Expertise and dancing and such

[oyceter]

Yay! I had fun at swing for the first time in a while, even though there still weren't very many people there. I don't usually blog that much about dancing here, just because I figure it might bore people to death, but since my other hobbies (read: knitting) are taking over this LJ as well, what the heck?

Based on a few conversations with friends lately and seeing several articles online (The Expertise Effect in particular), I've been pondering expertise and talent and effort and the odd intersections among the three (Venn diagrams?).

I always used to think I was lazy and gave up on things that I didn't do well. That is, once something started being difficult for me, I would give up. This was fairly well reinforced by my parents, who have accused me several times of giving up too quickly. And I then wondered if maybe I only liked to do things that I was good at because I didn't like being bad at things.

It's been interesting getting out of school and learning at work and outside of work. School is something I've historically been pretty good at (grow up rote memorizing Chinese poetry, and amazingly, some of the techniques will stick with you), but I've always worried that I would fail completely in the "real world." It's family knowledge that I am the one without common sense, and my mother would often fuss about my sister and I, saying that we weren't prepared for "real life."

And then, I found out, I could learn stuff that maybe I wasn't so good at, and that I could enjoy it. And I found out, if I didn't enjoy it, it could just be because I didn't enjoy it and have nothing to do with how good I was at it. I'm still not sure if I'm actually good at things like web development or coding or social dancing or knitting, but I enjoy them. And I've found I'm apparently pretty good at project management, but I hate it.

I don't remember getting to a point of expertise for knitting; I learned how to knit and purl when I was really little, enough so that I still had the muscle memory of how to hold the needles and move the yarn when I took it back up. The past two years have largely been learning to read patterns, learning new knitting techniques, learning that I can, in fact, knit crazy complicated things as long as I'm patient enough to rip stuff out a few times, to make mistakes, and to try new things.

Dancing though. Dancing is hard! I mean, I love it, but it's hard! It's been fascinating learning how to swing dance on the social scene just because it is so different from learning a new subject in school. There's this entire new language involved, and unfortunately for me, it's not actually a spoken one. Everything as a follow is learning to read your lead, learning to figure out what exactly that raised hand or shifted weight means, and above all, letting the lead lead and not anticipating what's to come. And all the while, you're supposed to be providing the right amount of tension for your lead and somehow keeping track of the rhythm and the music behind everything.

It is very confusing, especially since I'm generally not a very physical person. I'm good with textbooks and literary analysis and words words words. Gestures? Not so much. That nebulous thing called improvising to the music? Ehhhhh. That is why I dance dances with steps and don't go clubbing!

Well, that and the relative paucity of skeevy guys and the relative abundance of guys who can actually dance. And are willing to.

I think I am getting better at it though, which is exciting. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time, but I'm at the point where I can read certain partners pretty well and I can dance with new people who are fairly good leads and not look completely dumb.

But really, one of the coolest things about social dancing is having to think on your feet (pun not really but maybe sort of intended), getting to know your new partner and how they work, what their style is, if they're a strong lead or relatively loose, how jazzy and improv or how sticking-with-the-basics they are. And sometimes you end up having crazy chemistry with people you don't expect to, and sometimes you end up dancing with the best lead there and feeling like an idiot because there's just no connection.

And in the end, I don't care that much if I'm good or not. I mean, I do care in that I want whoever I'm dancing with to have a good time as well, but I've danced with people who aren't so great with the moves or at signalling the lead, but they're having so much fun with it that who cares? And I've danced with people who do everything perfectly, but in the end, they're just doing the steps. Maybe really well, but there's not that crazy challenge, the sense that they're thinking, "Let's go out there and have fun, and who cares what we look like?" And I've danced with people who are so concerned with getting the steps right that they forget we're actually dancing, and dancing together at that, and that it's not actually a performance or a competition.

I'm not going to get everything right when I'm out there, and neither is my partner. And what I love most about the instructors is that they emphasize that the entire point of social dancing is having a dance-conversation with the other person, it's about adjusting and reconfiguring your expectations and going out there and trying stuff and having fun.

I love being out there with someone, familiar partner or not, and that moment when one of us does something crazy and the other figures it out in time and riffs off that, and it's happening just as the horns start blaring or the singer starts to really blast out the notes, and I'm laughing with joy and they're grinning back at me, and right then, there's nothing else in the world but me and my partner and the music and I could do this all night long.

And that's why I keep going out, even when there's the risk of skeevy guys or sitting out there feeling lonely and stupid or those awkward moments on the dance floor when I have no idea what my partner is doing, and not in a good "Oooo, nifty move" kind of way, because that one dance (and hopefully there's more than one) makes the entire night.

Comments

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[oyceter]

Yes! I am very happy it was a good night.

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

I haven't taken social dancing classes yet, just classes in which you follow the instructor as individuals. And I will never be really great at it but I love it and am willing to keep doing it. Because of that attitude I think other students in the class see me as being very good. I can't watch myself dance, catch too many mistakes. But others will look to me in the class becaus ethey think I know what I'm doing. But I don't know exactly what I'm doing. Half the time I'm just interpreting the moves the best I can. In an 8 count, I might fake 2 of the steps. I just make up something that will keep me on beat. And I have fun. Sometimes I'llr each a point where I can sort of mentally step back and just enjoy the way my body flows from one move to the next on beat and count. That is exhilarating. It's not exactly the same steps that the instructor laid out but it's damn close enough. I keep telling other students that it's not hard once you stop trying to copy the instructor completely.

