Since there is so much crossover they've even made a style called "bar coast swing" and are now including country swing competitions and socials at several west coast swing conventions, the communities have a lot of interaction.

What are your opinions?

how do you all stay up-to-date on current songs? there are so many good songs while i’m dancing buuuut because I’m dancing, I’m not shazaming them or asking the dj what they’re called. later, i’m wishing i knew them for practice sessions. i understand playlists being proprietary for local djs and i don’t love the basic wcs playlists i find when i search on spotify. thoughts/advice?

My little sister (14) keeps begging me to take her to a social with me, but I’m not sure if it would be “okay” since the community in my hometown skews to older adults (I am consistently one of, if not the youngest, person there as not many college students frequent the smaller events), which is fine of course, but I’m hesitant to take her to one since I would have to choose between supervising her or dancing and having fun myself, not that I think anything would happen but better safe than sorry, especially at open events. If I could take her to an event at my university, this wouldn’t even be a question since I run the wcs club on campus, but a 6 hour round trip is a lot for someone to bring her up here just for a social. So I’m just wondering what y’all think/if anyone has any advice and/or insight- thanks!

Tldr: my 14yo sister wants me to take her to a social dance with me, but I’m not sure if I should since swing events tend to be mostly attended by actual adults.

This question is mostly for people who've either helped start their local WCS scene or joined it in its infancy.

There's plenty of discussion on Yes and No votes. But what about Alternate votes? And how do they decide who's Alt 1, Alt 2, and Alt 3?

I’ve kinda gotten frustrated with workshops. I end up not learning anything when I COULD have if 90% of the leads weren’t struggling to execute even a basic whip. Sometimes my brother and I will just listen in and do it ourselves.

We were learning a ride variation in a workshop once, and the whole hour i could not pull it off with a single partner. The instructor had to alter her plans. I was actually mad after that workshop, especially after I was evidently capable of learning it in 5 min.

I tried it after with my brother and got it almost immediately.

WHYYY are so many obviously new/novice dancers in a RIDE VARIATION level 2-3 class??? You’re not going to get it, you have yet to establish any type of counterbalance and still can’t lead a whip on time. Not to mention it’s dangerous and I’m sure as hell not trusting you with my weight.

It’s a bit maddening haha. At this point I just sit on the side and listen, when in reality it should be the opposite. Those not as experienced have every right to go to whichever workshops they want, but I wish people were cognizant enough to recognize it detracts from the more advanced dancers’ experiences. Plus most events have lessons specifically FOR less experienced dancers (level 0/1).

There are some workshops with material I’ve really wanted to learn and haven’t been able to participate in the class because it’s physically incapable of being done at the skill level of the dancers on the floor.

It’ll be a level 3 workshop and the whole floor will be congested with novice & newcomers. it’s either doing your appropriate level workshops and taking up space in higher level ones and going to 8 workshops in a day, while the advanced dancers only get to go to and BENEFIT FROM (key word here) 0-2 workshops a day, if not a whole event. I was in a one footed spin class and it was packed, 90% of the people who could’ve pulled it off (~int and up) were just watching from the side while a ballroom full of novices were taking the actual class.

It just does not feel fair. We’re not gonna go to the lower level workshops so if you come and occupy space in the harder workshops then where do we go? We paid for the event as well. If you can’t keep up with a class then just politely watch from the side.

No one I know really bothers with the workshops anymore. It sucks because I love workshops and I love practicing dance in a structured space with people at my skill level. So while people are complaining about how they paid for the event and should be able to join, please think twice because I’m tired of taking a great workshop and only being able to complete the pattern taught with only ONE of the leads in the actual workshop and I have to wait to properly practice it until til I cycle all the way back to then again.

This is gonna sound really bitchy and harsh but if you’re in a workshop and you’re struggling and you find yourself constantly apologizing to every partner, there’s a chance that they’re either new and can’t do it either or yes they’re annoyed. and maybe you can just listen in on this one.

That’s what I’ve had to do, and I retain more information just sitting than the people actually on the floor. You’re not gonna learn more in a level 3 workshop than in a level 1 workshop if you’re novice. Not only will you be physically struggling, you won’t be mentally capable of processing & understanding certain concepts at the time.

