Friday Flourish: Head-duck Twirl Swing

6/21/2012

This week's flourish is one that we actually got requests for from dancers from two different dance communities, and we're very glad that a friend of ours recently cleared up how to do it for us.

This is actually a build-up from the Gypsy Meltdown Twirl flourish we showed you a few weeks ago; however, its nature means that you need to be careful of any shoulder/neck injuries your follow might have and possibly even give your partner a heads-up (or, more aptly, a "heads-down") the first couple of times you do it, until you've built the muscle memory of how the lead is "supposed" to feel. The trick is to get the right spot on the follow's shoulder to get the lead's forearm to clear the follow's head.

You, too, can have your flourishes featured! Send us your flourishes and/or requests for flourishes and they might get featured on this blog and the YouTube channel!

This weekend in DC (Saturday night) is the "Prom Sonic" Contra Sonic techno contra installation in the Spanish Ballroom Annex, spun by dJ improper and called by Anna Rain. (As a note to those CS readers from DC and the surrounding communities, the Contra Sonic series has moved from third Tuesdays to third Saturdays after this weekend, at least through the end of 2012.) Hope to see some of you there!

Happy Friday,

CS

P.S. For anyone interested, I wanted to share a bit of a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Friday Flourishes: this week when Steve and I went to shoot with our usual camera-and-tripod setup, we discovered that we apparently forgot to recharge the batteries on the camera....both the battery inside it, and the backup. Whoops. Fortunately, Steve has a camera that can take video:

(Yes, that is in fact Steve's smartphone strapped to the nonworking camera, which is attached to the tripod. MacGyver would be proud.)

Jillian Carnrick

6/21/2012 02:21:13 pm

I suggest doing this and seeing a video with someone following rather than knowing what is coming next (sorry Ryan) ....it looks a lot different that way. Your head/hand are about 6in apart in this vid when they actually get much closer together in the actual turn and there is always a considerable delay in the follow of this move so do it SLOWLY!!!!

Brian Strauss

6/21/2012 07:13:04 pm

I loooooovvvvvve this flourish. Thanks for teaching it to me Jillian. :D

Brian Strauss

6/21/2012 07:03:28 pm

OK, so Jillian taught me this in Virginia, On Memorial Day if I remember correctly. This is super easy to lead. I had no idea how to dance at this point, so she showed me an easy, but very fun flourish. I forgot to put my arm across, so it didn't work at first, but she showed me again a couple times, and then I have remembered ever since... and I am extremely slow to learn, so y'all can get it way quicker than I did.

Anyway, this is the one thing that I do occasionally that has led to more compliments than anything else I've done, save maybe swinging fast (and I have much work to do in figuring out how fast is just right for partners and neighbors). I usually don't give any advance notice, because I like the surprise, and this is nothing like a dip or lift. However I don't do this to anyone "experienced in age", unless I have danced with them a bit. its amazing now many wonderful older ladies will look at you and say, "Why are you going so slow?!?"

For this flourish, I can't count one hand how many times I have heard things like, "that was a lot of fun!", or "ooo that was nice", or just a smile/laugh, or "please show me how that works, or "what just happened" (in a good way).

On the other hand, people either get the lead or not. Even from experienced dancers, I often (maybe 1 out of 3 times, here in Florida) get a little resistance, and so then I go into a regular swing (trying to gracefully do that, emphasis on try), with the lady staring at me with a "this newbie is really confused" stare, lol. Actually I have found that complete newbies are the happiest when the lead works, and sometimes follow it correctly more often than some experienced dancers who have never seen that before. Doesn't matter though...

If they do follow the lead and it works, 95% will love it. If they don't, they will either think you are a newb or confused about a lead you're trying out the first time. And I have only given a heads up a couple times, and I can't remember clothes-lining anyone, or hitting them with my forearm. If any of you out there have been forearmed, or clothes-lined by me, let me know here, and I will publicly apologize, and retract my comment lol. I unfortunately tripped Ryan the last time I was at Glen Echo in April, but she was very gracious in receiving my apology. And it had absolutely nothing to do with this lead. :)

So I apologize for my unnecessary verboseness, and for all the parenthetical statements. But thank you so much, Ryan and Steve, for working so hard with this amazing project, and especially for the Friday Flourishes. They started literally within a few months after I thought, "I wish that there was one place where I could go, to find contra flair, broken down in steps, so I can understand." I couldn't find it by Googling it, or Youtube searches. But a few months later I searched again, and saw on video my friend Julie, who I met (along with Jeremiah, Leonard, Perry, and Warren and Terry Doyle at the Carolina Contrathon!) just one day before meeting Jillian, in a flourish video, with two future contra friends. :)

And thank you so much Jillian, for teaching me one tiny flourish that has brought me and some other people so much joy. :D

Jillian Carnrick

6/21/2012 11:57:55 pm

You are welcome Brian. And before I get all the credit for this move I'd like to thank Leonard who taught it to me, after lots of cloths lining me with it. It reminded me that this move for it to be successful with out letting your partner know height is a big thing to consider. Brian and Steve you are both considerably taller than Leonard and I which puts you at an advantage when leading this move. Anyone can do it and it is really cool and does throw your partner for a 'omg what just happened' moment. Have fun dancing!!!

Brian

6/22/2012 04:12:55 pm

Ahhh, I didn't really think of that consciously, but I think I've only once tried it with someone taller than me, and I gave her prior warning. :)

Leonard

6/25/2012 11:54:31 am

As long as we're passing credit around, I'll mention that the first time I ever saw something like this move was at a west coast swing lesson. And the first time I saw it executed at a contra dance was at a Carolina Contrathon by this guy Elia.

I'm happy to take the blame for any accidental clotheslines or moments of confusion I may have caused.

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Friday Flourish: Head-duck Twirl Swing

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