Which harder: Man's job or woman's?

[elisedance]

Apparently it takes years for a man to become a great lead, in shorter time to make a great follower.

I agree with the first part (for most men but some are much quicker) - but on what do you base the second?

[QPO]

Apparently it takes years for a man to become a great lead, in shorter time to make a great follower.

I agree with the first part (for most men but some are much quicker) - but on what do you base the second?

well our coach has mentioned that from his experience teaching a man takes twice as long as it does to teach a women to follow.

[elisedance]

Apparently it takes years for a man to become a great lead, in shorter time to make a great follower.

I agree with the first part (for most men but some are much quicker) - but on what do you base the second?

well our coach has mentioned that from his experience teaching a man takes twice as long as it does to teach a women to follow.

A man I take it

[QPO]

Apparently it takes years for a man to become a great lead, in shorter time to make a great follower.

I agree with the first part (for most men but some are much quicker) - but on what do you base the second?

well our coach has mentioned that from his experience teaching a man takes twice as long as it does to teach a women to follow.

A man I take it

yes it was...would be interesting for a womens take on it

[elisedance]

well, mine is that initially its harder for the man and thats why there is such an emphasis on the man learning and on the man in lessons.  But basically, the man can master the steps and the lead (or rather I should say the initiation) so that things gradually become easier.

However, as the steps and even more the step sequences become more complex the options at any point in the dance become increasingly complex and the woman has to learn to deal with not only following the step but with moving into the correct step at any point.  Thus, her role becomes harder and harder.  Small wonder that if you look at the top couples now they are composed of great leads - but they are entirely limited by how good the responders are.  Katusha is probably the best on the planet.  I think there is a very strong correlation...

[Sorry to diverge from the social dancing topic back into competition - but its the only examples that I think we would all be familiar with]

[cornutt]

However, as the steps and even more the step sequences become more complex the options at any point in the dance become increasingly complex and the woman has to learn to deal with not only following the step but with moving into the correct step at any point.  Thus, her role becomes harder and harder.  

That pretty much corresponds both with the conventional wisdom I've heard, and with the experiences that my DW and I have had.  It takes less time to become a competent follow than it does to become a competent lead.  That's because the lead has to integrate a whole bunch of different concepts right at the start, before they can lead at all.  The follow hits the concepts-integration problem at the transition from competent follow to great follow, whereas for the lead, going from competent to great is merely ( ) a matter of practicing and getting better at what they already know.

[Some guy]

Hmm... tough question.  I believe the school of thought in question has a bearing on the answer.

[mummsie]

Well as having many years experience as dancing both - I find it much hard to be a follower as I tend to try and lead all the time even when I am going backwards    When I am dancing with DH I normally just have to close my eyes as the other thread was discussing so I don't take over. However in saying that I much prefer to lead as a man - the steps on the whole are much simpler.  The lady has loads more fancy stuff to try and do while the man does the more basic steps on most movements. mm

[ttd]

In context of social dancing, I think the man's job is harder. Mainly because for the social dancing, 1. a woman does not need to delve as deeply into technique as for competition. (for example, it doesn't matter at a social if your armstyling isn't perfect. You can't go all out with it at a social anyway.) 2. man's learning curve is slower at the beginning.

If my goal was to get to the point when I can have fun at our typical social without any frustration, I could have stopped taking lessons several years ago. In a way, as I advanced further, socials became less pleasing, because I can do fwd-fwd-side-together for only so long before I get bored. I guess the best analogy I can come up with is that it's like riding a tricycle when you are quite capable to ride a normal bike.

[dancingirldancing]

I don't think that it is any easier on the follow compared to the leads.

What gives this appearance is because if one is to take single lesson, eg. dance with a pro, it is easier for a male pro to compensate for the follow rather than for a female follow to compensate for the lead.

This is true in social as well.

An advanced lead can compensate for a less than great follow however a great follow will find it hard to compensate a less than great lead.

But given both partners start from scratch, it is equally hard or easy whichever you want to look at it.

However, once you are on a comp floor, it really shows when a lead is 'dragging' a less than great follow around the floor.

Given the surplus of great follows though sometimes I wonder why these leads even bother partnering up with follows that are clearly uninterested in bettering themself.

I am partnered up with less experienced lead atm but he has a great posture so I can make him look 'good' to an extent. We do basic steps but we aim to make it look clean.

[Rugby]

I do both the man and woman's part and can see the difficulty in both.

In social dancing I find the men do somewhat the same routine in each dance so they only need to have so many leads to memorize.  So, if the man dances four latin and four standard rooutines with 10 ladies it's still only 8 routines he has to try and memorize and lead.  For the woman every man is a new routine to follow.  For her, if she also dances with 10 people then that is 80 different routines she has to try and follow.

I also think in latin it is the other way around.  It takes twice as long to make a good latin lady than a good latin man.

You must also remember that in standard it is the lady that has to wear heels, go backwards, not see where she is going and dance like she has scoliosis.  I would much rather dance forward, in somewhat flat shoes, see where I am going and be able to stand up and not have my neck strained.  Also take a look at the size of the man's foot area on the floor compared to the women's (whole foot compared to the ball area and dime sized heel) yet she has to be able to not only balance in all the steps but be able to motor and keep up with the man.

Of course we all know that women learn dancing faster then men, probably because in school we learn sports that require flexibility and muscle isolation whereas men learn strength sports.  It gives us years of advantage over the men before they even start.     

[QPO]

I agree with those sentiments. V & I started at the same equal footing of no previous dance experience. I am sure if one of us had done it before, the beginner would not take so long to get up to a standard.

I can only compare leads with that of my coaches and try to get him to emulate them. Having to follow like mummsie said is difficult when you think they are loosing timing, you want to correct them. I dont do it consciously but I believe I still do without me knowing

[Dora-Satya Veda]

I would say it depends on who you are asking. In my opinion it really depends on the student, the teacher/coach and the School of Thought that is used.

Just saying that something is “difficult” will add on about 2-5 years to the time that it will take to get good or at least be decent. If a teacher is teaching for their livelihood then it would secure their income if they convince the student that it is difficult. Excuse me for saying so but the teacher/coach sure makes a lot more money if they stretch out the learning to several decades. From what I have seen and heard there are a lots of teachers/coaches out there that use that method of teaching.

I personally have always found the jobs about equal in difficulty to learn and do but very different to execute.

DSV

[cornutt]

In social dancing I find the men do somewhat the same routine in each dance so they only need to have so many leads to memorize. 

They dance set routines in social dancing???    The places I dance at, that would be quite impossible.

[elisedance]

In social dancing I find the men do somewhat the same routine in each dance so they only need to have so many leads to memorize.

They dance set routines in social dancing???    The places I dance at, that would be quite impossible.

But its my experince too.  They go to a class where they learn a long series of steps and then they do the same sequence every time over and over again...  maybe its a toronto thing.