Tango vs. Tempo

[RoninX]

OK, so this is a kinda wierd question:

How may fencers out there would consider themselves good dancers?


The back story on this is that my wife who fences recreationally likes to dance, and has talked me in to taking a few informal lessons - and I'm a terrible stuctured dancer (latin, swing, ballroom etc...)

I'm a life long athlete, I've been playing sports as long as I can remember and have always picked up physical and sports games faster than anyone I know. However, to me, most sports are about establishing and then breaking tempos. There are some athletic events (track, swimming) that are about maintaining tempo but are really about yourself for the most part and whether your individual achievement is better/faster than anothers - they are not confrontationally competitive, rather the cometition is oblique. Basically you are not allowed to affect your competitors directly so no breaking tempo (either yours or theirs).

Anyway the sports and games I've always been best at are those where you actively engage an opponent (like when fencing!), on the surface this seems to be somewhat similar to dancing since you are afterall engaging a partner and doing footwork. However my natural tendancy seems to be to break tempo, which aggrevates my wife to no end when she tries to get me to dance.

Valid hypothesis or B.S. excuse?

[Fencergrl]

I vote BS… I too have been playing sports my whole life and I love dancing.

Sports and dancing both require a certain amount of coordination and getting your body to move in a certain way. So suck it up, learn to dance and make your wife happy.

Hey, perhaps once you get through the initial awkwardness of learning the moves (like any sport) you might find you enjoy dancing after all.

[RoninX]

I vote BS… I too have been playing sports my whole life and I love dancing.

Sports and dancing both require a certain amount of coordination and getting your body to move in a certain way. So suck it up, learn to dance and make your wife happy.

Hey, perhaps once you get through the initial awkwardness of learning the moves (like any sport) you might find you enjoy dancing after all.

See, here the thing, I'm not trying to boast but I've always been a natural at anything physical. I have never really had an "initial awkwardness" towards any sport I can think of - at least compared to other beginners. I often plateau after a few months and am used to having to work hard to *actually* become good at sports, rather than just "good for a beginner". None the less I have never had the issues with any physical activity that I've had with dance.

Now clearly I've finally met my match in terms of coordination with this "dancing" thing but I'll press on.

[melihop]

lol i do swing and ballroom.. i also fence.. neither i am amazing at... but both.. i enjoy and do them both quite often.. a lot of my fenicng friends enjoy dancing and will come social dancing with me from time to time.. and a lot of my dancing friends find try fencnig and find that they are allready speanding too much moneyon private lessons and costumes for dance to continue but they enjoy it...

I often will use fencing footwork to help new dancers learn the steps (expecially to swing and hustle) like if you have an advance lunge all same speed... thats the same way you do a tripple step, to make your feet point foward.. and do me an advance lunge with no change of tempo.... ok.. now make a lazy lunge.. ok.. now just make it an advance step.. ok.. now step step step without feet together. there you go.. you got a triple step! lol...

dancing - much the same way as fenicng is different from the way that most people move, makes you learn a new way how.. i am a person who can't walk and chew gunm at the same time (they make me spit it out for fenicng.. and dancing as well) but.. i can fence.. and i am alright.. and i can dance... (partner dancing... ballroom swing etc... not like.. grinding.. beacuse.. ew no thanks)

it took me about hte same time to be comfortble with fenicng footwork and basic swing.. about 2-3 months before i really felt like i knew what i was doing.. i have been danicng for a year and a half now.. and i have yet to meet a person who can't learn basic swing, or waltz... if they want to learn.... part of the problem may be that you arn't used to the music.. or not enough one on one attention with a teacher.. or.. you just get frustraited with yourself beacuse your wife is so above your current skill level. you can try getting pack of 6-10 private lessons with your wife and a teacher.. and than you can practice with her at home away from the social dance floor- less stressful this way...

[Fencergrl]

I've always been a natural at anything physical.

I hear what you’re saying. It’s been the same with me too, sports (especially involving hand-eye coordination) has always come easy for me.

It’s hard not to just give up when you come across something that doesn’t “click” right away. Structured dancing takes a while to get the hang of it, but I’m sure with time, you’ll feel more comfortable and your wife’s feet will be happier.

[RITFencing]

I'm a halfway decent fencer, but I can't dance for crap, probably because I never learned how. I still enjoy trying, though, and I'm glad I got over my own self conciousness enough to get out on the floor.

[bmcfencer]

RoninX, I feel your pain. Though my problem is rather the opposite, since I have 17 years of dance training.... There is something opposed in those two... ballroom would have a more obvious link but my modern dance training is always getting in the way- I move too fluidly and tend to fall too easily into tempos. Also it took me forever to get used to only moving in one plane on one level.

I've just started sailing and one of my instructors keeps telling us it's "like a dance" and it is... but my dance training keeps tripping me up when we're rocking to get going in a calm and I get distracted and balance the boat instead of helping to rock it. Argh.

I think I've posted before my theory that ballet dancers make good epeeists.

So what weapon do ballroom/ swing dancers fence?

(oh yeah, and I'm a terrible swing dancer too, except for the lifts. I'm too centered for the spinny bits. annoying. When I go to dances at penn the guys are always like "you haven't, by any chance, ever taken ballet, have you?")

[RoninX]

I often will use fencing footwork to help new dancers learn the steps (expecially to swing and hustle) like if you have an advance lunge all same speed... thats the same way you do a tripple step, to make your feet point foward.. and do me an advance lunge with no change of tempo.... ok.. now make a lazy lunge.. ok.. now just make it an advance step.. ok.. now step step step without feet together. there you go.. you got a triple step! lol...

