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1. The Almost Scientific Reason for Why We Get Dizzy

Somewhere in our ears (behind the drums but in front of the guitar) there is fluid inside a bowl with a whole lot of hairs sticking into it. Now if you take a bowl of soup with the right consistency, and move the bowl around, you will notice how the fluid stays where it is whilst the bowl moves. The hairs can feel this movement in relation to the fluid and thus give us information on how much we have moved. The problem is, if you if you spin the bowl lots, the soup eventually catches up and spins with the bowl, and when you stop the bowl, the soup keeps going! But the hairs sense the soup is still moving and thinks that the bowl is still spinning, when in fact its not! That is why after spinning it can feel as if the room is still moving. It is also why you should not play with your food.

2. How to Get Less Dizzy

The body will eventually adapt to anything it is repeatedly exposed to. So if you spin lots, you will get used to it and experience less dizziness. Also, try not to tilt your head to either side whilst spinning. When you have completed your last turn, focus your eyes on one object (do not let them just blur) and at least you will get your bearings quicker. Trained dancers use a technique called spotting. You let your body start to turn without your head moving, whilst focusing on a single spot. When you can no longer keep your head in the same places, you turn it around as fast as you can to refocus on the same spot. It takes practice, but eventually helps you avoid getting dizzy and can even help you turn more.

3. A Tip for Improved Balance

Some people flail about on wobble boards. Some paddle about on Swiss balls. Others stumble to work on stilts. I have found that to start with, however, the low tech option is the most useful. Simply stand on one foot until you can stand without perceptible traffic signaling for over one minute. Then do it with a slightly bent leg, and then progress to doing it with your eyes shut. After a couple of months you can experiment with moving your head up and down, side to side, moving your other limbs etc. When this isn’t so much of a challenge you can graduate to wobble boards and Swiss balls. Those Swiss sure do have balls. I sometimes brush my teeth, wait for the bus and even go to the toilet standing on one foot. Simply hours of fun. (Although only recommended for the true gentlemen.)

Before too long you’ll notice big improvements, and the interesting thing is it doesn’t seem to bear too much relationship to strength. I go through periods without training where my strength gains reverse but my balance stays as was. Balance is for life, not just for Christmas.

4. A Tip for Connected Dancing

Here is something simple you can do to increase the connection between you and your partner when leading modern jive and most other partner dances. Simply make sure the leading hand is at about the waist height or lower of the follower. I normally look for the forearm to be about parallel with the floor or slopping slightly downwards. I could explain why this works, but I would rather you just try it and see for yourself. Takes some getting used to, as most men hold their arm too high. It must be the excitement.

5. The Embrace Broken Down

The standard embrace we normally start with has the leaders right hand on the ladies left shoulder blade, and his left hand at her shoulder height. Followers can place their left hand on the guys shoulder or cup his bicep, depending on which is more comfortable, and rest their left arm on his. Elbows can stay down and relaxed in this style, and try to always start with your weight well over your toes. Remember, the embrace is one kind of frame as is malleable – it will adapt and change depending on the moves you are dancing, unlike the frame you may see in some ballroom dances which appears to be more consistent.

6. Some Tips for Looking More Refined on the Dance Floor

If your hand is on your partners back (in a close embrace, for example) close your fingers so they are touching. Spread fingers look messy and look like you are going for a grope, and they are more likely to uncomfortably dig into your partners back.

Keep your chin up. You can still look down with your eyes, but tilting your whole head down is no good for your posture or your image!

If you are much taller than your partner, adjust your arms so they are comfortable for them, but don’t compromise your posture!

Keep your spare arm above your waist line. You don’t have to do anything special with it, but a dangling arm can look uncontrolled and careless.

Brush your thighs together between steps. Not a rigid rule, but try to avoid the wet knickers look, unless you’ve got wet knickers, in which case you should probably stop dancing until they dry.

If you often get wet knickers, make a habit of packing a spare pair of knickers.

7. Posture Tip for Dancers!

Are you sitting up straight? Good! So now listen. There are lots of differing opinions on what perfect posture is and how to achieve it. But one simple way to progress in this area is to find some simple reference points.

A useful one I sometimes think of is ‘ears over shoulders’. This brings your head back in line with your spine and lengthens your neck. Do not go too far, or you get a double chin. Just so you can feel the difference between where you should be and where you could be, take your head too far back, and notice how far back you can go. Now take it too far forward, then too far back again. Do this several times very quickly, especially if you are reading this in an open plan office. Great. You look really silly. Kind of like a chicken.

Have you ever looked at a chicken and thought, hey, that chicken has really good posture.?

Well. Do not waste more time staring at chickens.

8. Improve your Concentration and Strengthen your Pelvic Floor!

The Water UK Website reckons that you can get a 10% improvement in mental performance after drinking a glass of water ... and feel the effects within 2 minutes! So bring along plenty of bottled water to the Jango Intensive, and keep hydrated.

A word of warning, however. You may think, hmm, 10% improvement with one glass of water… no doubt that would be a 20% increase with two glasses. In fact, why dally about with it. Skull all ten and get the 100% increase all in one go! Every two minutes. Genius.

Well, I tried that, and it does not work. All your extra concentration is wasted holding onto your bladder. And when you are not rushing to the toilet, you are rushing to fill up your water bottle. Stick to 10%. It will go further.

9. How to Perform your Best

Can you remember a time when everything flowed? You felt on balance, you felt connected, you felt creative and contented? Well, chances are you were not thinking about anything I have said, or anyone else for that matter. You may not have been conscious of thinking anything at all! Sometimes everything seems to simply click into place and you can not be sure why.

