74  Leading bridge (a student's conclusions)

Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 14:57:32 -0700
From: Mark Sussex <doktordogg@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Leading bridge (a student's conclusions)

--- "T. Lawrence Padilla" <tlpadi2@uswest.com> wrote:

> I was interested in your experiment where
> you stated;
>
> However,
> what if I did the same thing with my chest, but I
> didn't step to my left, but stepped backwards with
> my
> left foot. The leftward lead of my chest sends my
> partners left foot around and back, so it's
> "locked".
>
> I am not sure what the result of this lead is. Could
> you go into further
> detail? Sounds like a giro of some kind.

Tito,

This part has worked like a charm. I'm not talking
about a giro. Sorry, it's a little hard to make
things like this clear in email alone. I'll do my
best.

First, I'll try to clarify the lead I'm talking about.
Don't do it with your partner yet! I want to talk
about additional requirements besides the lead in a
minute.

If you face your partner in parallel inside position
and step back, say with your right foot, what did you
just do? You did step #1 of the basic. She wants to
come with you. She'll step forward along with your
backstep. If you want to do a bridge, that's exactly
what you want to prevent her from doing.

For a moment, consider your position when leading back
ochos. You are in an "open" position, meaning your
feet are apart and your hips are square forward in
relation to your feet. She is in a crossed foot
position. I don't mean she's "in a cross". I mean
she's on one foot with the other ready to go back; her
hips are at right angles to yours. Her weight is on
her right foot and her hips face to your right. As
you sidestep to your left, she takes a backstep along
with you onto her own left foot. As you continue
successive ochos, you sidestep in the crossed-foot
system, namely you are both on right feet at the same
time, both on left feet at the same time. She pivots
on each step because of the lead from your chest. You
maintain her hips at right angles to yours so her back
steps relate to your sidesteps.

What if you take your syncopated step onto your right
foot in preparation for her back ocho? You turn your
chest left to rotate her hips for her back step.
She's not oriented in parallel to you anymore the way
she is when you begin the basic...

BUT, let's say you don't take a left sidestep.
Instead, you step BACK with your left foot. She can't
step forward along with you, like in the basic,
because her foot is in the wrong position. She tips
off her axis with her foot locked behind her.

This is just an illustration to give you my idea! I
never rotated my partners to my left as much as for an
ocho. I found that a slight rotational lead to the
left in preparation for my back step encouraged my
partners to "lock" their left foot behind them so that
when I stepped back they didn't come forward with me.


Having said that, there is a lot more to the bridge
than merely leading it. The lead simply tells your
partner what you want her to do. Your job involves a
lot more than that.

Safety is very important. I've never seen anybody
teach this in a class. I know why. You can really
have an accident. Before you ever try it with a
woman, learn it with another man. If you're squeamish
about that much intimacy with a man, forget the step.
You're not ready for it! You must get a man to do it
to you, so you know what you're asking of a woman.
I'm really not kidding. Get somebody to do it to you.
It's ALARMING.

When someone puts you in a bridge, your foot is locked
and you are tipped off your axis. The person doing it
to you better be on his balance, and he better receive
your weight. Even if those conditions are satisfied,
if you don't THINK your leader has satisfied them, you
(the follower) are going to be alarmed.

I tried this out with some guys and then with some
very trusting female partners. (Thanks, you know who
you are! ;-) ) We never had any accidents, and with
their help, and the help of friends on the list, I
produced something that my partners said made them
feel safe.

The bridge has FOUR REQUIREMENTS. (These are the
conclusions of a student, okay?)

1. Contact.
2. Lead.
3. Carry.
4. Recovery.

CONTACT: You have to have your chest in contact with
hers.

You do that by GOING TO HER. You do not pull her to
you. Never do that. Try standing on one foot and
getting somebody to tug in any direction, ever so
gently, by your shirt sleeve. It doesn't take any
effort at all to be made supremely uncomfortable like
that. So don't pull her off her balance. Go to her
with your chest. You can take as long as you like.
This step isn't about "tricking" her into doing
something unusual. You don't succeed by doing it so
fast that she doesn't have time to respond to your
back step and you surprise her. That will result in
an accident for sure. I have a partner who is too
tall for me to dance close embrace with. We can't
walk with chests touching. However, I can lead her to
sandwich me in position 2 and then get my chest
forward in contact with hers. This step turned out to
be a great way for the two of us finally to have some
close dancing.

If your partner won't be close to you, that's her
choice. Forget the step. Contact is an absolute
prerequisite. Why? Because if you aren't in contact,
you're asking for a "trust fall". It is NOT a trust
fall. It's a CARRY. Nobody is going to trust you
enough to fall onto you in hopes that you will catch
her. Try doing it apart with another man to
experience the mistake of a "trust fall". You will
get the picture in a big hurry, I promise!