When I was newer I did try a couple of the higher leveled workshops but I quickly realized that me wandering from partner to partner confused as hell was not only embarrassing but also taking away a part of the dance experience for the other people that they ALSO paid for. You can think “oh, it’s just for one rotation they can deal” but when every other rotation you get a newcomer, it’s just frustrating.

So to preface this, I would estimate myself to be low-to-mid Novice dancer. Dancing for about a year taking usually 1 class per week and going to 2-3 socials per week.

When Ive taken classes locally "intermediate" really had nothing to do with WSDC division and really just meant, you could do the basics without too much thought.

And then Ive taken a couple workshops locally that were labeled "intermediate" and I was a bit more worried it would be closer to skill level required for the WSDC division. I decided to go anyways and duck out if I needed to. It did feel harder, but not necessarily way above my novice skill. That being said, a large portion of the class knew basics but had trouble executing them without thinking (and thus struggled to add onto them quickly).

Then more recently, an international instructor did a guest workshop. In the intermediate workshop, it was apparent to them that they could not get through the material they originally planned. They actually said a couple times early on something along the lines of "You are intermediate dancers. You should be able to push your self past the basics." But they eventually kind of gave up and started teaching something more basic.

I felt pretty ashamed. It made me not want to attend intermediate workshops in the future, even though it seems that locally beginners do it anyways. I also couldn't help but notice there were a lot of actual intermediate dancers that showed up later in the night for the social dancing, but they didn't bother with the workshop. I always wonder if they do that because its harder to learn when there is a large population of beginners in the rotation. Or if they just find that private lessons/self-study with partners work' better.

So I guess my question is... is this an issue in other communities? Before the recent workshop, I assumed it was a more rampant issue because I see people praise leveled workshops at conventions. But the fact that the international instructor seemed "surprised" by it makes me second guess that a bit.

Hello all, I started dancing Balfolk at the start of the year and no dance experience prior and I recently was at a WCS beginner workshop (basic steps (6&8), leftside pass, rightside pass, sugar push, sugar tuck, starter step and 3 whip variations) and wanted to share a bit of my experience aswell as asking for some tips and tricks.

The workshop was over 2 days and 6 hours in total, we were 24 people and danced mostly with the same partner, for some practice rounds we swapped partners. At the first day we learnt the 6 step, both passes and the starter step, second day sugar push and tuck, 8 step, whip without a turn, whip with a turn and lastly a whip with a turn and additional turn of the follower. At the end of each day I was quite exhausted but only mentally as it was a lot of new stuff to me. Out coaches gave everyone individual feedback and suggestions how to follow/lead properly.

All in all it was a lot of fun and really liked how accepting and non judging everyone was, everyone was kind and helpful and we had enough time to share our partners how it feels dancing with them.

I noticed I definitely have to get better at listening to the music and knowing when to start. I also have to get better at leading with a bit more rigidity in my upper body. I'm used to lead more with my arms and I have more of a soft leading style, so it was hard sometimes for my partners to get the feedback they needed.

On Mondays there is a choreography session for the flashmob and on Fridays there is a dance "class" open for all levels. At the weekends there are regular social dance events in the region. I definitely want to continue wcs but I have to see how to manage it time-wise.

If you have some tips and recommendations in general or regarding getting a better feel for the music as well as useful online courses and good YouTube videos/channels then please let me know.

Thanks in advance^^

I have often wondered if it wouldn’t be more fair for there to be two paths toward ascending in WCS: a “comp” track and a “test based certification” track.

I think the comp based method of deciding who gets to move up in West Coast is deeply flawed both by ageism body type prejudice, inexperienced, judging and a whole wrapped of other issues that the individual dancer is judged based on the luck of the draw if they get a bad partner that often their score.

Why couldn’t there be a means of evaluation in which you could submit a video of yourself dancing with a partner to a panel of experienced and certified judges who could then give you a result and a score based on your dancing—as opposed to the random act of entering a Jack and Jill and hoping that you’re lucky enough to get a good partner and catch some clipboard holder’s eye for three seconds?

This is the way MOST professional certification happens: through testing and individual evaluation.