Well, sometimes the best approach, after all the classes, tips and tantrums, is to simply remember the state we were in when we were dancing our best, and try to step back into it.

Before I perform I rarely concentrate on specifics that I learn in class. I bring up a time where I think I was performing at my best and try to recreate it in my head in as many details as possible. The internal dialogue I had, the way I held my body, my breathing, my thinking. Before too long I can get back into the same state where everything flows, or at least get closer to it than I was.

So although I send out tips like where to put your right hand this move, where to hold your head in that one, sometimes I would suggest to forget all that, and simply try to create a peak state of dancing excellence. (and if you don’t think you’ve ever had one, then I’m sure you can imagine something close!)

10. Leading from Your Body - A Game for all the Family

To find out what “Leading with the Body”; means in a Jango (tm) context, and in most forms of tango, try this fun and educational game:

Rest your right arm on the table in front of you.

You are going to learn two of ways to move your fingers towards you.

1. Slide your elbow towards you, but don't move your shoulder. You will notice that your fingers are now closer to you. You have moved your fingers, by leading with your arm.
Leading with your arm means your arms initiated the movement.

2. Put your arm back on the table at a comfortable distance. Now move your right shoulder back. In other words, twist your body to your right. This will drag your elbow along the table, which in turn will bring your fingers closer to you. You have moved you fingers, by leading with your body.
Leading with your body means your body initiated the movement.

Go back to the starting position, and now try these:

1. Push your hand across the table without moving your shoulders. This is leading with your arms.

2. Push your shoulder forward but don't let your hand move. This will cause your elbow to bend more. This is not leading. And it looks silly. Make sure no one is looking.

3. Push your shoulder forward. Maintain an equal distance between your shoulder and your hand. In other words, keep the angle of your elbow the same. This will make your hand move forward. This is leading with the body. This looks cool. Make sure somebody is watching. Grin at them and repeat three times. This is also considered using 'frame'.

Cool. Let’s take this lesson into a partner dance context. Let’s say I have my hands resting on a followers shoulders, and we're facing each other. I want her to move backwards. I can either;

1. Push my hands away, keeping my shoulder still. This is leading with my arms.

2. Move my shoulders forward, (step forward) whilst maintaining the tone and shape of my arms. This is leading with the body and using frame.

So you see, the follower is still following by virtue of the contact you have through your arms. You are still leading with your arms, but the movement is initiated through your body.

So what is the verdict?

That's right! This looks better, and feels better. These are the two criteria by which I judge the effectiveness of any given technique. Look out for other fun games in the Jango (tm) range including; Following with Frame, Walking with Style, and Chat Up Lines for the Verbally Challenged.

11. Dance Tip: Know Thyself!

One of the biggest problems I think dancers face is even when they know what to do, they don’t know if they are doing it or not! The difficulty is most apparent in beginners, and I’m sure you’ve all seen it. You will ask all the men to step forward on their left foot, and one or two step forward with the right. So you repeat ‘make sure you are forward on your left foot’ at which point these two look down at their feet, but not budge a muscle. So you then say, looking directly at them ‘swap you feet over.’ At which point they finally get it, and step forward on the left. In the mean time, one or two people who were initially on their left have swapped over too, and thus the endless cycle repeats! (Well it keeps me employed.)

Even professional dancers experience the same thing – but in smaller details: Watching yourself back on video you might see your posture wasn’t quite right, your shoulders tense, the placement of your feet cumbersome. You know about all these things, but that doesn’t mean you are doing them. Well here are a few tips to help improve your self awareness and proprioception:

Reflect Thyself

If you can dance or practice occasionally with a mirror that is obviously the easiest way to start to become self aware. Don’t get in a habit of always looking over your shoulder at yourself though! Besides dancing, check some of the important positions and poses to ensure you are making the shapes you are trying to. Check your posture, hip alignment, lines, foot placement and everything else you can remember your teacher harping on about, in static positions and then try to incorporate your own corrections whilst moving.

Record Thyself

A warning. Watching yourself dance is like hearing your own voice. Hardly anyone ever likes it. Even David Bowie, for example, has said he does not like his own voice. Some of you may think that shows good taste. Regardless, you need to be emotionally tough to watch yourself dance, but if you do, you can learn some important lessons about how you are actually dancing and what you might be able to do about it.

Don’t be too disappointed though; if you watch yourself and feel that it looks flat and lifeless, that has a lot to do with the fact that a TV screen is flat and lifeless. You will only ever see yourself in 2 dimensions, probably no more than a few inches tall; remember everyone else sees you in all three life sized dimensions, which is always more exciting.

Test Thyself

Can you do the move on your own? Take a pretzel, for example, a fairly basic Ceroc move. Not many guys can replicate their movements in a pretzel without a partner. Test yourself and see if you can dance ‘your part’ on a few basic moves, and how accurate you can be. If you can’t, start to build awareness of what you do when you do have a partner, and see if you can replicate it later. If you can do it alone then you will be able to improve your technique without a partner, and you will also be much more self-aware when there is. One of the best ways to be able to do this is to…

Decelerate Thyself

What ballet training does is break down very complex aerial movements into their components, and train each one in very structured and controlled way. This is what you see if you’ve ever watched dancers working at a barre. But you can do the same thing with all the tricky Jango displacements, foot sweeps etc. Just practice doing them very slowly, both with a partner and without. Piano players will first learn to play a new piece very slowly, but correctly, and then speed up. Most people I see practicing don’t ever go slow enough to give themselves time to correct their mistakes.