More Photos Below!Gallery
A couple years ago I started playing with swing dancing. I was immediately attracted to it because it felt like skiing to me. Only it was more social and it involved some music that I liked.
I think it’s especially like Telemark skiing… With the flexed/dropped front leg and the other knee tucked in behind… And the arm action… And angulation… And of course most of all THE RHYTHM: the swing beat goes real nice w bopping turns.
The swing beat is awesome I think. I’ve come to love a heavy swing beat. I don’t yet know the Balboa dance which is needed to enjoy faster beats.
Swing dancing is fun full-body action where you can really get in synch with somebody yet not be inappropriate at all. It’s a great social skill. Really, the common modern expectation of being “sexy” when dancing to music is simply embarrassing. Swing is a way to enjoy rhythm and just have plain fun. …And the rhythm is skillful and complex. Yet easy to tap into.
As a beat gets slower it becomes a Blues beat, which is also fun but more suitable, as they say, for when you’re tired and drunk after a night of swing dancing. Blues does tend to be more personal.
I was a real slow Swing learner. I had no proper help. Really, you need classes but also somebody to play around with. I could’ve learned, say, 3X faster with a friend to practice with. Also, the typical classes are set up strangely for ppl trying to learn on their own. Well, they are simply incomplete and they don’t emphasize enough what is the missing part. Immediately after every class you need to practice what you’ve learned and put it all together and add it to what you learned before.
Each class teaches you how to dance to about one quarter of a song. So you need 4 classes to be able to enjoy a whole song. …IF you remember everything learned in each class.
Also, I’m not sure the standard method of breaking up a dance into dozens of separate motions is the best approach. Nor is calling out a focus, say, on hand pressure on a back. Maybe do this after someone is further along? Otherwise it almost seems like a joke, because a famous way to ruin someone’s golf swing is to have them focus on a tiny part of what they’re doing. …Try it: ask someone when they’re beating you in darts to explain how they’re holding their dart and what they’re doing with each finger: in a minute you’ll be beating them!
Another thing not highlighted enough is the Leads have about a 4 times harder time of it. Really, the classes should focus on the Leads somehow. There should be special footwork classes for the Leads without any distraction from working with Follows. I found that the leading and connecting comes easily. But just learning and memorizing enough moves — mainly the footwork — to have fun for a whole song is the hardest part. In short, I think I could teach a Lead by himself to have fun for a whole song in one hour. He should then follow that up with a class where he is working with Follows so he can add the upper body action.
I have tested my theory with success. I also started a Practice Hour after a Class Hour at a local dance night, for engraining what we learned, also with success. Yeah, I’m into pedagogies. I’ve worked on improving ski instruction. Of course I’ll jump into dance teaching, too!
Forward body position…
Angulation…
