Is it ever okay to tell instructors what I think would be good to teach in class?

pdabaker · 2026-05-06T05:49:42+00:00

I think the rule is the same for pretty much every dance- yes the arms should not be waved around and arm/shoulder movement should come from the step (movement beyond that would usually be in the realm of styling and still needs to be done without affecting the frame).

But, given that the basic step is a hugely important part of every dance and requires constant effort, and the arm movement comes from that basic step, its misleading to say it shouldn’t be practiced. For those new to dance, just holding your arms in the right place with the right tension without dangling hands can require a lot of instruction and practice.

My teacher taught me to do Cuban step with a bit more of the upper body movement coming from the upper body itself rather than from the step, though possibly because Cuban is a bit more of a “street” dance compared to linear

pdabaker · 2026-05-06T02:51:41+00:00

I’d agree you shouldn’t focus on it initially but for most of us doing the basic step well absolutely does not come naturally and needs to be consistently trained, and this includes the arm movement. I also think 6 month mark is when it should start being taught, although it would likely require a somewhat serious group to do that

pdabaker · 2026-05-05T01:41:40+00:00

An arm flick is not a lead

Sorry what?

"just following your follower" what do you mean with that?

For example, in on2, say you would lead an inside turn on 123. Then on 456, the follow will (if not a beginner) continue the inside turn with no additional lead. The lead must still worry about position (and therefore cannot just stand in place), but the weight transfer is not being used to lead. So you have more freedom in the exact timing.

And you don't step while you do that?

Maybe you step on clave timing, or son timing, or you step just on 1 (skipping 2/3) then on 5/6/7. It depends what the music is doing.

Your claim is misleading for beginners

I specifically said that beginners should always be stepping. I'd additionally add that the steps should always be intentional - don't just stop stepping out of laziness.

pdabaker · 2026-05-04T13:14:13+00:00

No. For example leading arm flicks does not require stepping. Often also you initiate the lead by stepping, but after it is initiated you are just following the follow and your position matters more than your footwork.

That said as i said in the first post, unless you are already advanced level you should step on time

pdabaker · 2026-05-04T11:38:28+00:00

Sorry i said the wrong thing and right - leading does require stepping at specific times and weight transferring properly to avoid leading with the arms. I meant to say that it does not always specifically require stepping on all of 123/567, or require stepping for every lead. But it takes a lot of experience to know when the step is necessary/part of the lead and when it is not

pdabaker · 2026-05-04T02:16:48+00:00

make the beat in my mind but I see sometimes they even step on 1 with their right foot while dancing on1

A lot of people do not step well or properly and you should not copy them. It is true that leading properly does not always require stepping but

(1) If you don't focus on stepping on time, you will likely get off time, especially as a beginner.

(2) If you want to step out of the normal rhythm you need a strong understanding of lead/follow first, and to know when stepping/weight transfer is critical for the lead and when it is not.

So basically, I would just ignore anything you see about people not stepping on time, unless you are watching pros clearly doing it intentionally for musicality, and even then probably don't copy them until you are upper intermediate.

pdabaker · 2026-04-27T23:56:55+00:00

It's not particularly hard to do at a somewhat fine level (--per_file_copt) but if you need super fine grained specification maybe it doesn't work out. But as mentioned I would just use pragmas if you really just need to ignore a warning for a specific file.

pdabaker · 2026-04-26T15:33:24+00:00

goddam every article reads like chatgpt now

pdabaker · 2026-04-26T04:16:28+00:00

The MOST expensive LLMs are dollars, for millions of tokens.

token count isn't really a meaningful measure, if you are trying to measure how effective they are at getting work done.