I especially feel that Novice Follows get a raw deal. They have to enter way more contests and deal with the added difficulty of managing inexperienced leads in ADDITION to trying to dance their best in a comp. And often winning just boils down to getting lucky by being paired with a not-as-horrible lead.

This results in some major inequity in that Follows have to spend much more to move up in the dance, entering many many more comps than the leads do to move up to the same level. Not to mention, all the coaching that Novice follows are given to Dress UP and “glow up” to catch judges’ eye and stand out in a crowded dance floor. This strikes me as patently unfair and inequitable on many levels.

What do you all think?

Hi folks, I'm considering planning some travel in the spring (March /April 2025) to Europe (from the States) and would like to pair it with a WCS event. I've looked up the list and have a few in mind based on the countries I'd like to travel to - but want to see if you all have any recommendations based on your experience. Ideally I dont want to go to a small event and prefer a venue that is not terribly hard to travel to. Thanks so much in advance.

This probably belongs in a country-related sub, but I'm not really sure where to start with this. Have any of you had to deal with hostile non-dancers outside of the WCS scene? Earlier tonight I was at a country dance bar that's well-known for line-dancing, country swing and two-step. Everything was going well until I asked one girl to dance. She was sitting at a table with someone, but was on the edge of the dance floor, and most people were doing at least line dances. She said no so I left it at that and asked someone else who happily joined me. A couple dances later, I was dancing with a friend of mine, when the boyfriend of the earlier girl who said no to dancing came up to me and told me "Ask my girl to dance again and I'll kill you." Fortunately no one got hurt, I defused the situation, reported him to security and he was thrown out. He later snuck back into the bar and actually apologized, but it was still incredibly uncomfortable and my friends and I left a few minutes later since the night was ruined. I'm still a bit rattled from this, and was wondering if any of you know how to deal with situations like these. At this point there's not much to be done, so I'm mostly just venting, but in the back of my head I'm also worried that he may go on to actually hurt a dancer or just a passerby or someone. Has anyone had similar dealings before?

I'm having a hard time describe what I mean but I'll try my best.

I'm NOT referring to the heel of your sending foot lifting AFTER your weight transfer to your receiving foot is nearly/totally complete, at which point your sending foot now becomes the striking foot/receiving foot.

Instead, I'm referring to the heel of your sending foot lifting up DURING the weight transfer, before it is complete, from your sending foot to your receiving foot.

If I were to use counts, I guess i would say that the weight transfer to the receiving count is nearly/totally complete by &. Therefore I'm referring to the heel of the sending foot lifting up somewhere after the 1 but before the &.

Hope that is clear.

Do you lift your heel at that point? I am a leader, and took a lesson last month with a champion leader who said that my weight transfers didn't look clear enough, despite the fact that I rolled through my feet correctly.

He specifically said that he doesn't get see how my body is actually shifting weight from one foot to the other. I had a hard time understanding what he meant.

His recommendation was to ensure that the ball of my sending foot was responsible for causing me to shift from one foot to the other. To ensure this, my heel will lift from the ground, and my calf should feel flexed. All while the leg remains straight.

I would like to know if anyone does the above steps. I'm not sure if I just totally misunderstood his feedback or not.

I know we are supposed to start patterns on an odd beat (1 3 5 7) but sometimes I end up off beat (starting on 2 4 6 or 8).

When that happens, I don't know what to do except pause the dancing to get back on time. This creates a less than smooth experience.

What do you do when that happens to you? Do you have some tricks or steps to get back on time without interrupting the dance?

Thanks for your advice!

Hi, can someone recommend a studio or group to get my feet wet in this area? I love dancing but am worried about predatory ballrooms..

Hello peeps !

I am a follower currently working on adding more contrast to my dance. I do a lot of flowy stuff, so I’m trying to incorporate more sharp and staccato movements, especially in the upper body but other options could work.

Any ideas of dancers I could check out on YouTube to get inspiration or other sources/ideas ?

Thanks a bunch 🤗

I’m thinking of going but looking at the schedule it doesn’t look like a “fun” event. It looks very serious!

I’m sure I would enjoy watching the upper level dancers but I’m curious to know what the social dancing is like and how the mix of shag and west coast swing works.

I am travelling on my own to the US around that time and ideally would like a friendly event to go to while I’m there.

