here’s prose from 2FeetLineDance not yet assimilated into a Comments post here:
I’ve made comments all along, in class, posted some to the 2FeetLineDance blog. Now I want to gather all such here at LineDanceAlliance: and will use this post to do it, editing further from here, de-duping, linking results from the Comments Page.
pk at the Y: Comments, Caveats
Meter:
Weight transfer: Line dancing was developed by women, the first step is commonly with the right foot. On four, the foot used is commonly held poised to be used again.
For example, in the Electric Slide the first grapevine starts with the right foot, on four the left foot touches (or scuffs, or kicks) but remains ready to begin the complementary left vine: RLRL, then LRLR (where the right foot remains poised and ready).
There are also comments scattered among the dances and step descriptions, some will get moved or repeated among the Comments.
In the Blue Room at the Y the carpet is plush: not the ideal dance surface. Try stocking feet or bare feet. You don’t want athletic shoes that grip. In the meantime, slide where the surface permits it; lift your feet where it doesn’t.
02 28 Continuing the safety theme:
Dancing is fun, social, and good exercise: line dancing is especially good, very good aerobically. But think of line dancing as a sport, mildly athletic: have a care for your joins, your bones, muscles …
Dance moves: Line dancing is full of fancy turns. Many are just 90 degrees, some are only fractional, many are 180o, some 270o, some 360o! Try to learn and stay with the moves of the group but go ahead and cheat some of the effects rather than sprain something.
What counts is the rhythm. Any four counts can substitute for the prescribed four counts – so long as you wind up moving in the same direction as the group.
Ballroom dancers can whirl around a bull in the china shop, but not line dancers. We can walk rudely across many a ballroom dance floor without much danger to ourselves or others but not across a stage with the Rockettes performing.
Apropos: two or three line dancers can fit a line dance onto a ballroom floor, but in general, especially for large line dance groups: the dance floor should be for one or the other. If I hear Boot Scootin Boogie and get up to line dance, but the floor suddenly fills with couples doing the lindy, I yield: or get a partner and lindy myself. If a dozen line dancers already occupy the space then the couple wanting to lindy should find a side area out of the way.
The trouble there is: to find safety, the couple needs to know the line dance to know where the line moves next. In Alley Cat the whole line takes huge sweeps left and right.
Variations: Any individual line dancer can add fancy step variations, but don’t confuse those practicing a simpler pattern. For example, many dancers spin while doing basics or grapevines, during the Electric Slide, for example. (I don’t. I style my moves, but don’t want to appear to be prescribing frills: especially not among seniors.)
You know, I liked dancing as a kid; but now that I’m seventy-two and lucky to be able to stand up, I love this stuff the more. (It could fail any of us at any moment!)
Music copies: I’ve promised copies of the music CDs we use, you supply the blank disk.
A room with a linoleum floor should be ready of us soon, but we’ll have to experiment to see how many it comfortably holds. We’ll gather in the Blue Room but then may move.
LineDanceAlliance 