That's interesting, there aren't any more steps in Jive than most of the other dances, but because of the tempo of Jive, you dance through them faster, and so leaders are constantly needing to select figures. If you compare how many figures you dance in 90 seconds of Jive compared to 90 seconds of Rumba, you'll see what I mean. When it comes to figures vs. routines, there's no simple answer I'm afraid. It is, in my opinion, dependant on the dancers involved and why they dance. Some studios will exclusively teach routines to beginners, while others like ours take a mixed approach to figures and routines. Some leaders suffer from choice anxiety and simply cannot lead figures fast enough in something like a Jive, so learning just figures with no choreography is very hard for them. In this case, learning a simple routine is often easier, until they can develop their leading. The danger of this is that routines often become embedded and then dancers actually aren't leading and following they are just doing the same old steps they have done before, and this can turn into sloppy leading and following technique that is actually harder to remedy when dancers are ready to upgrade their routines and figures. It also causes problems when you don't have room or otherwise can't get your routine out on the floor... what do you do, just stop dancing and start again? That's never a nice feeling. My usual recommendation (in the dark knowing nothing about the dancers) is the learn a small amount of interchangeable figures, only 4 maybe 5 different moves that will all precede and follow each other, and then start by doing each move in succession 2 times each, so: Step 1 x2, Step 2 x2, Step 3 x2 etc... and then slowly but surely learn to do them in a different order, and don't tell the follower what that order is. This gives you the ground work for developing your leading and following, and keeps the dance fresh and fun on the dancefloor.
Loved this one ... love the jive
Glad you liked it, when will we see you in class or back at the socials?!
Theres so many differant steps in jive and all the differant styles would you recomend learning one step at a time or learning a short sequence ?
That's interesting, there aren't any more steps in Jive than most of the other dances, but because of the tempo of Jive, you dance through them faster, and so leaders are constantly needing to select figures. If you compare how many figures you dance in 90 seconds of Jive compared to 90 seconds of Rumba, you'll see what I mean.
When it comes to figures vs. routines, there's no simple answer I'm afraid. It is, in my opinion, dependant on the dancers involved and why they dance. Some studios will exclusively teach routines to beginners, while others like ours take a mixed approach to figures and routines.
Some leaders suffer from choice anxiety and simply cannot lead figures fast enough in something like a Jive, so learning just figures with no choreography is very hard for them. In this case, learning a simple routine is often easier, until they can develop their leading.
The danger of this is that routines often become embedded and then dancers actually aren't leading and following they are just doing the same old steps they have done before, and this can turn into sloppy leading and following technique that is actually harder to remedy when dancers are ready to upgrade their routines and figures. It also causes problems when you don't have room or otherwise can't get your routine out on the floor... what do you do, just stop dancing and start again? That's never a nice feeling.
My usual recommendation (in the dark knowing nothing about the dancers) is the learn a small amount of interchangeable figures, only 4 maybe 5 different moves that will all precede and follow each other, and then start by doing each move in succession 2 times each, so: Step 1 x2, Step 2 x2, Step 3 x2 etc... and then slowly but surely learn to do them in a different order, and don't tell the follower what that order is. This gives you the ground work for developing your leading and following, and keeps the dance fresh and fun on the dancefloor.