Great dancers can make their triples match the music. In this drill, we’re going to work on flipping between straight count and rolling count on the fly.
If you’re not already familiar with the idea of the straight and rolling count, you should practice doing straight and rolling triples before attempting this drill.
In this drill, you’re going to work on identifying which triples you should be doing on the fly, and making your triples match the song.
The Drill: The single best song for practicing switching between straight and rolling count is Q’s Blues by Roomful of Blues (Amazon affiliate link). This song rocks because it starts in straight count, then obviously switches to a rolling count after about a minute, then switches back to straight count.
You can use this song while dancing basic patterns to force yourself to switch between the two counts on the fly. Just hit play and start dancing!
If you don’t have Q’s Blues, you can put together a playlist of a mix of straight and rolling count songs. Set your music player to shuffle the playlist, and force yourself to dance the correct triples as soon as the new song begins.
To really turn up the difficulty level, have a friend advance to the next track after 30 seconds. By continually forcing yourself to identify which triples you should be dancing, you will get better at dancing the correct rhythm on the fly.
Brian & Megan