I posted the following note in rebuttal to a fellow who asserted this:

When I go to a workshop and it is a bunch of patterns and moves I feel like I wasted my money.

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Why? This seems really strange to me.

Personally, I think the ideal Lindy instruction is that which is balanced... touching upon moves, floorcraft, etiquette, confidence, musicality, history, and safety.Without moves, you can have all the connection in the world, but absolutely nothing to do with it. It's the same way with piano, IMHO. You can have the greatest finger strength and dexterity and the most wonderful sense of musicality, but if you have no BUILDING BLOCKS, you have nowhere to go.

As the joke goes, plagiarists steal, composers borrow. Is there any music that hasn't been written before? Are there any dance moves that haven't been done before? Perhaps, especially when blocks are put together.

But speaking for myself, at least, I learn best when I take moves and patterns I've been taught, pick them apart in my brain and with my muscles, and then make them my own... twisting them, converting them, playing with them, perhaps even beyond recognition.

Indeed, I think that everyone needs to be taught at least some moves as a foundation of possibilities and opportunities.

From there, perhaps, it can be said that lindy hacks steal, and lindy greats appropriate

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