[oyceter]

I reaaaally like the social dancing part! I mean, I like knowing the steps better too, but it's so cool to be able to take stuff from class and go out on the dance floor and hour later and see how it works with different people.

Oooo, are you doing swing or ballroom or latin or something else? If swing, I'm pretty sure there's a swing night on Fridays where you are.

But yes to sometimes futzing the moves and sometimes not and usually just trying to figure out how it feels with your body, not the instructor's.

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

Samba and Hip Hop are the styles that I've taken. I want to start ballroom someday.

[oyceter]

So cool! I've been meaning to learn hip hop for a while, especially since they offer a lesson right before my normal swing lesson.

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

They do? You should totally try it! It'll feel weird and wrong and make you want to stop but you will hit a point where things will just work for you. That's how it was for me. I still don't think I'm any good but I keep doing it because I love it and love how it makes me feel.

[oyceter]

I really want to! One of my friends did hip-hop at a local college and said it was really fun, even when the moves they were teaching felt so weird. And I saw some people perform for her college, and it was so nifty!

[cofax7]

This is a great post.

[oyceter]

Oh, thank you!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yes! That is so exactly what I love about social dancing! With Scottish Country dancing, there are two groups of people you're working with-- your partner, and the rest of the set-- and you're keeping track of your place in the set and the general pattern of the dance as well as your sync ratio with your partner, so the moments when everything falls into place are rarer. But every so often there will be this moment where everyone knows exactly what they're doing, and the pattern of the dance just writes itself onto your feet, so you feel like you couldn't make a wrong move if you tried and neither could anyone else, and the wave of energy and rapport just sends everyone flying through it, and it is the best thing in the world. In seven years of Scottish I've had one or two of those a year, and it makes it all worth it.

My favorite one of those was once at a ball with a dance called 'Shiftin' Bobbins', when I suddenly realized mid-set that the pattern was actually written to replicate the movements of an electric loom: the thread went in one end of the set, and we were all turning and spinning it and passing it off with the paths of our feet as we went by. I'm never going to get over that one.

[oyceter]

Dude! Scottish Country dancing! I want to try!

It's so frustrating because there are all these things that I want to learn just in the dance sphere -- hip hop and waltz and tango and salsa, and of course, how to lead lindy hop now that I can follow relatively well.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was a lovely post! A friend of mine has started taking me to this historical social dance thing (they have a website! (http://www.nycbarndance.com/)), and it's been a lot of fun. I've never done anything like this before, because I'm used to the club sort of dancing, which is an entirely different feel. But you described social dancing so nicely in this post! That is just how I'd been thinking of it.

[oyceter]

Eeee! That looks so cool! I am just sad that it will be over when I visit NY in the summer.

But yes, I love social dancing so much, and it's so different from almost anything I've picked up before, so when the pieces start falling together, it is indescribably cool.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think they don't do it in the summer because the guy who runs it goes somewhere. Either that, or possibly the place where it's held doesn't have air conditioning.

But come back in the fall and it'll have started again!

[littlebutfierce]

Oh, I so hear you on the difficulty of making yourself do something that's hard. It's really a challenge to get myself to stick w/something that I can't pick up right away or even get decent @ fairly quickly. One of my proudest accomplishments was taking karate for 2 years (I got a green belt!) & sticking w/it & loving it even though it was incredibly hard for me & I was definitely anything but a star. My brain isn't coded to get physical instructions well, & sometimes I even had to have the instructor move my limbs into the position she wanted a few times before I was able to do it myself. Anyway, I quit going when I moved & that was 6 years ago & I haven't started again, but @ least I was able to do it for a while, even though I was lousy. ;P

[oyceter]

Oooo yeah. I always end up falling out of martial arts because, well, apparently I am woefully uninterested in any physical activity unless there is music and choreography involved.

But yes to actually sticking with something, even if you're not that great at it. I felt so incredibly dumb when I started dancing (and taking math, grrr), and half the time I still feel dumb and sloppy, but it's so much fun.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

That was a lovely post, and please post about your dancing stuff, as I would love to read about it.
I have never danced in public, as I know I don't have the coordination for it. I'm actually really interested in talking lessons and such, as it looks soo fun, but I don't know anyone who would go with me. Lol. It's all my mom's fault for watching Dirty Dancing all the time.

[oyceter]

Oh, you should try! The lack of a partner is actually fine; I think most social dancing places expect that you're going to rotate partners during the lesson (and at least where I am, there is a surprising lack of pairs). And during the actual dancing, usually even if a couple is there, they dance with lots of different people.

(also...Dirty Dancing! Eeeee!)

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

My mom usually watches the whole movie, but I tell her to call me for the last 20 minutes. It's not so much that I am afraid of participating alone- I have done most of my activities alone, but that I don't drive. Also, I don't even think we have a dancing lesson place anywhere near, and if we did I am a little uncomfortable with the opposite sex, so I would really like an all-girl class.

[oyceter]

Ah yes, the driving thing would do it! I hope you do end up finding something you like!