“Have some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very seriously. “I haven’t had anything yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take it anymore.” “You mean you cannot take less,” said the Hatter: “It is very easy to take more than nothing.” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
I remember being impressed by the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice is offended that she is offered tea, but none is given, even though she hadn’t asked for tea in the first place. Then tea, bread and butter are served. From my perspective as a dance instructor, I think the best way for a person to become a good dancer is to listen to Alice when she says, “… I can’t take any more” because “I haven’t had anything yet.” . “The Hatter wants us to believe that” you can’t take less “, yet that is exactly what many dancers do when motivated by the promise of accelerated mastery, to take more advanced classes before they have a sufficient mastery of the Basic Concepts for Assimilating New Information In this “terpsicorean inversion,” these ill-prepared dancers work harder and learn less.
Matt Auclair, a six-time national swing dance champion and one of St. Louis’s leading instructors, says, “It is not uncommon for a new and enthusiastic swing dancer who is continually exposed to more successful dancers at different club activities. , start taking intermediate level dance classes before he or she is ready, and then becoming a less proficient dancer as a result. Over the years, I have found that the dancers who learn Imperial Swing faster are not The impulsive ones who take directed shortcuts to themselves in their training, instead are the disciplined ones who practice regularly to master the basics before attempting to learn more challenging dance moves. ” Auclair concludes, “The time these dancers initially spend practicing the fundamentals invariably pays off as an investment of time saved in the future because their progression to more advanced training is much less likely to ‘stabilize’ due to deficiencies in their training. understanding of the basics.. “
It may well be true, as the Mad Hatter says, that in the troubled world of Wonderland, “if you can’t take less”, then “it is very easy to take more than nothing”; however, we do not live in Wonderland! In our realm over that underworld, where we can easily “take less” inadvertently, I imagine the Hatter could say, “It is not very easy to take more than nothing!” I asked Matt if he had any final thoughts on this “Hatter” (pun intended). After giving me one of her exasperated “no more questions” looks, she said, “Skip, I don’t really like drinking tea that much (except Crystal * Light, of course); I think of rabbits only at Easter; and besides, who said? learning to swing dance is easy! “
* Note: Matt’s wife is named Crystal.