#balboa dance

[theleadingfraeulein]

There is two women competing together (05:57) in this balboa comp. Sadly I couldn’t catch their names.

[theleadingfraeulein]

Some sweet sweet balboa content for the blog. Check out 05:15 to 08:30 and the all-skates.

[theleadingfraeulein]

Some thoughts on making progress as an ambidancer

I normally don’t post much personal stuff here. Mostly because I think the reason why folks follow this blog is not me as a person but the content and inspiration i gather and also my english that might be off since I’m not a native speaker. But I’ve been thinking about an old topic that gets brought up a lot when dancers talk about pros and cons when it comes to ambidancing.I am talking about starting ambidancing at an early level.

I started out swing dancing in 2013 with a friend of mine. Since we both identify as women but wanted to be able to partner-dance with each other so one of us had to start dancing as a lead. That was me. I also had other reasons like being able to dance with women (I know I know not all followers are women but that’s what i thought back then). Tiny chubby akwardly queer me back then makes me still go “aww”.

Even though I took classes as a lead I immediately started following when I went social dancing because I befriended many leads. Also holy hell handsome leads to dance with now I was able dance with ALL the attractive people. I became an ambidancer. I was quite bad first as a follow but a good lead. People complimented my clear lead all the time. I made a lot of progress as a lead. And quickly. At the same time I felt like I didn’t learn as quickly as my partner that danced mostly in one role.

Now after dancing nearly 4 years something weird has happenend. Recently a friend told me that he had felt like my learning curve had stopped after a year of dancing and that only now I’ve had this massive “level up” as a dancer. I took intermediate-level-classes and workshops for 3 years. Only now was I accepted as an intermediate-advanced lead in class. Another dancer that I highly respect told me the other day that I was an advanced follow in his eyes.

What is happening

For the longest time I got really pissed when people started with this “you are slowing down your learning if you start as an ambidancer”-thing. But right now I wonder if that’s what happened to me. I’ve been an 50/50 ambidancer from the beginning. And I can’t help but wonder if I would be a better lead right now if I had never started following. I mean I am not unhappy with where I am at. I think it is pretty cool that I know both roles, that I get a lot out of understanding for the other role and that I can dance with whoever I want. But I am also disappointed at my dancing a lot. I feel like I could be much better if I had concentrated on one role. I sometimes even feel like I watered down a potential politcal message of “I am a woman and I am dancing the non-traditionally assigned role to my gender” with me following.

I’d like to hear from your experiences if you’d like. Are there people out here that experienced the same thing as me? Am I overthinking this? Is it even fair of me to whine about my leaning curve when I seem to be an intermediate-advanced dancer in both roles after 3 1/2 years of dancing?

So yeah. Some thoughts of mine. Feel free to respond. I should be learning latin right now

EDIT:

I have collected you answers in this post here.

[theleadingfraeulein]

Two women dancing balboa at the CSC 2017

[theleadingfraeulein]

The three stages of jam-circles

Stage 1 (before jumping in): yes

Stage 2 (while in): no

Stage 3 (afterwards): why

[theleadingfraeulein]

This starts out as your typical teachers introduction but turns into a massive ambi-dance-fest. It all begins with Anna Porzelt leading Gio Olla at 2:32 and then it’s kinda hard to keep track who’s dancing with whom. Gio Olla following, Bärbl Kaufer leading, Anna Porzelt leading, Nejc Zupan following and reverse. So much fun. A must watch! Seriously! 

[theleadingfraeulein]

In the end of this video (07:35) the teachers steal each other. Giedre Paplaityte is her usual bundle of awesome und leads Anna (?) while Eran Tobi and Peter (?) dance together.

[semmybird]