Sway

So i recently made a new friend who too is a dancer, so we talk all day about dance and have the greatest laugh. I mentioned yesterday, because we are both considering applying to a college in the south of Ireland which has a lot of heavy ballet, that I have a swayed back, to which he replied "Your joking right? Oh my god this is crazy so do I". We have a lot in common, both contemporary dancers and both got injured and out of dance for a while.

But this blog is about sway backs. Dictionary.com defines a "swayed back" as a "Veterinary Pathology" and the noun means "an excessive downward curvature of the spinal column in the dorsal region, esp. of horses."

My friend was proud of his sway, demanding that it made our fifths tighter and I didn't disagree. But then I got thinking "sway backs are not desirable", which they aren't, they kill pirouettes and ballet teachers will do everything short of beating it out of you? For him he has embraced it and looked on the bright side, maybe its his contemporary and jazz history. However for me I have been constantly aware of it, due to ballet, so much to the extent that I perfect my posture so much contemporary teachers mistake me for a ballet dancer so i have to loosen up. Personally I don't know which method is best! Ballet being my second style I would lean towards eliminating the problem, but having a stiff back in contemporary is no good.

However, from my experience if you ever talk to a dancer who ha a sway back, they will tell you that you can never get rid of it and only control it. C'est la vie! At least we get a tighter fifth!

Billy Bell, SYTYCD 6 has a sway back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0w_TKMtZFI and I belive Victor Smally did too

Dance Partners'...

My newest dance partner is nice. However, she seems to care about what her little clique think about her more than being my dance partner. Even though I proposed the idea of us being partners, as we are both very tall and it would be very hard for her to get a male counterpart, I am beginning to regret it. I took a risk, the major one being she is a trained Irish dancer. Irish dancers are very stiff and even though she has had some ballet, she can be quite stiff. Also she isn’t putting as much energy into the relationship as I am, I believe that partnering is 65% trust, how can she let me do lifts when she doesn’t trust me and how can I let her mount my back when I don’t trust her? I have tried to spend time with her but she seems to only want to do this when her clique are not around. In her clique, there is one other girl, a singer and a boy, an actor, the actor does not particularly like me and so neither does the singer so my partner’s loyalty is split, well it should be but it is clear where it lies. This feeds into more distrust. The funny part to me is that if I walked out of the partnership I would be on smooth sailing to another partner. However, my partner would be screwed, as I said before she is very tall for a dancer and most male dancers would look ridiculous beside her and find her impossible to carry. I however do not. Therefore, her snubbing really is not doing her any favours, except she is the only dancer I can be paired with in my college course. There is another female dancer in the year but she is strictly solo and hates partnering as she can’t handle lifts, mounts or even dips, so if I am stuck until September too. Is it worth risking it by telling her that if she keeps up her rudeness I will quite? Will she realize that loosing me will hinder her more than it will affect me? On the other hand, could I be reading into the whole thing and blowing it out of purporting in my mind? Is there anything I can do to make her want to work on our personal relationship?

Help!

Love,

S