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Thifty Hopping: Thigpen’s ILHC LED talk

I wrote in an older blog post, that eventually I would get around to writing about Andrew Thigpen’s talk Thrifty Hopping at ILHC this past August.  If you would like to see the whole presentation he used, you can click on this link.

Below are the three main points I got out of the talk, for those who only want a quick summary. The TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read) version will be for the rest of you after that.

Three Points I Got From the Talk

  1. If you procrastinate on making preparations for attending an event, you pay for it.
  2. Learn how to wisely spend money at events/in general.
  3. Know what you want, so you can get the most out of your money.

TL;DR Breakdown

1. If you procrastinate on making preparations for attending an event, you pay for it.

Many people get indecisive about events, especially when they are on the same weekend. A perfect example of this out East is Jammin On the James and Hi-De-Hon (Baltimore Lindy Exchange) happening next week. I know several people who are still deciding which event to go to.  However lets say they decide to attend Jammin On the James. Housing filled up a week ago, so because they decided late most likely they will have to pay for a hotel room, which can be easily be 100+ dollars for the weekend.

To make this sink in, lets say I want to go to the Lone Star Championships. We will do a comparison of how much it would cost me if I prepared as early as possible to the situation if I wait until the last minute.

Type of Expense Early as Possible Last Minute
Registration 99 149
Flight 311 493
Food 120 180
Total $530 $822

For the flights I did a comparison of booking a flight for this weekend to Austin, compared to the date of the actual event. For food I did a comparison of eating out every meal (average of $15 per meal) compared to $30 a day, assuming one went to a local supermarket to stock up on food and only occasionally eat out a few times the weekend.

Savings = $292

So in short the longer you wait to make arrangements for events, the more likely you are to not be able to afford to go to other ones.

2. Learn how to wisely spend money at events/in general.

In his talk, Thigpen mentions eliminating “shadow” expenses. Basically the random unnecessary purchases you make on based impulse decisions. While frequently small, they can quickly add up and cost you potential swing dance events in the long run. Perfect example is this hand-puppet I have been wanting to get. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Hell yes.

A way mentioned in the talk to save money at an event is limiting or eliminating eating out. If you are at a hotel event and eat out in the hotel every day, it is going to get expensive fast. But if you go to a nearby grocery store and get some food, you save a considerable amount of money.  This effect multiplies when you apply it to your everyday life. There are other ways to cut corners as well mentioned in Thigpen’s slides such as volunteering, not competing when it is expensive and et cetera. One way I have gotten into two events for free as a college student was finding events that gave scholarships/had raffles for free passes for college students and applying for them.

Also remember everything has an opportunity cost. Say you get a brand new television for the Superbowl that runs you about $600 dollars. In result you are now unable to attend several swing dance events because you used that cash. However it doesn’t just apply to money, often it can come to a situation of attending an event that has a great band versus an event that has competitions and long time friends you haven’t seen where there is an emotional opportunity cost. So when choosing to spend your money, pick things that will give you the most return for your buck which leads to the last point.

3. Know what you want, so you can get the most out of your money.

Do you ever have days that you think, “Man, I really want to spend money on something I don’t really want”. I’m going to guess no, yet oddly a lot of people will attend events not just in general but in the swing dance world based on just because its convenient or a friend is going even though it does not align up with their interests at all.

Like in Thigpen’s talk, listing out what you want is a great idea. I’ve done this like in the slides below:

Apache’s Event Preferences:

  • Has Lindy Hop, Balboa and/or Collegiate Shag
  • Party Atmosphere and/or Serious Learning Atmosphere
  • Has Some Form of Competitions
  • Has Either High Level of Dancers and/or Dancers I Know

Events I Have Attended Recently:

  • Camp Hollywood, ILHC, Lindustrial Revolution

In addition to knowing what you want, one thing definitely to do is research what people who have attended it think so you know the event fits what you are looking for. Ask friends you know who have attended the event, search on yehoodi or post a topic about it, look for event videos on youtube, just do whatever it takes so you don’t blindly make a decision.

Posted on by Apache · 3 Comments

But All The Cats Like To Shag

Collegiate Shag is a dance that I am more than happy to dance.  However the issue I have when I am living in the East Coast, is finding someone to dance it with. [1]

Often I will find people all over the East Coast that say the line, “Well it looks fun and I would love to learn Shag, but I have no one to teach it in my area”. Well with the list of learning resources below, you are out of excuses!

