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 dancers #trainWCSsmarter and teachers #teachWCSsmarter, which we do thoroughly in our Swing Literacy training programs.
These articles are my way of contributing some free, bite-sized education to the community to help inspire and motivate with practical, actionable advice for your dancing & teaching.
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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!
So you’ve been learning WCS for several months now and you’re curious: the other dancers you admire seem to be doing a lot of exploring and playing outside the box of basic patterns – how can you get some of that creativity in your dance? We use this graphic to guide dancers in their first year
How is your brain sabotaging your dance progress.? There are many aspects to The Mental Game of dancing – here’s just one: cognitive biases. A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information. A learning bias is a pre-determined assumption or mindset
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
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
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
Struggling to find dancers in your area who want to practice? Need to find the words to approach partners and suggest practicing? Here’s a complete guide to who to ask and how to approach them.
Many dancers know they should be practicing and want to practice together… But how? This is a format you might not be used to, and the last thing you want to do is waste time and frustrate each other, right? Problem solved! In this article, I’m going to explain how to practice effectively with a small
Can’t get your body to do what the teacher expects? You could be dancing in the wrong profile. I’ve got good news for you: It’s not your fault – there’s nothing wrong with you, but you need different tools. You are not alone – most dancers are struggling to conform to an ideal. There