What's Feedback Got To Do With It?

Here's a puzzle.

Q: How can you get real feedback about your dancing?
A: It's mostly against the code.

The unwritten "code" says that you should not tell other dancers what they are doing wrong, because they may have different goals from you.

Also, teachers often will not tell you because 1) they want to focus on what you are doing right and  2) in large group classes, they don't get to give much individual attention.

So, what can you do?

I posted this in the Lindy Focus Facebook page. Basically, the dancer needs to take responsibility and ask for feedback.

--cut post below--

Yank Check:  I've got an uncomfortable topic: Yankers.  These are dancers who have too much yank in there dance.  This will hurt your partners shoulders/arm/back.  Usually, Yankers are leads, but sometimes they are follows.

However, how do you know you yank?  Since dancers are polite*, nobody is going to tell you you are a yanker (unless you take a private). Kinda like having fried chicken breath, nobody will tell you, they will just avoid you. HINT: if you are not sure you yank, you _probably_ do. I did for many years.

Stop wondering and do one of these things:

1) Take a private with one of the awesome teachers.

2) ask your close friends... The kind of friends who would tell you  that you have spinach in your teeth. Ask them to give you a scale of 0 to 10, because most friends will be nice and say "not really". 

3) find me and say, "I want to know if I yank". I'll dance with you for about 1 minute and tell you what I feel. I'm the one with the Superman Onesie.

Happy, healthy dancing!

PS: if you are a frustrated follow/lead who gets yanked, please give a percent of leads/follows who yank too hard, just so there's a sense of how big the problem is.  Or like this post.

*Note1: As a general rule, and part of THE CODE, do not give advice on the dance floor unless asked. However, this also means that you may yank at level 10, and follows are not allowed to "let me give you some advice" by our dance customs.

Note2: DONT change your dance (because being too noodley is also a problem and, if you yank, you should take a private so you learn how to fix it.)

--- note for blues whisper ---

In my dancing, I estimate that

Follows are

20% Yankers, 40% Noodles , and 40% solid arm tone.

Leads are

50% Yankers, 20 noodles, and 30% solid arm tone.