Matt Chung's Site

Category: Dance

  • Friday night farmer

    The house dance farmer move is one that eludes me. I’m about 1.5 years into my house dance journey and this move in particular is one that I both struggle to achieve both the look and the feeling. Because of this, the farmer rarely makes an appearance in my freestyle rounds and when it does, and I replay the footage, I dislike how the move looks on me.

    That being said, my farmer has progressively improved and I don’t feel like I’m too far from nailing it. Since the beginning of my journey, here’s some of the ways I’ve tried to tackle the farmer:

    • House dance classes in Seattle – Orb often demonstrates this move as part of the foundational warm up
    • Feedback from Kerry (Karina) House – I took 1:1 private lessons with her for about 1 year and during that period, during our remote privates we went over the farmer and sometimes I would send her videos (over Telegram) for feedback
    • House dance classes in London – In both Ani’s and Jevan’s class, they often will include the farmer in either the combo or choreography. They do go over some techniques and yet I still struggle
    • Watched (god knows how many) YouTube tutorials
    • Analyzed video clips of a handful of people performing farmer – I try and breakdown and dissect and analyze the body mechanics

    But last night (Friday night), I was chatting with a friend (Kristina) who sent some of her own personal written notes. These notes combined with a YouTube tutorial (below) makes me feel like I am on the right track

    Farmer Progression

    YouTube Tutorial on Farmer

    I believe the language he’s speaking is Russian. Because I cannot understand, I turned on auto-captions and was able to follow along. What I learned from the above video is this:

    • When lifting leg, shoot pelvis back – this is something I noticed when analyzing videos but in other tutorial videos I’ve watched so far, nobody has explained this part of the movement
    • When lowering the leg, tap with the toes – I’ve been missing this component and going to experiment with incorporating this into my farmer
    • After tapping with the toes, flatten foot and (lightly) hop – related to previous point but I would hop on one foot but was missing the intermediate step of the toe tap
  • House Dance Training Log – January 04, 2025

    House Dance Training Log – January 04, 2025

    First training of 2025. In a separate post, I’ll go over one of my 2025 goals but in short: participate in the prelims of summer dance forever 2026! That is, 1.5 years from now, I’d like to stand up on that beautiful stage and be prepared both mentally, physically, and emotionally.

    Summary

    • Light warm up – 90 seconds of “jump roping”, 15 seconds single leg hops on each
    • 2 rounds of 6 exercises, each exercise 30 seconds, with 10 second rest in between
    • Rhytmic pattern training (30 seconds per round) of 6 exercises, 2 rounds (one pas de bourree and one cross step)
    • After training for dance, stretched hamstrings, hip flexors, and quadriceps (and some calve raises and eccentric heel drops)

    Motivational quote on practice

    Stumbled on this quote that a fellow HN (hacker news) user commented:

    As to progress — we don’t know how much progress we made, actually, but if you practice it you will realize — some day you will realize that our progress is not — it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, you cannot actually make progress. The progress you make is always little by little. It is like — to go through fog. You don’t know when you get wet, but if you just walk through fog you will be wet, little by little, even though you don’t know — it is not like a shower.

    When you go out when it is showering you will feel, ‘Oh, that’s terrible!”. It is not so bad but when you get wet by fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. This is how we make progress. So actually there is not need to worry about your progress. Just to do it is the way. It is, maybe, like to study language. Just repeating, you will master it. You cannot do it all of a sudden. This is how we practice, especially Soto way, is to do it little by little. To make progress little by little. Or we do not even mind, we do not expect to make progress, just to do it is our way. The point is to do it with sincerity in each moment. That is the point. There should not be Nirvana besides our practice.

    Video Log

    Reflection

    • First time dancing after taking 2 weeks off to allow rest and recovery from plantar fasciitis (not fully healed)
    • (Right) foot felt no pain in heel throughout exercise but afterwards, felt a bit sore so I walked on my indoor garden gravel and then stretched afterwards
    • Felt a bit anxious during physical warm up, hesitating as to avoid reinjuring myself
    • Proud that I did not go 150% percent (my default mode) and limited the entire practice to just under 35 minutes
    • Avoided using ankle weights since that additional load likely contributes to the plantar fasciitis and in fact, during the exercise where I jumped side to side, I felt instability in the ankle and knee

    What went well

    • Was able to recall the rhytmic exercise that Mavinga provided
    • Mostly on beat
    • Just showing up and putting in the quiet work

    Areas of improvement

    Below section will serve as input for next training (TBD)

    • Practice “around the world” move – when the prompt from random generator (software I wrote to help train transitions) spat out “around the world”, I ended up performing the setup move. In a nutshell, forgot how to execute the move
    • Relax arms during dodger (and more generally) – was only bending right arm. After checking some videos online to compare, I like the aesthetic of bringing both arms up into 90 degrees (relaxing the wrists) during the first step, then lowering both arms in sync during the last step of the move
    • Hold the 3rd rhythm a bit longer during cross step rhythmic practice – doing so distinguishes one rhythmic pattern to the next. Being compassionate with self; in the past, I would’ve berated myself for having to “relearn” this since I had cleaned it up previously. But that’s neither here nor there. Next session
    • More tension / energy all around – make the moves look more crisp and clear. For example, during the “Bart Simpson”, contract the hamstring and glutes for more aesthetically pleasing movement
    • Increase knee bend with Drunk Walk
    • Drunk walk backwards
    • Freestyle – I was gased and wanted to not push too hard so didn’t freestyle. Something I may be able to do in between next training session

  • Styling arms in house dance

    This morning, I re-watched a video that I recorded the night before, while practicing dancing some house dance. And what stood out to me the most was not my footwork, but my arms. In particular, something seemed “off” about the positioning of my fingers as well as the angle in my arms. Given arms is not a topic frequently covered in house dance, I decided to draw inspiration from ballet and contemporary to see what those styles teach because I’m sure there is some theory behind placing the arms in such a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

    So the main take away from watching a series of YouTube videos this morning is that:

    • Arms are always at a diagonal (even when you think they are straight)
    • Engage the shoulders
    • In ballet, elbows should be raised above wrist

    From Pole Dancing

    • Generate the movement from the shoulder blade, initiating from the back

    Contemporary

    Arms

    • Arms out to the side is not actually a straight line
    • Arms protruding slight in front of you
    • Similar concept with arms up, you want to keep the shoulder position natural and therefore keep arms out slightly in front

    Legs

    While watching the video on arms, the YouTube recommendation engine suggested a video on theory of legs which I found just as interesting

    • When extending leg out in front, lead with the knee
    • Avoid tilting the pelvis
    • Squeeze muscles of thighs and inner thighs and glutes so you are pulling / dragging the leg instead of just picking them up and plopping them

    Jazz Arms

    • When extending arms up and out, a good cue is that you should be able to see your fingers in your periphery

    Ballet

    • A couple different analogies and metaphors including squeezing your hand through a glove
    • Shaking your hand vigorously and then in the last moment, however your hand lands, that’s how it should look
    • Mind is blown right now in her statement “if you have tension in your hands it means you aren’t using your shoulder blade muscles enough”