When someone takes a private lesson and brings along a helper for the lesson, how important is the skill level of the helper? Does it help to bring someone significantly better or more experienced or less so, or do people tend to stay within a tight range of their (JnJ) skill level?

If someone competes in champion level for classic/showcase routine at The Open and has been in Champion strictly… can this dancer be referred to as a “Champion” even though they do not have “Champion Points”?

Edit for more context: Has won 3rd place showcase one year and 4th place classic another year.

Asking for workshop promotion purposes.

Who are some champion (or soon to be champion) level dancers who started WCS later in life? Are there any?

AITA? me (F26) and my husband (M25) just moved to a more southern state because that’s where he was stationed and our town has a bar where they do line/swing dancing almost every night. back home we don’t have places like that but i’ve always wanted to do it. i danced when i was little and grew up dancing in my church (i have since deconstructed but i digress) its just in my blood, i love dancing and to me it’s not something that’s inherently sexual or romantic unless you choose to make it that way.

because of my husbands job he can’t come with me during the week because he has to get up early (understandable) so i go with my female friend and we have a fun girls night. the bar opens at 9 and that’s usually the time my partner goes to bed to get up for work in the morning but every thursday, no matter that i spend the time with him from when he gets home till right before they open he gives me a hard time because im “leaving him” instead of going to bed with him. but im not tired and wouldn’t be going to bed anyways.

so line dancing doesn’t have partners but swing does. i talked with my partner about swing dancing with other men. i made my case about how it’s not sexual to me nor to the other people there (unless you make it so) it’s just a hobby. i said they have this thing where if you wear a bandana on your left side it means you’re married/taken and aren’t looking and that i would wear one. i stated that i wouldn’t do any inappropriate moves with the other men, for obvious reasons. my friend and i only drink water when we go so we’re not impaired to drive or otherwise. i tried to make every thing i possibly could clear that i was protecting our relationship while still wanting to dance. i was trying to compromise and he still says it makes him uncomfortable. i asked him why and he said it’s because hes disappointed and wants to do that with me but because he can’t i’m going to other men to do it. like ?? that shouldn’t be how you’re looking at it because that’s definitely not how it is. i would love to swing dance with him and would go again on days he could but im not “replacing” him. it feels controlling and icky but he just feels like i don’t care about his feelings so idk. aita?

Hi everyone!

I am considering moving to Kansas City for one year in January 2025. One of the things stopping me is that I am obsessed with improving in WCS, and I currently live in NYC, which has SO many WCS classes and socials. Training in WCS is my therapy so anywhere I live must have a very good scene.

I'd like to do at least two classes a week plus a private lesson with an advanced teacher. One social a week would be nice as well. In NYC, this is more than possible. So I'm wondering how good the scene is in Kansas City.

1. Is the WCS scene big enough in KC that my plan to do 2 classes+1 private+1 social a week is realistic?

2)Are there many advanced dancers in KC? One of my reasons I don't want to leave NYC is there is such a huge group of diverse dancers and advanced dancers, specifically leaders, which is awesome as a novice follower. I just assume that I am spoiled here in NYC with the amount of people who have dance backgrounds, and the amount of diversity among the dancers- it keeps you on your toes and teaches you a lot of new things. So any insight is appreciated.

3. I have been dancing WCS for one year. I've done one competition at the novice level so far. I want to advance quickly. I think privates will help with that. I heard that Ariel and Jesse are in KC, and I love how both of them dance, but are there other high level teachers? I don't want to rely on just two teachers being there.

Thanks everyone. Forgive my ignorance on the KC scene. I've heard KC has a decent WCS scene, but coming from NYC, I'm scared that I'll be underwhelmed by what a good scene is considered in smaller cities. IDK...I come from the middle of nowhere, but have lived in NYC for many years, so I really don't have experience with mid-sized/smaller city culture.

Hi everyone! I just started wcs as a follower and I'm having a good time so I'd like to continue learning! I haven't done a lot of dancing before so I'm not sure how to alleviate an issue I keep having:

I'm pretty short (about 5ft/5'1, or 1.5 meters) so even female leads are usually quite a bit taller than I am. My instructor said I need to take smaller steps, but when my lead's "small" steps are like 3 of my small steps, that's a challenge lol. When I take small steps, my lead always ends up dragging me across the floor or being an awkward distance away. Both result in me feeling like I need to take extra steps to get back into place. Any tips on how to improve this?

