Cross Swivels

Welcome! I created this blog to write about my experiences in dance and keep a collection of online resources I've discovered. Warning: I'll probably get technical.

25 year old woman, exclusively a follow

I started dancing as part of a self-taught college club and was involved from September 2017 to March 2020, at which point I had to pause for obvious reasons

I started taking lessons at an Arthur Murray studio in July 2022 and currently compete pro-am at the Associate Bronze level (Pre-Bronze 2)

Two-for-one updates getting posted today! On Saturday I was able to attend two AWESOME masterclass sessions with a visiting coach.

The first session focused on body styling.

We did four simple exercises to isolate parts of the torso. First, move ribs side to side; second, rotate ribs and shoulders side to side; third, make circles with the sides of the ribs (that one's hard to describe - the circles are on the vertical plane, parallel to your sides); and fourth, alternate between concave torso (curled forward) and convex.

After the exercises, we practiced following elbow-wrist-hand order in arm movement, then combined arms with the different exercise to feel how the arm movements follow from the torso. So, for example, unfurl your arm straight to the side by going ribs-elbow-wrist-hand.

Then we learned a solo waltz pattern and practiced incorporating the torso movements we learned into the different positions.

I'm finding that my descriptions are really lacking, which isn't surprising. You'll have to take my word for it that it made a difference and I can't wait to practice this stuff in my next lessons.

It's been a busy weekend so I'm just now getting to the write-up, but it was a really good lesson! The focus was on posture and weight distribution, primarily using waltz as the basis for practice, although we did some rumba too.

Practiced head weight and rotation through the shoulders and neck, which are elements we've obviously talked about a lot before, but this lesson added a couple of finer details, including that I should engage the muscles on both sides of my neck.

Worked on keeping my own balance even as I push and pull off of my partner. Practiced a lighter hold, where there's almost no pressure on my right hand and my partner is more guiding me than supporting me through it. It was definitely weird when my instructor started using the lighter pressure, but I was pleased with how well I was still able to read his cues!

I kept practicing my rhythm posture tips from my last lesson when we did rumba, and played with some arm styling on the banquera opening, which was a lot of fun.

I had to put dance lessons on pause this summer due to financial circumstances (read: I and my beautiful paid off car were the victims of typical Dodge Charger behavior and the lesson money had to be rerouted to a car loan). But I recently picked up a job doing admin work at the studio, which means I'm back in lessons again as of today! A new start, so, I decided, a good time to revitalize this blog too, starting with a new set of...

Lesson Notes 1/11/25

My instructor (and also coworker now. weird) decided to dip into all the "Big 6" dances to get me warmed back up - that's waltz, tango, foxtrot, cha-cha, rumba, and east coast swing.

We discussed sticking my butt out in the rhythm dances. Yes, really. Tilting your pelvis back helps with posture and weight distribution, and as soon as I started focusing on this I felt much more balanced and in control of my movements.

Relatedly, with swing specifically, we talked about keeping my rock steps grounded, sitting back onto the back foot without picking up the front foot - something that proper posture makes possible. This was a GAME CHANGER for my swing. I felt so much more stable, and it kept my triple steps smaller (since I wasn't jumping around), which was a huge help with staying on time

Waltz versus foxtrot: rise and fall in waltz is like a wave with sharp peaks; in foxtrot it's like McDonald's arches. This was a hugely helpful image. Relatedly, waltz has a lot of moments of closing the feet, while foxtrot has a lot of continuity movement (passing feet).

A few other minor tune-ups (particularly shadow rocks in tango and the chase in cha-cha).

I got a surprise lesson today! It was supposed to be Thursday but they asked if I wanted to move it up to tonight. Made my night honestly

Since I'm not prepping for any particular event currently, my instructor went for some oddball choices - we did lindy hop, peabody, quickstep, and a little bit of paso doble. Out of that list peabody, was the only one I had worked on in a private lesson before, so it was a ton of fun to try some new things.

Having never done quickstep I sort of assimilated it to foxtrot on fast-forward in my head... that's not correct. There are lots of lock steps, even in the basic! It's a real challenge at such a fast pace.

I really enjoyed paso doble, even though we only played with it for a couple minutes. I wish it had been longer. For how harsh and dramatic the music is, it has a surprising amount of flow.

Lindy hop is one I've tried socially and really struggled with, but it clicked once I got weight distribution explained. (It's not actually about jumping and is a lot more grounded than it looks.)