Prácticas for guys

Ron Frazier

People asking for help from good social dancers, as opposed to it being imposed on them by bad ones, is extraordinarily rare, even in prácticas. People usually use practicas to dance, which points to a greater desire for social dancing than a desire to learn. That's fine. Most people don't want to learn after a certain point, they want to dance.

I wish people were more autonomous though.  New people often go to teachers they know nothing or next to nothing about, to learn, rather than assessing which social dancers feel best and asking them. I guess it's that issue, especially for guys, of not being able to get started, from scratch, socially.

A friend whose partner is a counsellor was telling me that his competitors often don't charge for a first consultation.  He is busy and charges because he can.  He finds if they pay for that first investment they tend to stay. When you offer a free session people often don't stick around.  It is that old idea that free stuff is not valued.  I find it amazing that when I ran a free práctica, I had fewer new people than when I run a class. In the practica you could get free, individual help.  Now I have a sizeable class, my attention is more divided, people get less individual help and yet are willing to pay (it's ridiculously cheap - £5 for an hour's class & 2 hours of practica, £3 practica only).  

Many women, maybe most women, pick up dance easily with experienced partners. I often feel like saying to many of the women: Really, you don't need to be here. Actually, I did say that, to a superb new dancer, just the other week. I danced with her and after no time at all could (and did) say: "You don't need me. You could dance socially straight away." I regularly do say to women, especially young women - go to the milonga, with friends, talk to people and you will get dancing very quickly. But maybe class is a kind of security blanket.

The ideal beginner situation for me would be a práctica for guys or people who want to learn the guiding role dancing with experienced guys and women who can guide well. I say women who can guide, but I mean those who haven't learned as most of them do, the manipulative, "thinking" way of executing moves from class, the same way most guys learn. There are women in the guiding role who practically have thought bubbles above their heads.

In this scenario, beginners in the guiding role wouldn't go near women until they have danced together and become good. But I'm not brave enough to do a práctica for those wanting to llevar, not yet anyway. The system that is going is getting many new people dancing, far more than came to the old práctica, but I guess this crowd didn't know about it.

Besides, some of the guys probably come to class because there are women to dance with. In fact, they do, because last week I got the guys to try dancing together, with the option to sit out, and after trying it to one track, at least 1/7, sat down when it came to swap. And yet, not all feel that way, I know.

Having danced with each other I am sure the men better appreciate the extraordinary gift that women (in the traditional role) are to men in dance.

And if they experience being poked, "driven", controlled, otherwise physically manipulated, or have moves performed on them that reduces or removed their agency they might, realising what that's like, think twice about doing it themselves