Frederic Barbe : swing dancing and performance training

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Swing pratices from January 22nd to January 28th 2012

This is a summary of my practices during the first week with my new trainee Kathleen.

Fred Barbe

Personal Website

Friday, January 27, 2012

Exactly like you...never gets old!

It's so hard to find good slow songs for beginner dancers. For some reason, I still enjoy this one very much.

Frédéric Barbe

Thursday, January 26, 2012

And the classes begin!

This is my first week teaching for the winter session. Last week, I was a bit worried about the numbers, for January is supposed to be the biggest session of the year and we were barely breaking even. I forgot all about that meeting my old and new students. I love teaching so much!

Swing Intermediate last Tuesday

I challenged myself to teach the fundamentals of Lindy Hop in 4 classes and I succeeded last session. That 1st class was about getting a good stretch & release feeling from the 3-4 position in the swing out. Of course, we are not doing swing out yet, but we taught several movements using that position and feeling to get ready for what is coming.

We also introduced them to the concept of walking forward/backward instead of rock stepping all the time. This is tough for beginner dancers and I have been wondering how to make it easier. The longer you wait before teaching it, the harder it gets for the students to get it. I could decide to mix everything from the start, but it sounds to me awfully difficult if the priority in the Swing Beginner level is to make them dance.

Swing Beginner yesterday

That class was small, but those new people rocked it hard. I knew that at least 3 of them already have dance experience, so we prepared a lot of hot options to show either to everybody or just some of them. We taught everything we prepared including some Charleston turns pretty tricky. Everybody got it and the guys weer even able to mix their stuff and create new combos. How awesome is that?!

Frédéric Barbe

Monday, January 23, 2012

Square one...again!

It is so rare to find someone dedicated to swing dancing as much as I am and it is not getting any better. Even when Patricia was in town, we would dance maybe once a week, so I had to rely on ''practice followers'' which is fine. I have been looking for another follows for a long time, but I have always ended with the same situation : most people don't want to work as hard as I do on dancing. Even with a follow already at an international level, it will go nowhere if we don't work regularly on our material and partnership. I have established a basic protocol that I have refined over the years consisting of 3 dance training and 2-3 workout (pre-hab/strength + motor skills) per week. My bet is that I can take a skillful girl and bring her to a competition level within 6 to 8 months. What I have been neglected is the psychological aspect. Girls have a tendency to put a lot of pressure on themselves, especially if she is your girlfriend (my bad). Therefore, I incorporated some tactics such as tracking the results. The trainee can follow her progress with objective tools and can keep her motivation to the roof. Of course, all that is still theoretical and has yet to be proven.

I failed with Isabelle after 3-4 months and now I am at square one again with a new trainee Kathleen. I will keep you posted!

Frédéric Barbe

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Craving for binge day.....

Finaly it's there! I don't mind the beans, meat and veggies all week long, but for some reason, every Friday, I'm craving for sugar. I don't miss the bread or the milk or the cheese or the pasta, but sugar... My mom added some honey in my milk when I was a baby and it stayed I guess! Today's menu :

Sugar pie (yes the whole pie)
Bag of potato chips
Kraft diner
A date at some Indian restaurant

Butter chicken, it's going to be you and me tonight!

Frédéric Barbe