LEAD: After you have the contact, turn your chest to
the left a little bit. I also want my weight going
onto my right foot at this point as if I were going to
continue in a cross basic.

I didn't use the lift as much. The crucial part is to
discourage her left foot from coming forward, as I
described in detail. Maybe I'm doing exactly what
everybody suggested by making the "lift" a mere
"breath". My experiments with my partners suggest
that the rotation is what really controls their left
foot. They told me that this made their body feel
"arrested". That's what I want when I'm preparing to
tip them off their axis.

This lead is a little weird because it isn't
contra-body position. Usually, when you take a back
step with your left, if you rotate your torso you'll
rotate to the right. Shoulders tend to want to oppose
feet. In this step, you rotate your left shoulder
back and you also step back with your left foot.

CARRY: As I said, this isn't a "trust fall". Contact
must be established, and then you CARRY her off her
axis. Now, gentlemen, the way you hold her will
likely affect how happy she is about that. There has
been a lot of discussion about how much "lift" there
must be. I'm not sure, but after getting men to carry
me off my axis, it seemed to me that their contact and
balance were not the only things at issue. Equally
important was my BELIEF that they had a good hold on
me. I bet women who have rock-solid partners tend to
feel trusting of them, and when the contact is
established they are not alarmed about being carried
off their axis. These partnerships probably require
less "lifting". In the case of any residual doubt, a
good strong grip certainly made *ME* feel better when
*I* was being carried! Once again, I'm not talking
about a strong "pulling". Never pull your partner to
you. Get your chest against hers, lead her to lock
her left foot, then CARRY her off her axis. If she's
still frightened, don't do it!

You don't carry her by bending forward at the waist to
contact her with your collar-bone. Stand up straight!
The contact comes more from your sternum. You'll be
leaning against her, too, but you probably weigh more.
The angle of her lean will be deeper than yours in
order to be in balance and repose with you. Get
Gavito's video for a great demonstration of this. He
has a very funny line about it. He says the position
is like Adam saying to Eve, "I want my rib back."

Nobody said you have to lean at a wild angle. Take
her a little off her balance and put her back. (I'm
no genius, but when I managed simply that, I'm pretty
sure I could have succeeded with several marriage
proposals... yayyy.) This leads to...

RECOVERY: You took her off her axis, now it's your
responsibility to put her back where you found her!
You can take her into a cross basic, or you can go
into back ochos, for example. Remember, you're
putting her back onto her left foot now. If you go
into ochos, it's the same as initiating ochos from
count #3 of the basic.

The important thing to remember about the recovery is
this: you stepped back. This increased the distance
between you and your partner's feet. She's depending
on you for support. If you want to put her back, you
gotta cover some ground! You can't really "work this
out" even once. You gotta be a man and GO FOR IT.
Stride for real. If you can never dance anything but
little shuffling baby steps, you're not ready to try
this one out. If you don't make up that distance,
she's gonna fall on her face.

Question: How many times is it acceptable for you to
drop your partner in practice while you're just
"working things out"?

Answer: Zero.

Contact, lead, carry, recovery.

I also found that if I didn't really take my partner
off her axis, I could do a variety of carrousels.
These are harder. I also tried taking her a LITTLE
off her axis and doing a carrousel. I don't know if
that's right. It worked. I'm not sure it either
looked great or that my partners were comfortable.

This is just what I know at this date, having
experimented with trusting partners. I don't presume
this is the last word.

Good luck, and be safe!

Mark

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 19:56:55 -0700
From: Deborah Holm <deborah.holm@PRODIGY.NET>
Subject: Leading bridge (a student's conclusions)

In support of at least my small understanding of
this thread by Mark Sussex:

>>If your partner won't be close to you, that's her
>>choice. Forget the step. Contact is an absolute
>>prerequisite. Why? Because if you aren't in contact,
>>you're asking for a "trust fall". It is NOT a trust
>>fall. It's a CARRY.

I have experienced an alarm. But, only because I was the
nervous person, and (believe it or not) men can sense this.
Within a split second. And, not only was I immediately
"put to the chest" but my arms were taken out of the
equation. Ladies, let me tell you, this is the one time in
life where you might appreciate the phrase "Legs, don't
leave me now."

And let me remind you all that famous female Argentine
tango teachers will say to a woman that if she is in any way
tired/fatigued then she wouldn't have sex. And,
correspondingly, she wouldn't come to tango.
Period.

Deborah, San Francisco, California, USA