Review: Skye and Frida at Atlanta Varsity Showdown

To say I had the privilege of attending classes at AVS with Skye Humphries and Frida Segerdahl would be a massive understatement. I thoroughly enjoyed their classes, each and every single one that I took. I absolutely loved their chemistry and composure, their material, and their approach. Maybe I’m to gracious to make a good reviewer, but allow me to defend my impressions.

AVS was the first opportunity I have taken to attend a workshop taught by either Skye or Frida. Frida is revered as a veritable god among the Lindy Hop community, so I experienced nothing but excitement in anticipation of her teaching. Skye however, at least in conversations I’ve been a part of, has a received a much more mixed review. General concession being that Skye is an insanely good dancer, his ability to teach was much more in question.

So it was with great curiosity that I entered the first class (essentially a beginning Lindy Hop class). Everyone had basically alluded that Frida was the only reason Skye could teach, that without her he was just shy of bumbling, unable to count, only slightly more capable of breaking down and explaining a concept.

The opposite was what I found to be true. Not that Frida was less than spectacular, she was. Frida is incredibly intuitive and explains remarkably well for those who lack all that intuition. My impression of sky as an instructor was an about-face from what I’d been told to expect. He was very articulate, concise, and good; not just demonstrating but explaining, working with Frida, reading the room, and encouraging the students. If not quiet yet already, he will become one of the best teachers in Lindy Hop I believe.

As a teacher, I was most impressed with the pacing of their classes. Many teachers often suffer from a “need” to digress into tangential pontifications that serves only to obfuscate everything they are attempting to portray (and I’ve now used the biggest words I know). The other end of the spectrum is populated with classes chock full of too much repetition and too little rotation with not enough explanation.

Each one of their classes seemed almost formulaic in the ratio of explanation to repetition and rotation. And the formula worked. Beyond that, they gave out nearly the perfect amount of information in between rotations, kept the explanations brief and relevant, and allowed ample time with each partner to work things out.

The nuggets they gave out frequently applied only to the advanced dancers, but in such a way that those learning the material for the first time weren’t thrown off. Doing so they did a marvelous job of addressing a challenge I have written about, that is advanced dancers at big workshops.

But aside from being well constructed and relevant, the classes were also extremely fun and entertaining because of the playful attitude and relationship between Skye and Frida. There were a few complaints that heard about too much time spent laughing, but personally I did not find it anything different than fun. Their laughter, and especially Skye’s humble and well timed deferences to Frida, was quite disarming and made them seem very accessible.

technorati tags:skye-humphries, frida-segerdahl, lindy-hop, AVS, lindy, workshop