Dancing: My Personal Thanksgiving

While most of us (including me) would say family and friends are the biggest reasons for thanks this season, I’ve been thinking about how dancing has enriched my life, so I’ll focus on it for this article. Starting my dancing later than most, I see distinct advantages to continue growing as a dancer. It’s been one of the most fascinating journeys I’ve taken in life, and maybe you’ll relate to some of my thoughts. (And please, leave me comments with what it’s done for you!)

In my case, I have to say I’m thankful that dancing has become a strong focus in my life. I’m happier, healthier and mentally challenged, all of which will serve me well as I move closer to AARP membership age. It brings another joy and different dynamics into play, and I’ll share some of my favorites with you.

For me, dancing is more than just a physical activity to burn some time. It’s a vehicle that allows you and me to grow socially, physically and mentally. It’s an excellent tool for working on our attitude and people skills, and provides a foundation for fun and enjoyment the rest of our lives.

Dancing has dramatically extended my social circles. I enjoy interesting relationships with a wide variety of people, many from backgrounds outside my previous circles. One of my early dance friends is a master auto mechanic named Edgar, originally from Guatemala.

As a technology professional, I doubt our paths would have crossed except we met at a salsa class, trying to figure this thing out. Edgar was always ahead of me since he had started earlier, and he always encouraged me to keep at it. We car-pooled to clubs relentlessly in the first couple years, keeping each others spirits up as we grew into more mature dancers.

Edgar’s a great guy, but he’s someone who would not have been on my radar screen before dancing. He works with his hands all day fixing things, and I fix things at the keyboard. In some ways we couldn’t be more different, but Salsa dancing gives us a common bond and connects us together. I’ve learned quite a bit from him and hopefully he has from me. (I taught him to hear the “one” in the music during our drive times; today he is almost always on the time and he passes that to some of his friends.)

He’s simply one example of someone who made a positive impact on me and I could fill twenty pages with more examples. I’ve become friends with CEOs, manual laborers, construction workers, tech geeks, teachers, bus boys, accountants, models, waitresses and waiters. You name a profession and I probably have danced with them or next to them. Nobody cares about my being an older white guy or having gray hair, as long as I continue to grow as a dancer and treat others well.

I dance with women young enough to be my daughter and old enough to be my mom, and it’s all good. It’s amazing, and I don’t think it ends. Social dancing keeps me thinking about how I can be a better friend, connect with more people, and grow my circles of contacts. The diversity is a big win for me. Although I have to admit I’ve always loved people, social dancing opens a new, wide world of interesting relationships.

Dance challenges my mind and my body. I’m constantly gaining strength, balance and body control, while challenging my mind to do things I never imagined before I started. I’m reading more books on performance techniques and attitudes, taking classes, teaching classes and privates and constantly stretching to improve. It keeps me fresh mentally, and greatly improves my overall outlook on life. I’ve always been a student of accelerated learning and teaching, so dancing gives me another vehicle for growth.

I could barely bend over and touch my toes when I started, and now I’m palms down on the floor and know I will do even better next year. Few will see me today and marvel at my flexibility, but before I danced I simply believed flexibility was for females and athletes. (You know--other people, not me.)

While my current status is nothing special for most females, I’m probably the most improved person in my classes (when you start where I started, just touching your toes easily is a big, big deal.) Now I’m learning from advanced salsa DVDs, teaching and taking private lessons, taking jazz classes and growing my dance skills in many different directions. I teach quite a bit and sub for some of the best salsa dancers in LA. I see the path parallels my music growth as a young adult, and it provides a newer vehicle to apply and refine previous knowledge.

I’ve lost about 15 pounds, I’m much stronger, have more flexibility, and my balance continues to improve as I practice. I’m in competition with myself, and enjoy the challenges of constantly improving over time. I don’t see any end to it unless I decide to go do something else.

I’m thankful I needed to lose some weight and I found my local gym had a salsa aerobics class. Occasionally I run into one of my early instructors and he laughs with me as we remember how I would have been voted least likely to succeed in the early days. Today he gets a kick out of telling people how weak I was in the beginning. I didn’t go to clubs for six months when I started partnering classes as I was too embarrassed when I compared myself to the others in the class. Many thought I was terminally slow, but I knew from my music days that laying a foundation was critical to longer-term dance success.

It's really something that makes me a better person and provides a vehicle for self growth, in multiple areas. I'm thankful I can pass that on to anybody else and I consider salsa dancing a "gateway dance". It allowed me to get started when I was out of shape, and over time expand into a new world of mental and physical improvements.