So here is the crux... when practicing, with straight beat or with music or whatever i can carry out steps, spins whatever. Its when I actually go to dance, with loud music and a dance floor I mentally shift into 'competition' mode and thats when I just can't seem to keep a tempo because every fiber of my being is screaming that I should break tempo or I'll get touched/hit/scored on/tackled etc...

...and yes I realized that for many people the object of dancing is to get touched/hit/score/tackled blah blah blah...

[melihop]

I hope you don't mind, i reposted tihs at a dance forum that i go to... this is what the dancers have to say!

http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=12527

[melihop]

So here is the crux... when practicing, with straight beat or with music or whatever i can carry out steps, spins whatever. Its when I actually go to dance, with loud music and a dance floor I mentally shift into 'competition' mode and thats when I just can't seem to keep a tempo because every fiber of my being is screaming that I should break tempo or I'll get touched/hit/scored on/tackled etc...

...and yes I realized that for many people the object of dancing is to get touched/hit/score/tackled blah blah blah...

what happens when you dance to the same music.. at home.. in your kitchen or basement or whatever?

[RoninX]

what happens when you dance to the same music.. at home.. in your kitchen or basement or whatever?

Interesting question, but I live in a smallish apartment with no real room for dancing.

[melihop]

Interesting question, but I live in a smallish apartment with no real room for dancing.

i would suggest trying it somewhere else.. quiet.... do you have like.. a basketball court that you could steal for a few hours.. a hall.. a fencing club with a wood floor.. umm... a park..... lots of places.. just bring a cd player and try.. with no one else around..

[Go? Fencing?]

Think of dancing with a partner like keeping distance with your opponent, or (because there's the issue of leading in dancing) like helping a beginning fencer learn distance, where you kinda have to make sure things are a little more obvious for her to get the hang of it.

[Zasha]

i'm a good dancer, but not because i'm actually graceful. i'm not. but i've been dancing for jeez..almost ten years now. i'm pretty good with a partner.
but fencing is not dance, so i have tend to have trouble keeping track of my limbs. i won't fence to a beat, but if you put music on, i will attempt to dance and fence at the same time.

[RoninX]

I hope you don't mind, i reposted tihs at a dance forum that i go to... this is what the dancers have to say!

http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=12527

This was a really interesting link, thanks for posting it there. It seems that most of the dancers though had little concept of breaking tempo. Alot of success in sports is about acting when it is unexpected either a beat early or a beat late. Coming off the ball just a beat before the play starts, but not so early that the whistle blows, have either the explosion or slight delay to put back a rebound in traffic without getting it swatted down your throat.

Because of my sports background this idea of breaking tempo is what is natural. It is different from not being able to follow a beat, it is following a beat and having to work actively to keep from subconsciously avoiding the beat. It not like I am trying to compete with my wife on the dance floor, it is just that my natural inclinations are to do the opposite of what I know I should be doing.

Clearly it is a habit to break...

[BrianH]

This is to me a really interesting discussion; thanks, Ro, for bringing it up. It seems to me Mel has some good ideas, and reading her dance forum thread made me realize that a lot of dance is non-verbal communication: we're going to dip here, twirl here, slow down a bit, whatever (I may be the world's worst dancer, by the way). And much of fencing is deliberate miscommunication. I want you to think I am going to counterattack, or do a circular parry 6, then I react to your reaction. I can't for the life of me memorize a series of dance steps, but I can plan out a complicated second-intention attack, and even better, implement it. Oh well, I'd rather be a good fencer than dancer, though I love to watch dancers move more than I enjoy watching fencing.

[Epee_Pox]

I've always been a good dancer, which I tend to think comes from good awareness of where the various bits of my body happen to be at any given moment. It just comes easily.

However, I have friends who do stage/performance dancing like ballet and broadway, and they are almost uniformly awful when it comes to partner dancing -- they can't follow a lead well, and they have a hard time maintaining a 3-beat rhythm to 4-beat music (typical of swing, hustle, foxtrot, etc.). And their body awareness is very very good. So I guess there's more to it than that.

[counter riposte]

OK, Mel, next time I'm in CT, we've gotta go dance.

That having been said, I think that dance is a great compliment to fencing. Dancing is all about timing, tempo and most importantly, taking lead....

Dancers know about how to develop time, develop tempo and the footwork which goes along with it. Some of the best fencers I've seen on the strip also dance.

When I was in San Diego, one of my clubmates took ballet prior to fencing. His advances and Balestras were smooth and elegant to the point of looking like piruets and graceful dance moves.

This also gave him the feeling of time and tempo, when the action is complete, how far is the distance, when the right of way begins again, when to cut in.

Taking the lead is also important to fencing... this allows you to set up a move, and TAKE TEMPO.... Leading your opponent up and down a strip will teach that tempo, and how to cut into that lead.

After all, Who else can break a lead better than a dancer?

[KD5MDK]

Dance just about never taught me to follow; I can do it if I try, but really, I'm a leader.

So what weapon do ballroom/ swing dancers fence?

Swing seems foilish to me. Tango is... where I get my slow sabre from. Polka is where I get my fast sabre.

[DHCJr]

This thread is an interesting thread and I did like bringing the information of the dance forum. The part of this being a team event was very good.

A number have talked about Ballet. It would be interesting to note that both Ballet and the Sport of Fencing were pushed forward by the same French King, I believe was Louis XIV. Look at the 5 positions of Ballet and then look at the positions of fencing.

The breaking tempo can be linked to the type and style of dance. Besides Tango, West-Coast Swing is always breaking tempo.

When I teach dancing, I introduce the concept it is a language; a very polite language. The leader should never demand the other do something; they should request and the follower should not just follow, but should answer back.

I do fairly well at dancing, but my fencing not so well. I believe I analyze to much instead of reacting. Which is strange as I react well at dancing without analyzing, but for me dancing is not a competition and I am not a competitor.