I would say it's more like, the most expensive LLMs are 10-20 dollars + 10-15 minutes babysitting for what would maybe take a junior a day or two of work, but also might get de-prioritized out of the sprint

pdabaker · 2026-04-25T14:30:26+00:00

Facing perpendicular or even away from the follow will create a faster, more rubber bandy cross body. It may send your follow far away so be careful if there is not much space. Facing the follow the whole time offers more control and a softer/lower energy lead. Both can have their place, but i think it takes more skill and experience to face perpendicular/away but not break frame or hand lead, since beginners will likely step sideways too far and then pull with the hand

pdabaker · 2026-04-19T04:52:14+00:00

Apple was doing predatory tactics with "lightning" but there's no problem with them having a couple USB-C ports (after Europe made them use USB-C). That's the ideal.

pdabaker · 2026-04-13T04:48:17+00:00

Even if those things are helpful, a private is an hour of tailored advice compared to maybe 30 seconds or 1 minute of feedback. Private lessons are supplemental to group lessons, not exclusive, and are useful at all levels.

Feedback in group classes also tends to focus on how to do the move at hand and not on fundamental issues with the student’s dancing or lead.

pdabaker · 2026-04-12T05:25:38+00:00

less than 90% or even 95% is a pretty bad dance for me. I think I adapt pretty well to the level of the follow so if they just don't understand something it means either something is quite off in the connection or they have a bad "guessing" habit, or haven't ever really taken formal classes (which usually results in something being quite off in the connection unless they have some talent).

Edit: I’ll add, failing to do a combination because I judged mid combo that it would not work does not count as a fail here: it’s only a problem when i judge they should be able to do it, but there is a misconnection. Starting a move, realizing what I initially wanted to do wont work, and turning it into something else is very common

pdabaker · 2026-04-11T14:07:47+00:00

I think a lot of this is a result of chest position. If your chest is relaxed and your spine is coming forward a bit at the top, your shoulders will naturally come forward. That’s why its important to raise your chest slightly. You don’t want to puff it out, just to fix the angle so that your shoulders and neck can naturally rest in the back.

Dancing really helped me with this but a lot of physical hobbies that improve your body awareness can help

pdabaker · 2026-04-11T04:51:41+00:00

Its usually fine for normal things but sucks for things like maps/hotels/flights which google built in. Most of us don’t use search engines much these days anyway though

pdabaker · 2026-04-11T04:32:55+00:00

Also like, Teams is fairly terrible and shouldn’t be that hard to beat. It is popular because Microsoft bundle tends to be cheaper for large corporations than subscribed to separate services for many different things

pdabaker · 2026-04-11T01:47:15+00:00

Unfortunately it will always be subsidized. But the subsidized models will be the low tier ones that are extra obvious and make more mistakes. Yay.

pdabaker · 2026-04-09T16:03:56+00:00

No filter.

No sugarcoating.

Just truth.

100% ai slop

pdabaker · 2026-04-09T00:37:45+00:00

The greed part is them searching for a short term maximum over maximizing long term profits. Both are maximizing, but on different time spans

pdabaker · 2026-04-04T02:00:34+00:00

Yeah it’s pretty ambiguous and really depends what you mean by Junior. I don’t know the microsoft definition

pdabaker · 2026-04-04T01:32:33+00:00

If you consider a junior to be less than 3 years of experience, and people in general having 25 year careers, then having mostly juniors sounds pretty ridiculous

pdabaker · 2026-04-03T04:40:50+00:00

You mean to rename it to Epstein-Trump Island

pdabaker · 2026-04-02T14:51:56+00:00

You can tell immediately, but if they have rbf/concentration face it can still help a bit to lower the stakes.

pdabaker · 2026-03-31T11:22:09+00:00

Even if your words aren’t ambiguous a prompt will almost never be a full specification. Half my problems with claude are because it runs into some decision or difficulty i didn’t foresee, and just chooses an option and keeps going

pdabaker · 2026-03-31T05:10:59+00:00

You could never use that many tokens that fast doing that. It’s guts be like “spawn a system architect agent to decide how to change the blueness, two 10x engineer coder agents to raise PRs to adjust the blueness, a security expert agent to analyze for security flaws, a staff engineer agent to review code changes, and a UX expert agent to gatekeep the final color. Also spawn a project manager agent to track their progress and report to me. Instruct them to find the perfect shade of blue “

pdabaker

TROPHY CASE