Collegiate Shag Learning Videos

Arthur Murray

  • This 1937 clip was the video I used when I attempted to teach myself shag in Pennsylvania. Although not the clearest video, it does give you the basic double shag rhythm and a few technical pointers.

Johnny Lee and Rebecca Williams

  • These three videos feature Johnny Lee and Rebecca Williams from The 9:20 Special down in San Francisco. What I like is how the videos are progressive. This way you can work on basics and once you get more comfortable with them try more difficult material.

David & Chelsea Lee

  • These two videos feature David & Chelsea Lee from the Jam Cellar down in Washington D.C. The first video is particularly helpful for users for two reasons. First because it zooms in on the feet. [2] Lastly it also covers what to do if you mess up, which is frequent if you are new to the dance.

Ryan Martin and Tracy Owen

  • These last two videos feature Ryan Martin and Tracy Owen from Austin, Texas.  They are particularly useful because they cover technique, which is invaluable. [3]

So, if you’ve reached the end of this post. Stop reading, grab a friend and learn some Collegiate Shag!

Footnotes:

[1] For the most part I usually have to drive 3-4 hours (Philly/Washington D.C./New York) to find other Shag dancers out of my local scene.

[2] My biggest pet peeve for online videos are the ones that are teaching footwork variations and they are fully zoomed out.

[3] I’m actually somewhat jealous these last two videos were not online when I started learning Collegiate Shag. They would have saved me a lot of headaches and not looking like a flailing monkey in Virginia.

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Teaching Tool: Positive Reinforcement

One of the things I have seen teachers I admire do, is when teaching a class and they see someone doing something well, to acknowledge it in front of the class and in some cases have that person demonstrate it for the class.

What I have noticed when observing students who have this happen to them (and what I experienced the one time it happened to me):

  1. They get ecstatic. Lets face it, who doesn’t like positive attention.
  2. They usually become even more confident in the move or technique you were teaching to the class.
  3. You usually have a better chance of retaining them as a student.

In the case of point three, the few times I have done this when teaching at my college scene, I have usually seen the student I complimented stay the rest of the series and/or stay longer for the social dance in comparison to other students in the class.

Now I am not saying insincerely shower your students with compliments on a consistent basis.

I swear this wasn't hastily altered in paint....

Besides being facetious , students will eventually pick up your compliments hold no value. But if you see a student doing something well in your class, acknowledge it. It will make them a happy camper and more confident in their dancing abilities.

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Conviction

One of the most common sentences I hear from mainly intermediate level dancers is,

I wish I could get better at dancing but, x…

Variable x can fall anywhere in the list of; I don’t have enough time, I am in an isolated scene, I don’t have someone to mentor me, I didn’t start young enough, and et cetera.

Newsflash, for the majority of dancers there are only two situations here:

  1. You have other priorities in life that overshadow dancing, which is perfectly understandable.
  2. You are just lazy and making excuses to cover up your lack of motivation.

Soapbox Rant (Don’t say I didn’t warn you)

To get on my soapbox for a bit, there are many dancers out there who I respect and they have a borderline, if not obsessive conviction that they will improve their dancing. In result they dedicate massive amounts of time and effort toward that goal.

One of my huge pet peeves is when people complain about how they don’t have enough time to improve or make other similar excuses. For the majority of them its not, they don’t have the time. Its they would rather watch House on their couch or Skype with friends then practice their triple steps and swing-outs.

Lazy Cat
Lazy Cat wants to watch House instead of working on swingouts.

When people make excuses, at least to me they cheapen the dedication and sacrifices those dancers I respect made, I find it insulting. [/end_rant]

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Happy Accidents

About a little over a year and a half ago, I first came across the clip Jammin’ The Blues, which featured amazing dancing by Archie Savage and Marie Bryant.

I immediately got infatuated with the crazy switches he does at 1:05, in which he is almost touching the ground. After I went through a phase that I tried to lead them constantly on the social dance floor.

One night when I was dancing at a venue in California, I accidentally lost my balance and fell to the floor on one knee while trying to do Archie’s switches. Like most men when lost and confused, I pretended nothing was awry and kept going with the move. To my astonishment I found out it worked perfectly on one knee and my follow seemed to have a blast with it.

