It has rained most of today. Even the brits are complaining. I had three
lessons in a row starting at 12:40, and managed to get a load into the laundry
beforehand. No time for a proper breakfast, so it was hard work, but with some
crisps from Dan and Gemma and a sneaky slice of banana bread I got through it.

The first and third lessons were with Mindaugas and Giedre, the Lithuanian
super-star teachers. Lithuania seems to be a bit of a Lindy Hop hot-bed. I had
never met these teachers before and they were pretty good, especially at little
things like crowd control. Lots of nice moves, most of them new to me, and some
new technique along the way. Dan and Gemma said the moves were actually fairly
standard fare. If I were a little more experienced maybe I could have focused
more on the lesson theme: differences in posture.

The second lesson was our only lesson with Michael and Evita this week. It was
based around a short choreography but turned into a lesson of rotational
connection technique, especially for leading swivels. As such, it was quite
similar to a lesson I had from them two years ago with Mark, Maria and Carissa.
It was none the worse for that. A lot of our follows needed this lesson, I
think (and maybe also the leads but I wouldn't know).

The best thing today was analysing the lessons in the bar afterwards with Dan.
The subject arose naturally out of them asking me why I was writing lesson
notes in a book. Dan liked Michael and Evita's lesson best so far. Dan is a
very experienced teacher and has studied how people learn physical skills. The
conversation was very interesting.

Dan does not like lessons based around choreography, so we had quite a lot to
say to each other about that. To summarise Dan's argument as I understand it,
he feels that teaching moves in a sequence does not encourage students to learn
how to lead and follow the moves, and that the leading and following is
difficult to add later. It also discourages students from analysing the moves,
understanding them, breaking them down and putting them together differently,
which is an essential skill for social dancing. You can tell the leads to use a
random sequence, but the ones who really need to won't. He feels these problems
are particularly acute for follows; it is very difficult to learn to follow if
you always know what move is coming next.

Dan said he felt that the central problem in dance teaching is "Knowledge of
Result". I believe this is a term from teaching theory and is conventionally
one of three ingredients needed for learning physical skills, but he couldn't
recall the other two. In sports, Knowledge of Result is generally fairly easy:
where did the dart land, or how fast did you run? In dancing it is very
difficult. How can you tell if you did the move right? He said he chooses a lot
of his teaching techniques because of this problem.

The conversation was sufficiently interesting that I almost missed the deadline
to pick up my laundry at 7pm. That would have been a disaster; I only have with
me one smart white shirt for slow drag tonight.