As a social dance, it allows me to decide how serious I want to take it (or not). I decided to take jazz classes after a couple years of salsa, and I always know I can quit anytime. I have moments I'd like to hide, being a little embarrassed with my skill level compared to others, but so what? I use those moments to relate to my students and to build my personal mental toughness. It's a win even on my bad days, and if things are uncomfortable, I consider it part of my growth process. I always get physical benefits from it and sometimes I have to pat myself on the back for simply getting though the warmups. I couldn't do them when I started and today, few work harder than me during that part of the class.

I could go on and on, but I certainly stumbled onto something that has truly changed my life for the better. I have to give a shout out to Edie the Salsa Freak, who never gave up on me and encouraged me long before others recognized my potential. Edie made sure I understood it all takes time, and to just keep working at it. She’s one of many who have helped me along the way, and I’m thankful for so many people treating me well when I couldn’t make it work as fast as the other guys around me.

That said, I'm proud of so many others who have started in my classes and I see them on the same journey. Today I get to apply my dance and music skills to help others enhance their life. I hope the same thing is happening to you.

It’s an amazing journey, and after a few years I feel like I’m just getting started.

I hope dance has enriched your life; let me know the great things it has done for you!

Musicians Don't Dance

Have you ever noticed that musicians don't dance?

I believe it's similar to "white men can't jump". It's a myth, but it has some truth to it. The reality is, most musicians avoid dancing.

Oh sure, there are a few exceptions, but most don't do it, and I have some ideas why they just watch. Their reasons are generally similar to others who don't dance, but you'd think it would be much easier for musicians to learn. Great dancers will tell you that understanding the music is half the battle when it's time to dance, so what's up with musicians sitting on the sidelines? In theory, they start with a huge advantage over a friend who doesn't know music and is starting to dance.

As a musician, I have watched people dance at thousands of events over the years. In one year alone in my early twenties, I played over 225 events, ranging from weddings, recordings, nightclubs, corporate events and beyond. At 95% of my gigs, people were dancing and I always thought, "Someday I should learn to do that." I waited over 20 years for my "someday" to start.

Here's my theory: Musicians spend years learning to express emotion via our primary instrument. It's a rude awakening when we figure out our body can't express the same emotion without a ton of practice. Knowing the mood of the music doesn't give us the tools to express emotions via the dance that are effortlessly expressed via our instrument.

I've already spent thousands of hours of practicing and performing on drums, and now I have to start over with a new instrument: my body. I've had moments where I thought, "Hmmm... Do I really want to invest years into this new instrument?" I knew from the start that being a high-quality dancer was a multi-year project.

It can be downright frustrating. Musicians hear the music being romantic, but have little idea what moves would fit that feel. Or they see the appropriate moves on others, but haven't invested the time to express that with their own body. The music amps up and it's easy to recognize that it's time to crank up the dancing, but they don't have the body control or the experience to make it happen. It's easy to see on others, but that doesn't mean I can do it without practice.

Sometimes it seems easier to just go back to things mastered earlier in life. Great musicians have already gone through the painful ups and downs of learning one complex creative craft; learning to dance requires the same commitment all over again. And if they have high standards for their music, they will probably have high standards for their dancing.

Mastering either one puts you closer to the other, but still requires years of practice to become above-average. A seasoned, world-class dancer has heard great music for years, but learning the piano or drums would still require practicing hundreds of hours before they could perform effortlessly.

On the flip side, knowing the music intimately pays off big time AFTER a significant investment in dancing. Most musicians have the potential to be excellent dancers far sooner than a peer who starts dancing without a musical background.

The road map for becoming a great dancer parallels the map for being a strong musician. When you've been down the road before, it can be very helpful, because you clearly see what it takes to excel. But it's still easier to practice your strengths (your primary musical instrument) rather than develop your dance moves.

In some ways, it was easier learning music because I was so ignorant about musical excellence along the way. By age twenty I believed I was a hotshot, so I practiced like crazy, got lots of postive feedback and was a big fish in a little pond. I was truly humbled when I moved to LA to be around the big guns in the music business; I soon saw that there was a whole new level of elite skill that I had never seen before.

That experience means that, when I looked at dancing in my early forties, I realized from the start that it would take me three to six years to become "reasonable" by my definition. I see the best in the dance world, and know that reaching that echelon is a decade or more of hard work.

Make no mistake, it's worth the effort; still, musicians are often frustrated when they find it's like starting over with a brand new instrument.

Most go back to practicing their first instrument rather than go through the learning curve again. The ones who push through it have the potential to become excellent dancers, but that assumes they put in the effort just like everybody else. It may be less work than a peer without musical training, but it's still plenty of sweat and frustration, and the path of least resistance is often going back to playing the music.

I hope more musicians make the journey, because at some point the musical background becomes a huge asset. Then they have two creative outlets, and that makes life much richer.

Watching Students Grow

Most instructors love people, enjoy teaching and take pride in helping you succeed. One sure sign of success is when people start going to different clubs. It's easy to dance where you take lessons, but going to a totally new club means you're making progress as a dancer or you are becoming addicted.