One quote that really strikes me for these type of situations is from the television series The Joy of Painting,

“We don’t have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents.” – Bob Ross

Who knows, maybe one day your “happy accident” will come in handy…

lindustrial
Knee switches at the Lindustrial Revolution
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Rekindling the Spark

The other night while googling my club (Penn State Swing Dance Club) for fun, I found out we recently had a sister club pop into existence. This club was Penn State Altoona Swing Dance club, formed at one of Penn State’s branch campuses, about fourty minutes south-west of State College.

I was having a stressful week so I decided to take a mini vacation. So I grabbed three other members from my own club and made the trek down to Altoona. As expected it was a smaller club, with a lesson in East Coast Swing, and mostly neo-swing DJ’ed during the social dance. But I had a great time! Most of the people there absolutely new dancers that had a lot of positive energy, were excited to dance, and seemed happy to be there.

It  brought me back to the actual lecture part from Mark Kihara’s LED talk (before the karaoke shannagins) at ILHC in which he talked about the importance of remembering its not how good/bad you or the other person is, how great the music is, but most importantly having fun during the dance. Often when I come back from big events like ILHC or even return from California, I unfortunately get this sense of snobbish bitterness because the music or type of dancing isn’t my preference. This trip was a great reminder to me of why I dance, to have fun and to share the joy of dancing with other people.

Posted on by Apache · 2 Comments

ILHC: Its Called YES

If you have been wondering for the last week why some people on lindy related internet sites or on facebook have been posting comments such as, “Yes, yes, yes, yes […], yes” or “Lets put the fork in the garbage disposal” or “Stop I lost my contact”. It was due to the last routine in the Cabaret division at ILHC, known as the Yes dance.

In the words of Bobby White from Swungover,

If for some reason you wanted to see 30 of the top Lindy Hoppers in the country get half naked and pretend they’re gay, the Cabaret is for you. It also included a small dog.

(Warning: May be NSFW)

Apparently my obsessive reading of every link the ILHC newsletter paid off, because I able to shout along and do half the dance moves while in the crowd.

If you want to see the original video it is listed here: (Warning: May be NSFW)

Posted on by Apache · 4 Comments

ILHC: Aftermath

It feels almost odd going back into the usual routine of sleeping at regular hours and attending classes after the awesomeness known as ILHC (International Lindy Hop Championships).

ILHC
ILHC

Several other people such as Rik from The Click Heard Round the World and Robert E. Lee the III Bobby White from Swungover have wrote about their experiences during or after the event. But I will give you my view, as my one friend put it, from a “bi-coastal” college swing dancer’s perspective.

Competitions

Like Rik wrote in his blog, each competition was a blast to watch. Unlike some other events where going to hang out at the jacuzzi may seem like a better idea then some of the competitions,  I wanted to have a good view for every single competition that weekend.

I also pitied the judges, it seemed for the most part everybody were throwing down their best in each competition. Even Sylvia Sykes was complaining of how difficult it was to judge the Strictly Balboa finals during her LED talk on Saturday.

The biggest moment for me, which has been the buzz of the internet Lindy world was the “The History of Lindy Hop” performance by Andrew Thigpen and Karen Turman. Besides being amazing, receiving a standing ovation, and causing Steven Mitchell to peel over in laughter, one of the more important effects I have noticed not just in my local scene, but on a national level is people are researching dance clips due their performance.  To have a routine have such a profound effect on the community is more important then any piece of plastic in my book.

I also ended up participating in the Open Jack & Jill, due to the deal I got with my registration. From an organizational standpoint  I thought it was well run. They made sure everyone in my heat was in the right order, with the right number while the previous heat was out on the floor, and had multiple points of check-ins to ensure a minimum of no shows. I had a blast drawing a follow from New York, and two follows from Canada (It seems I can never run away from Canadians).

Classes

In total I ended up attending about six classes at ILHC, and watching two additional ones. Frankly I was surprised because for a competition weekend the classes were amazing. The bar was not lowered for any classes and even the intermediate classes were taught at a level where they expected you to know swingouts, a small repertoire of jazz steps and common moves. Probably having a killer lineup of instructors and the fact that the majority of dancers attending this event were fairly decent helped as well.

