer’s instrument – body: exercises for stretching, flexibility, endurance, power, fitness; body parts isolation; coordination of synchronous and asynchronous movement of different body parts; training of quick mind – body responses; balance; technique of optimal movement when taking different types of moves, etc. For training the dancer’s mind as the ‘creator of the dance’ for example floor-craft when dancing with others on floor; good use of floor space when creating performance; listening to music, musicality, something from music theory like structure of music; expression; choreography, directing, acting & story-telling; origins and character of dances; developing dance not as asexual but portraying and using the differences between sexes in both partners and communication between partners; something from psychology and sociology like preparing for and working with audience … and lots of others.

Questions?

[AlZouker]

Extending your limits - Speed

Every dance has ‘speed’ aspect to it. ‘Speed’ is not just about ‘not being behind the music’. ‘Speed’ is both about being able to move fast as well as to be able to move fluidly slow or very slow over the beats, when you need to – having a wide range of speeds you can move at, while keeping balanced and in good connection. In another sense ‘speed’ in dancing is also about having quick ‘mind – body responses’ and being able to keep in good coordination with music at whatever speed you move. In Zouk you can use a wide range of speeds of movement, as long as you keep in coordination with the music. Note, ‘in coordination with music’ does not necessarily mean ‘stepping on beat’. ‘Stepping on beat’ is the basic version of dancing that everyone has to learn and has to be able to be on time when stepping on beat. However, that is not all there is to it. You can do moves on parts of beats (syncopation) or across multiples of beats as well. For that it is useful to develop a larger scale of speeds one can move at.

There is a universal law of speed in all dances: “moving for a certain distance takes time – the longer the distance, the longer it will take.” (Unless you change the speed, which you often cannot do in dancing for various reasons; however, it is not meant to say that one cannot work on improving their speed as well.) The music determines how long move/step you will be doing. If you find that you cannot keep up with the pace of the music, try to make the distance shorter – as long or as short as the music allows you to. If you find yourself to be too slow in certain moves, the solution in most cases is doing them differently – learning better technique of doing them. Plain trying to move the leg/arm/body quicker does not usually bring anything but a short-term partial solution to the problem. Ask more experienced dancers what they actually do when doing the move. Often you’ll find they do something that is not obvious but makes the move possible.

There are lots of exercises for training quicker mind – body reactions and quicker movement - for instance salsa 'shines'. (Quite a good source of salsa shines I have found for practice - mostly for Advanced salsa - is here. For Zouk you don't need to be necessarily able to do these, however simply just trying them helps to develop quicker mind - body reactions needed in all dances.) Or simply stepping on each of the 4 beats in Zouk music (not just the 3 used normally for dancing). Walking 4 beats forward, 4 beats back or whatever you like to. Make the steps short or you’re likely to have problems keeping up with the pace. The important thing is to make sure you really step precisely on the beat. Don’t restrict the hips in movement. Let them work normally in the music. When the stepping goes consistently well, hips and body can be incorporated in the movement. Later even syncopations (steps / moves on parts of beats), etc. can be added.

Learning to be able to move across multiples of beats - still in good coordination with the music may be more difficult for some. The first thing is to forget the idea that a move can only be done over a period of one or two beats. A move can be done over the duration of any length of time. Then it is a matter of keeping the moves in coordination with the music. Practically, moves are normally made over 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 of beat, 1, 2 or multiples of beats (the last beat doesn’t have to be used in full and another move can start before the end of the beat). The dynamics of the move can change throughout the move – the move can be more dramatic / faster / slower at it's beginning / middle / end. There are many possible variations of the same move just changing this aspect. This all is most useful in the ‘free-style’ part of the dance. For the beginning don’t limit the length of your moves in the free-style part of Zouk to just one or two beats. Try to use and extend your body flexibility and do moves over multiple beats trying to coordinate the moves with the music.

Questions?