I was at a club last night and a couple who started in one of my classes was out dancing and having a good time. They didn't know I'd be there, but it was really great to see them having fun. I consider it a sign of success when students in my class develop enough confidence to dance at other clubs. If they just stay at one club, that's not bad, but it's an obvious sign of progress when they start exploring additional clubs.

Even if you're not a paid instructor, there is a joy in helping others get to the point where they are comfortable going to different clubs. When I started, I took lessons for almost six months before I started going out into the club scene. It was too self conscious with all the more experienced dancers around. At first I only went to places where I could take a class before dancing. One of my goals is to get people out in the clubs as soon as possible, as it helps them grow faster. Once they get into the scene, it pushes them to improve.

When you get a chance, be sure to help someone else learn this great dance or feel more comfortable attending clubs. The more people we have dancing, the better it is for everybody. And sometimes it's not dance advice they need, but rather someone who says "hello" and is nice to them when they show up.

Most of us get used to socializing with our existing friends, and we have a tendency to ignore people we haven't meet yet. Every night you are out, see if you can expand your circle of social contacts by a couple people.

Watch for people you see in more than one club; those are the ones who are more likely to be around in the future. Say hi and welcome them to the new club. We all benefit as the scene grows.

Finding "One" Over the Wires: Nov 2 update

In case you are new to this blog, Doug Fox (of "Dancing into the Future" fame) and I are working on a project where I'm teaching him to find "one" in the music, without ever meeting face-to-face. For details on how this got started, check out my Finding "One" over the Wires article.

November 2nd Update:
Doug was assigned his first tune to purchase, download and start the listening process.

He downloaded it and started listening to the intro and sent me an e-mail saying:

A question: Am I supposed to be listening to it to isolate the different instruments?

It seems difficult to do that because I'm not introduced to the sounds separately. They just get layered on top of each other so it's very difficult to separate them out?

Hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining off the bat. But I'm curious how I should proceed?

I immediately realized I'm usually listening face-to-face with someone and I hadn't provided a reasonable starting point for him. I originally wanted him to download the song, and burn it to CD/MP3 player so he had the track available. Without detailed instructions, I think he was feeling overwhelmed listening to the complete tune because it turns into the traditional, dense salsa tune. In the vast majority of salsa tunes -including this one- hearing the individual parts is difficult without enough experience.

I love the introduction of this tune for ear training, but the body of the tune is like trying to teach someone complex turn patterns and styling, when they are still struggling with basic and a cross body lead. Most people build up their dance complexity, and doing the same thing makes sense with the music.

For those of you who want to follow along in this exercise, here is part of my e-mail response to Doug, providing additional context and detail. Feel free to try it yourself, and let me know how it works for you.

To clarify; The first exercise is as follows:

Listen to the introduction as many times as possible, shooting for 100 or more listens over the first week or so. The intro is almost exactly 1 minute long, so we are talking about around 15 minutes per day max.

The first few times:
Just listen to whatever you find interesting, to get a feel for the tune. See what instruments you can identify, but don't stress about details yet. Nobody hears all the parts in the beginning, so if you actually can hear them all, you would fit into the "abnormal" category.

After you have heard the intro a half dozen times, then listen to the vocalist, trying to figure out what instrument he is introducing. He names them in Spanish as they join the mix.

Here is the start:

• Clave
• Bongos
• Tumbodoras (Congas in English - See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conga for
  a photo)
• Timbales (Timbalaros)
• Bass (I don't know the Spanish word, but I know the sound)

It continues as instruments are added; see if you can get any of the others, but don't worry if they are not obvious, that is part of the process we will go over. Nobody knows them all at the beginning--otherwise we wouldn't be working on this.

See if you can hear the first 3 or 4 as they are added, all others are optional at this point.

Note that during the rest of the song there are sections where it is tough to
hear some of the instruments, so it's normal that you can't hear them all during
later parts of the tune.

At this point we are only interested in the intro, and starting your ear training. This song is too dense in later sections. (Depending on which computer I'm using and the speakers, I can't even hear the clave in some sections.)

In an earlier discussion, I mentioned to him that when doing face-to-face lessons, the average person takes two to six months to get it all together from a music and timing point of view. Depending on your background, some people will take more or less time.

Doug has had this assignment a few days and I expect a progress report from him over the weekend. I'll let you know how we are doing after his next report. I'll be interested to see if he is listening to the intro for 15 minutes per day.

Most people grossly underestimate how many times they should listen to a tune when they are figuring it all out. Check out my previous article titled "Listening to Music: 100 Times or More" for additional details.

It's a funny thing: the more I practice, the luckier I get.
-Arnold Palmer