PSRDancePrivateLessonAug172003

Dance Notes

Private Lesson w/Laura Malloy

August 17, 2003

Peter took a dance lesson from Laura Malloy on August 17, 2003.

The goal was to clean up basic technique.

Posture

• Concentrate on sinking into the floor on every step

  • You're sinking in through the ball of your foot
  • Go down into the hip joint, letting it break slightly
  • Relax your knees, engaging your quad muscles

• The triple step ("1 & 2")

  • 1, 2 should both sink in through the hip, through the knees, through the ball of your foot, into the floor (as above).

  • on the &, you do not engage the other hip.

    • Just put enough weight on the & foot so that you can lift the 1/2 foot.

• Keep your whole center engaged

  • Engage both your abdominal and lat muscles

    • To find your lat muscles, pretend you're pulling down a horizontal bar behind your back -- as you get about as far down as you can go, your lat muscles kick in.

  • Also, think of this center as stretching both down into the floor ('sinking' as above) and stretching up to the ceiling.

    • If you don't let it stretch up, you tend to compress into a fetal-position ball.

• Align your head with your spine.

  • You are letting your head tilt forward, which is messing with your balance
  • It may feel like you are putting your head straight up and down, but really it is aligning to the rest of your spine.

• Hands should be at waist level, or the arms will not engage to your frame.

  • Also, keep your elbows slightly off of your body.

The Circle to Closed

• The hold is slightly different

  • There is a 'V', but it is a very slight 'V.'

    • You are practically facing your follow.

• Let your right wrist break.

  • This is so that you get more contact with the follow's back.
• The left hand should stay low & engaged.
• Fix your triple-steps as in the 'Posture' section above so that they circle more deliberately

The Underarm Turn

• Do not reach out with your left hand when she goes under it. Focus on limiting its action to lifting and then lowering it.

• You are always going forward on your final triple-step

  • Note that it can move backwards or stay in place.
  • In fact, it should probably move backwards, becasue that switches the compression for stretching, and sets you up for a next move.

The Tuck Turn

• Assume we start with a 'V' aimed towards 0º

• Rock-step the follow to your right. ( 170º)

  • Make sure your rock step goes behind you, and the left toe stays aimed at your follow. You tend to twist the left foot out on your rock steps, which is bad.
  • Maintain eye contact on the follow; this will ensure that your upper body turns appropriately.
  • Note that the follow's weight is kind of 'contained' in your right hand at this point.

• On 3, bring the follow in front of you ( 0º)

  • Do not send the follow off to the left (270º)
  • Focus on bringing the right hand in front of you, and not hooking around.
  • Also note that you don't need to travel on this move -- you can stay in place, and make the follow do the walkin' around.
  • Note that this sets up a flowing motion towards 0º throughout.

  • This brings the follow around to being compressed against your left hand.

    • Do not let your left elbow go behind your body; this would break frame.
  • On the '&,' you just stay in place.

• On 4, begin leading a turn and a half.

  • Your left hand should trace an inclined oval:

    • Higher up away from you, lower down towards you.

• During the turn, you should only maintain contact between your fingers and the middle of the follow's hand

  • Do not apply downward pressure
• And again, you'll usually want to take the final triple step backwards.

Footnotes