LED Talks

The talks were a great alternative to classes for those who wanted a break or preferred not to take them. I plan to do a later blog post about Andrew Thigpen’s talk about Thrifty Hopping a.k.a. how to attend more dance events. While most of it was common sense, was a good reminder of how laziness and last minute or impulsive spending can affect your attendance at swing events in the future.

Another memorable LED of the weekend was Mark Kihara’s talk on trying things in 3 minutes or lesson. This consisted of him giving away free beer and wine, then having open karaoke, which resulted in Nina Gilkenson singing the infamous Dirty Dancing song “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” and Andrew Thigpen and Bobby Bonsey reenacting the lift from the film. Hopefully that will be on the youtubes soon.

I could go on about the rest but it would take too much time, I can only hope they build on the talks next year.

Social Dancing

Having some of the best swing bands in the world (Jonathan Stout and His Campus 5 featuring Hilary Alexander, The Boilermaker Jazz Band featuring Naomi Uyama, and The Rhythm Cats & Gordon Webster helped to create some awesome nights of dance. I also liked how the sets were nestled in between competitions so you could dance your heart out then recover for energy during the comps. What was also awesome was how friendly everyone was at the dances, I had several follows who were at a much higher level of dancing and occasionally from different countries ask me to dance.

The only detraction I would say is the dance floor was smaller then Camp Hollywood, but you can’t have everything I suppose.

Fun Moments and Overall Experience

ILHC was a unique and inspiring event for me. One of the more amusing moments was when I wore my Quebec shirt I got from Benjamin Ricard in D.C. on Saturday, then having several people approach me and starting chatting in French.

For those of you wondering why the ILHC Cabaret division isn’t on youtube yet, i’m guessing its due to another memorable moment of the weekend known as the “Yes Dance”. (Apparently clicking every link in the ILHC newsletter was not a waste of time on my part.)

What was interesting was for all it had to offer, I never felt overwhelmed like I am at many other workshop weekends/exchanges/camps which is a testament to how well organized the event was.

If you missed out this year, I recommend you check it out in 2011.

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ILHC: Update During the Madness

So for those of you who have been living in a cave, this weekend is ILHC (International Lindy Hop Championships). Being my first time at this event, it is a blast and I am glad I chose it as my last hurrah before the college semester swallows me whole.  But I will post some quick things that stood out for myself from the event below:

  1. LED (Lindy Enlightment Dialogue) talks have been a nice break from classes. They have ranged from Skye Humphries explaining why Charlie Chaplin inspires him to Mark Kihara giving away free booze and having open mic karaoke.
  2. Hearing people in the crowd cheering/heckling their friends in different languages. My attempts to learn French paid off when I somehow was seated in the middle of the French-Canadian section for the heckling/cheering en Francais during Pro-Am division today.
  3. Dancing to live music from an assortment of musicians/dancers from 2 am – 4 am in the morning. Part of keeping the “street dancers” cred is apparently dancing in carpet next to the elevators instead of the main floor.
  4. Learning a move called “The Bernie” from Stephen and Bethany, who learned it from Minn Vo, which is named after a dancer from San Francisco. How everyone in the scene manages to know each other never ceases to amaze me.
  5. Having everyone in the Open J&J/Advanced J&J/Pro|Am/Balboa J&J for the day competitors meeting attempting to cram into a room intended for only about 70 people.
  6. Hearing Bobby White Robert E. Lee the Third’s from Swungover full name pronounced in every other competition.

Anyways, Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five featuring Hilary Alexander will be playing tonight so I have to go prepped for that. Exciting since Josh Callazo will be in the mix after his hiatus this past summer!

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Making the Most out of a Lesson

Recently I have been trying to adopt a positive attitude when I take lessons which is, “No matter what the situation, give it my best attempt“.

Many students, including myself in the past have made excuses for not getting something out of a lesson. While those can be in reality detrimental conditions to your lesson, there are still things one can do to learn and improve regardless of the situation.

One of the best pieces of advice I got this summer was from a local instructor in California, James Bianco who said something to the effect of, “If you try you can make a group lesson into a private lesson for yourself.” I try to keep this in mind. If I am taking a lesson in something I have previously learned, I try to emulate the instructor exactly. That exercise can be insanely difficult but a great learning experience.

So if you are taking a lesson anytime soon, keep an optimistic view and don’t let excuses get in the way of your learning.