Hi, Tessa here. Since 2002, I've been writing advice articles for West Coast Swing from my perspective as a WCS Champion and 30 years as a professional teacher and coach. My mission is to help teachers #teachWCSsmarter and dancers #trainWCSsmarter, which we do thoroughly in our Swing Literacy training programs.
But these articles are my way of contributing some free, bite-sized education to the community to help inspire and motivate with practical, actionable advice.
Be sure to scroll down to load more (pause to allow more to load)
I highly encourage everyone to leverage these free resources by sharing them in your community groups and with friends you know who could use them. Enjoy!
Feel like you’re working hard but not reaching your goals yet? Enjoy this little “photo story”. I created this because it provides perspective and answers a ton of questions and concerns that students have, that actually have nothing to do with dance itself, but rather the mastery journey. I found that when I first start coaching
Dance feedback is like hugs. Everybody can benefit from them, but no one will admit to it, and it can get awkward to ask. An no one likes an unwanted hug. This article is your go-to source on how to gracefully GET and GIVE feedback. Read on to discover: The 3 conditions required for feedback
Watch this 2-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement when you are lacking confidence because you think your skills aren’t good enough yet. Watch the video: Do you feel like you can only have confidence when you are competent? Are you thinking, “I’ll feel more confident when I get more
Watch this 3-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement when you are feeling disappointed with your “score” at the end of a dance party. Watch the video: Want to know how you can instantly score more “good” dances you have each night? Easy. Change your criteria for what qualifies as
Watch this 3-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement when you are struggling to learn a new dance skill or move. Transcript below. Watch the video: Isn’t it frustrating when you’re trying a new dance move and you still can’t get it after 10 tries? Let’s entertain an analogy: There
Watch this 2-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement to help you discover more styling potential immediately. Transcript below. Watch the video: Feeling limited in your styling? When you dance, do you ever feel like you are colouring with a box of only primary colour crayons? In each WCS class
Watch this 3-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement about asking higher level dancers to dance. Transcript below. Watch the video: Do you have an “untouchables” list? You know, that imaginary list you make up of dancers in your community that are usually better than you that you don’t ask
You’ve been taking West Coast Swing classes for a little while now, and you are inspired by the videos you’ve seen, so now you’re wondering if you should follow the hype to attend your first West Coast swing event? I got you. Here’s a brief pros-and-cons list to help you decide. First,
You love your classes and you love your teachers, but it can be challenging to build new skills when the partners you rotate to or practice with have bad habits or bad attitudes, right? So let’s talk about how you can still manage to get meaningful learning from every partner you rotate to in
Relatively speaking, dance is a pretty financially accessible hobby. Most nights of dancing that include classes and a dance still cost less than a night at the movies. But it’s “pay to play”: if you want to dance more, train more, compete more, travel more, the costs will add up.. So it would be smart
Part 1 and Part 2 of this series have garnered a massive response – when I opened up the floor to take suggestions for more tactical questions, people really unloaded! Well, I’m honoured, because that’s exactly what we’re here for. Not just this article series, but ALL the Swing Literacy programs: to fill a need and
When it comes to social dancing, many dancers ask us questions like “How should I handle it when…?” or “What do I do if…?” These are Tactical questions. In Part 1 of this series, I defined the difference between Techniques, Tactics, and Strategies which are important distinctions to read about to help you get