Hi all, for the social DJs/dancers out there, how do you keep track of BPMs for your playlists and your library of music?

I use Spotify and I used to keep track of the BPM for each song in a spreadsheet. If I'd do a social set at my local scene, I'd have Spotify open on one half of my screen and the spreadsheet open on the other. It worked, but if I wanted to play a song that I hadn't previously BPM'd, I'd either have to play that from my phone to figure out if it worked, or just take the risk and play it anyway.

I'm making a Chrome extension that integrates BPM into the Spotify web player, and it's SO much quicker for me already. It's not 100% accurate (it sources from Spotify), but it's generally pretty good. There is also an override feature so if you do see an error, you can make a correction. I'll keep adding corrections myself, so it will only get more accurate with time.

There are a few other features that look at analysing playlists, showing slowest song, fastest song, average BPM, etc. But the main benefit for me is having the BPM for my entire library of playlists all recorded automatically, and in one place.

I know DJs are already across this, and use other software to handle this, but if like me you enjoy Spotify and don't want to manage your library of music manually, this might be able to help you.

The purpose of this isn't to self promote but to try and help other WCS social DJs save time and make it easy to discover new music, without having to manually BPM everything all the time. I'm curious how people go about this currently and whether a tool like this would be appealing at all?

This is the extension I'm working on: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/bpmify-add-bpm-to-spotify/ffekeegcdaffedinmbdlppgdhailjkej

I’ve recently heard and seen the term “modern swing” in reference to WCS in a few different places (an online lesson with Myles & Tessa, a title for a Nicole & Thibault video, a dancer’s insta profile…). Is this a new term dancers are using interchangeably with WCS? A new term to indicate an evolution in the dance? A regional preference? Something else entirely??

I don't dream about WCS dancing as much as I like, but when I do it is always a trip.

Usually there is always some kind of fumbling around; it's not remotely proper.

Last night I had a dream where I was in a competition and all of the judges were huddled together on the opposite side, not able to see me. It was distressing. And then my partner and I were making mistake after mistake.

It was still fun though!

Niche question but Sunday night at ASC a remix of Float On by Modest Mouse was played and it was so good and I cannot find it on Spotify - was anyone there and familiar with the cover/remix?

I can’t remember anything about this song except that it was played at Denver Swingtime at the blues room on Saturday night and it has the lyrics “style and grace” in it

Hi all, I'm a relative newbie leader in West Coast Swing with about 3 years of lessons in total (some breaks).

In our level 2 class, I suck. E.g. yesterday I told my wife (I'll call her Yvette) I felt I was the worst leader in our class, and rather than an encouraging white lie, she replied with "everyone has their own style" - Ouch! Likewise, our instructor recently said to us: "Yvette, you're really getting the hang of this, and Anthony ... uh, I can see you're trying" - again, Ouch!

But here's the irony - on a few recent cruises (where nobody seemed to know WCS), a woman at the dance floor actually asked if we were professional dancers; another person asked me if we were hired by the cruise ship to dance; an employee of one cruise line stopped me on the street after we had left the ship just to say how 'beautifully' my wife and I dance together; and on all of the cruises other random passengers were coming up to us and saying how much they enjoyed watching us dance.

It seems I dance badly around more advanced WCS dancers, and much better around non-WCS people. I assume it's because the pressure is off when not in front of a more knowledgeable crowd. The claim that "nobody is watching" is simply not true in a dance class (or a dance floor), so I'd be grateful for any other advice people have on how to get past the apparent intimidation I feel in class?

For lindy hop, I heard that despite drummers normally hitting the bass drum on 1 and (with less emphasis) on 3, we clap on even beats because claps are higher-pitched, like drummers' high-hats (ting!), which they generally hit on 2 and 4.

Brian B, probably the most popular West Coast Swing teacher on YouTube, and someone I greatly admire, says the even counts are heavier so we should pulse down on the evens, up on the odds.

That conflicts with the reasoning for clapping on evens. Is one of those logics wrong, or are they compatible and I'm just failing to see how?