I had a gut feeling that things should be taught a different way - Swing Literacy gave me the courage to step out of the box of the old school teaching methodology. It gave me affirmation, guidance, courage, valildation. It reinforced my dedication to the concept of drills & skills over patterns & footwork, and I realized what was critical both to focus on and to avoid focusing on.

As an Advanced dancer and I had been teaching for a few years now with no real training. I’d been looking for something to help grow our community and my knowledge as a teacher. I’d always felt like I could learn more, but hadn’t found any learning programs that were West Coast Swing based teaching.

When I started the Swing Literacy program, literally within the first week my students noticed a dramatic change in my teaching methods. I continue to get compliments from them comparing my teaching early on to where I am today.

Prior to me taking the Swing Literacy TDP, we always wanted something more and knew that we lost people. Since finishing and implementing Swing Literacy methods, we are able to retain many more people and grow the dancers we already have. Our community probably doubled during the first few months of using the new program! My AllStar teaching partners are excited to take the TDP too, inspired by the difference it has made for me and our community.

Looking back, I wish I would have learned about the simple physics of the dance when I first started.  I can see now that these foundational concepts really lay the groundwork for more complex topics and ideas. Many of my brand new students are already accelerating past those who have been dancing for years simply because they understand the core fundamentals of what each role is required to provide.

When I signed up for this program, I expected a what-to-do training session; how to teach the basics, and in what order. To my surprise, they didn’t give us any of this information. Yes, there was a metric ton of materials provided, but they gave us the tools to answer these questions for ourselves.

This was not a lesson in how to replicate Myles & Tessa in dance, or in teaching style. In fact, they avoided preaching subjective, personal opinions like the plague. This was a lesson in how to break down complex material into manageable building blocks, and how to scaffold learning in order to give the student the best possible shot at retaining the material.
 I learned to question everything, myself, and *why* something works or does not work. I learned that while a student must experience success to feel compelled to learn more, there are alternatives to teaching pattern footwork to a beginner in order to give them a manageable task. Many alternatives!

I learned how to shape a more credible WCS dancer in their first 15 minutes, and how to convey the key underlying WCS techniques with relatable analogies and simple drills. This is the tip of the iceberg. Myles & Tessa, you are truly masters of your trade. I am so grateful to have you both as my coach, mentor and dance project manager. Thank you!

"I am a firm believer that you can not learn a dance without a consistent, progressive curriculum, that having classes at random, from different instructors and on different levels is disorienting, like picking crumbs from a table. You guys are brilliant, this is exactly what I needed and was waiting for. And, all your efforts to constantly add-on, adjust, upgrade are so much appreciated! Thank you!"

I recently completed Myles & Tessa’s “How to Teach WCS in 15 minutes” and wanted to give my feedback. As a longtime member of the WCS community, I also have a degree in education and spent almost 20 years in Educational Technology. I know how difficult it is to create content for an online platform that is not just e-text or a video demonstration, neither of which are educationally beneficial to most people. 

This program is refreshingly different. It incorporates sound teaching techniques in both the design and in the delivery of the material. Videos are scattered throughout the program at different points in different lessons, sometimes introducing a concept and sometimes as a summary. Teaching strategies such as KWL and Scaffolding are used to help the learner. Content is delivered in short, easy to digest chunks with clear instructions on how to complete simple tasks that will move your learning along. 

The program introduces and encourages teaching dance through an exploratory/discovery method…. all while using the same exploratory/discovery method to teach you how to teach! With almost 20 years of experience working with educational technology (McGraw, Pearson, Blackboard, etc), I can honestly say that this is an incredibly well-designed program, and I can’t wait to start the next series!

I had a wonderful teaching experience last night with a group of dancers I only get to teach a few times per year. After giving them some of the core Swing Literacy skills, I noticed a dramatic difference in their quality of movement right away; and so did they! Their eyes were wide, and those 'aha moment' smiles ... The students were blown away by how differently the dance felt to them. I'm still getting messages this morning ..lol. Talk about positive reinforcement as a teacher ❤

"Life before Myles and Tessa was frustrating!!!  I loved going to dance events, however I was doing poorly in competition, and was not exactly the most popular dancer on the social floor.  After a 2-year streak of rarely making finals in novice, I started taking regular private lessons with Myles & Tessa.  I jumped from Novice to Advanced in just 1 year (6 events)!!

M&T have taken years to analyze this dance and have figured out how to simplify some very complex ideas.  Their Swing Literacy system is brilliant.  I can see many more “Tessons” and “Mylestones” in my future."

I’ve had plenty of diagnoses but have never been told how to make the corrections. I always felt confused by classes and workshops that alluded to some techniques, but never really went into detail about them. It made such a difference to have M&T give us a succinct language to communicate skills and techniques. Not only did they give me the coaching I need to understand how to make those corrections, but the clarity and consistency of their method gave me the structure I needed to reinforce concepts and build new habits.

“What I love about lessons with Tessa is her really interesting way of teaching. She never says : “Stop thinking, just do this shape like that because I told you to”. Instead, she takes the time to ask you the right questions to guide you to think for YOURSELF about your dance. This self-analysis makes me understand my own body mechanics, and learn even faster! Now every time I leave the ballroom, it’s always with a big smile because I had a lot of fun and also because I discovered something new about my way of dancing. It’s always like a revelation.”

The Fast Track Coaching program the best thing I’ve ever done for my dance. Tessa is a peerless diagnostician. I swear it’s like her eyes see dance in slow-mo X-ray. She once told me to stop curling my toes while dancing… when I was wearing boots at the time!! Her teaching methodology is absolutely impeccable. She doesn’t just list concepts; she teaches you how to practice and learn dance so that you can retain the information. Most of my biggest breakthroughs in dance are thanks to Tessa and the more I learn about this dance the more I realize how right she is about basically everything. She got me out of Novice and now she’s gotten me out of Intermediate. The plateaus in my dance not-so-oddly coincide with the periods of time when I was working with her less regularly.

This course helped me to discover missing elements as both a student and as an instructor. We have all wondered why some things are more difficult to learn. The Swing Literacy program changes the way you extrapolate and helps you plan your next steps in a much more "engineering viewpoint."

As a full-time educator, it is vital for me to have a solid, hierarchical framework of the topic or skill that I am teaching. Although I was a competent dancer who was already familiar with Myles and Tessa's teaching style when I started the SLDM, I did not have the level of expertise or the time needed to confidently build my own framework, particularly since teaching a physical skill is very different from teaching an academic one. While my teaching skills did give me a distinct advantage, the SLDM Theory Module acted as my textbook and gave me the foundation of this framework, while also teaching me how to effectively expand and build on it. It gave me the confidence and knowledge that I needed to be able to teach with professional integrity.

Yesterday I taught a private for the first time since COVID started. I've been teaching this couple more or less consistently since they started 18 months ago.
The couple and I were wearing masks and were in a huge room with open windows, at least 10m apart on different sides of the room. So obviously I couldn't dance with/touch them in order to demonstrate anything. I taught them Swing Literacy fundamentals and discovered they could handle more than I thought. And: it made a big difference! They were able to understand the techniques behind the moves so much better, and I was able to explain the technique way clearer. I think before I much more had to rely on being able to dance with them and make them feel certain movements in addition to explaining some concepts. It was also easier for me to identify what was missing in their dancing, so issues were easier to fix. Their underarm turns, sugar pushes and inside turns looked so much better afterwards!! Thank you, Myles and Tessa, for putting together this invaluable training program!