Was talking to one of the women at Richard's Swing class and she said she taught line dancing, so I said to her, "Do a dance while you hum a few bars and I will follow you."
Richard put on some music. She started dancing and I was following her.
At first I was tripping over myself. She tried to tell me the steps, but I shushed her.
By the end of the music, I was doing the dance without having to watch her.
After the dance, her and her husband and I were talking and I mentioned that if someone calls out the steps, I cannot follow the dance.
They commented that I had a good memory. I told them, "I don't try to remember the steps. I try not to think. I let my subconscious figure it out. That's why calling out the steps confuses me."
She said that most people cannot do that and need the steps called.
I told her that we train people to follow without calling the steps and it works real well.
What happens in a lot of choreographed dances is people are fixated on the steps, which makes it very hard to dance.
The leader calls out the steps to help the people, but this trains the people to listen to the caller, not the music. This also reinforces the idea that the steps are the most important element, when they are the least important one, and stresses people out, because they cannot get the steps correctly.
Trying to follow, people stare at the leader's feet, which is the worst thing they can do, since staring down throws them off balance and disorients them. Most leaders are good dancers and so they move their body before their feet, so watching the feet is not a good indicator of where to go.
The feet are for moving the body. If you can dance to the music and orient yourself reasonably well, it does not matter what foot you use. Eventually, as you learn the dance, you will use the correct foot.
The best way to learn dances is to maintain good posture and balance, follow the leader's body and try to orient yourself.
Do not try to memorize. The more emotionally relaxed you are, the easier it will be for your subconscious to pick out what you need to know.
Let yourself pick up whatever parts are easiest and let the harder parts pass by. As the dance repeats, you will naturally become more and more comfortable with easy parts, and bit by bit your braing will add the other parts until you get the whole dance.
Everyone knows how to follow another person. We have been doing that our whole lives.
If you go to a Contra or English Country Dance, you will find people who can do the dances the first time, because in those dances you only need to orient yourself. The footwork is your choice.
If you use the same method in other choreographed dances, people can learn to dance right away and then add the footwork as they become more experienced, which makes for more effective and enjoyable learning.