Re: Theories of lead and follow

Ron N. wrote:

Agreed. However I think the commitment could be progressive
as a probability cone. Movement sequencing is inherently
predictive, but I don't think the predictions falls off a
cliff at a certain point in time. More like they evolve to
become more and more probable the closer she gets to her
absolute minimum reaction time.

I'm disinclined to agree. I think the commitment is actually driven by
the physics of the types of movement used nearly as much as it is by
the reaction time issue. So I don't see it as a probability issue
except incidentally/accidentally. Rather I think that the leader
starts a movement, creating a trajectory and implying future movement,
and the follower copies that start of movement matching his trajectory.
Unless the leader then modifies his movement (by intent or accident),
the follower will match his future movement - she is with him and
there's no probability of various possibilities to calculate. When he
does modify, she modifies her current movement and her trajectory
(future movement) to match. It's not a guessing game or probability
distribution, it's an evolving movement.

Granted, from a "what figure are we going" perspective the probability
tree narrows the more that is known - but that's not really of
importance.

I would say that if you could surprise her by a late change
in the size of a step that is very unusual for you, but might
be comfortably leadable with the same timing by another
dancer in another dance communities with whom she isn't
familiar, then she might have been predicting an exact
size step from you (or a narrower range than the full
possibility), before you finished your lead.

In dancing, although we commit to movement we do not do so with abandon
- there's still the possibility of modifying the movement in some ways.
It depends on your technique though. Dancers who reach their moving
foot while leaving their body relatively stationary will have a hard
time changing the size of movement once their body does begin to move,
because their moving foot is already placed and likely partially
weighted. On the other hand, dancers who roll through their foot while
the moving foot is still moving can modify the size of their step much
more easily, in particular, trajectory of the body across the standing
foot can be adjusted, and will change the point where the moving foot
will eventually come to rest.

It sounds backwards, but it's actually this timely commitment of the
body to movement that enables the ability to modify the step size in
proportion to later variations in the body trajectory. Wheras if the
body hesitates to commit until the foot is already placed, there's no
way to then modify the position of that foot, regardless of how much
the body does or doesn't end up moving (this is an excellent way to
arrive off balance, or find yourself unable to get over your foot since
your partner is already there)

.

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