Hi Kat,
You asked why the elbow-hold in your Modified Ballroom-Hold
wasn’t as good as the elbow-hold in a standard Swing.
I think that when the left-hand person’s right hand is on the
right-hand person’s shoulder blade and you have good connection, then what you
do with the other arms can be anything. Using those other arms, one person
holding the other’s elbow gives slightly more connection, and the added
benefits of bringing the dancers’ shoulders more parallel (symmetry is great
for a smooth, gentle (but fast!) counter-balanced Swing), and, by being closer
together, gives a faster Swing.
When, instead, those hands are doing the pointy stuff (which
doesn’t provide a lot of good connection), then the elbow hold with the other
arms doesn’t give enough connection; and when we tried to achieve the
connection we felt it was slightly awkward and uncomfortable.
That is my feeling anyway.
Another challenge is that the standard Ballroom-Hold position is
used for other moves as well, such as Polkaing around a Square, or doing a
Swing & Change to progress. I don’t think that the Modified version would work
as well for those type of moves, and I wouldn’t want to teach the average
dancers multiple versions. Maybe that isn’t a problem for you, if you never do
dances with moves like that.
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England j...@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940
574
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent
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