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This is Part 2 in a 4-part series. If you have already read Part 1: Social, skip to the Part 2 section by clicking here.
It's the new year - typically a popular time to reassess and take stock, but this year we're a little wiser...
Since the pandemic, we've all learned a lot about what really hasn't been working and what is due for an upgrade. We've also had time to think about what's really important to us so we can make better decisions going forward.
Or have we?
Have you actually taken stock of what you really want out of your West Coast Swing lately? Because now's a REALLY good time to do that!
Consider this your opportunity to do a philosophical audit of your WCS, and "clean your closet" so you can dump some dead weight in your dance and focus on what you really want.
Here's a quick menu to choose from! Or maybe these will spark new ideas. Don't fall into the trap of saying, "All of them!". Read more below...
Take a moment before answering: your first answer might be keeping you from being honest with yourself, which might be sabotaging your ability to have your needs met.
Many dancers approach us seeking advice, from all corners of the WCS scene: students, teachers, competitors, non-dancing spectators, social dancers, event directors. Our responses as coaches vary, depending not only on who’s asking, but on what their purpose is.
A common mistake dancers make is following advice intended for someone who has different needs/goals/reasons for dancing WCS.
They are likely different from when you started. They're also likely different than this time last year.
Either way, if you have goals and/or needs that are not being satisfied, it’s time for an audit. Time to reassess and make some course-corrections if necessary.
These are the kind of articles you want to read slowly and think. Read and consider all of these goals/needs – you may discover some less obvious ones that you can relate to. Or maybe this will spark some ideas that aren't listed.
All of these reasons/desires are valid: I’m not going to convince you to change any of them: But your (honest) reasons should dictate the path you choose and the decisions you make.
Said another way,
So here's the second instalment in this series discussing the most common reason people are attracted to WCS in the first place. At the end I also describe a few pitfalls to avoid...
You might want all of these, but consider which ones are MOST important to you.
Back when you started WCS, you might have been enthusiastically thinking, “I need to learn this dance!”, but it was more likely “I need to figure this thing out!”.
Either way, you see a discrepancy between what you can do and what you see others can do, and you feel motivated to close the gap. If the pursuit of competence drives you – let it. While in pursuit, keep your eyes open for the next new goal.
The key is to not succumb to complacency. Just because you learned a skill once, doesn’t mean you are competent at it. Don’t fall into the trap of convincing yourself that you have “learned enough” – not only your dance will get really boring to both you and your partners, but it's possible to regress. Time for private coaching.
One way or another, you NEED feedback, otherwise you are living in an echo chamber. You can buy feedback from professionals of course, but you can also get it for free from practice partners and trusted friends. There's an art to receiving and requesting feedback though, so I added a whole article about this below.
Want more details on how to gain competence in your WCS skills at ANY level? Be sure to check out more resources below.
It might not be enough for you to feel competent at something – you feel the need to conquer it. Mastery is an admirable pursuit in any field, and the prescription is almost always the same: coaching and practice.
Yep, you're going to need mileage if you want to myelinate new skills! There is no getting around it. But just social dancing and "trying to think about tips" is not going to cut it. There are way more effective ways to practice that will help you make more permanent improvement, more efficiently. And they start with drills. Be sure to check the article I've linked to below to find out how to optimize your practice drills.
Practice is useless without feedback. Masters provide feedback to you. But feedback is useless without practice. If your goal is mastery, you need to find all the coaching you can afford.
Shop around, find a sensei you respect and who respects you. Be particular: just because someone is a good dancer, doesn’t make them a good coach.
Diversify: train under multiple coaches to hear a variety of perspectives and approaches, and cross-train in other dance styles to gain mastery over your body. This is one reason why workshops are soooo valuable. You'll definitely want to read the article on workshops listed below.l
If you are bored in group classes, and bored with your dancing, it might mean that you need to be challenged, but not necessarily. It might seem like the answer is to “move up” a class level, but that’s usually not the ideal solution.
In our experience, dancers are bored in group classes when they don't know how to learn effectively in group classes. This is extremely common (and ironic since group classes are a staple of partner dance training), and happens because most classes teach instructions for patterns but don't spend much time teaching dancers how to learn how to dance. This is exactly what Swing Literacy programs specialize in.
Take a private lesson to get a custom-tailored plan on how to improve your skills and find ways to challenge yourself in your classes, social dancing, and competitions. Or if you're ready to upgrade, Swing Literacy training can help you get a better ROI on every class you ever take from any teacher.
There will be a plateau point in your WCS development where your basic mechanics have stabilized, but you might not feel like you are “dancing” yet.
This is the time to go to a teacher for a private lesson and figure out how you can discover your personal groove and insert your own personality into the dance.
A lot of dancers come to us looking for this, and they think they need/want styling variations because they seem like an obvious solution to look better. But actually what they are missing is character of dance, which is acquired through fundamental movement skills - the foundation skills that you might have missed when you were first taught your "basics".
So some research first – study dancers better than you. If you can identify which ones you admire and why, your teacher can understand what inspires you. If you find yourself still hunting, always know that Swing Literacy Dancer Development Program provides all of these missing skills. Here's one skill you can explore that can give you access to feeling better immediately.
This might also be the point where you decide you would like to try choreography. Consider joining a team, doing a Pro-Am, or even a Rising Star routine. Read more about this below.
This dance is supposed to FEEL good. Reeaallly good. If it doesn’t, don’t give up, keep searching for more connection instruction, because it's likely you are missing some juicy skills.
Try different instruction sources: live workshops & intensives, instructional videos & online workshops, private lessons, online programs. There is a wide variety of quality out there, because not all teachers have had access to efficient systems.
In every format, there are ways to #trainWCSsmarter and leverage opportunities to get the feel you are striving for. But if you are struggling, it's time to switch modalities. Connection is complex, but should not be hard to get to the point where you feel amazing with any partner.
Does it help to get hands-on coaching and practice with dancers with good connection? Of course! But there's a LOT you can and need to learn that does not require in-person coaching.
And while having great practice partners will feel nice, isn't your ultimate goal to make EVERY partner feel good, not just the highly skilled ones? This means you need to train your compensation skills so you can achieve great connection regardless of what your partner offers. This is a unique skillset we focus on in the Swing Literacy programs.
In the meantime, embrace dancers with fewer connection skills than you, like a mountain biker embraces a rough trail. Welcome the challenge and use that dance as a checklist of survival skills you can work on.
Now, let's address some pitfalls you might encounter as you strive for these goals/needs:
How do you currently measure your improvement? Hopefully you don't fall into the trap of relying on competition results to indicate your progress. Competitions only compare your 2-minute dance to others' 2-minute dance on that day. They are a useless metric for measuring how much your skills have grown. If you have a detailed formal assessment system like we do in Swing Literacy, here are two things that are far more valuable metrics than competition results:
Many dancers sabotage their own progress by self-disqualifying from sources of instruction because they make incorrect assumptions.
For example:
Once you have identified what your most important goals/needs are in the "skills" department, you can use this to help guide some decisions you make about:
Then use some of the tips mentioned here as a starting point to take action to get more of what you really want.
Below are a few articles that provide more detail.
But first, move on to Part 3: Competition where I will help you identify competition-related goals you have and how to take action to work toward them.
If you haven’t heard about this psychological concept, you need to. Understanding it can have a profound effect on your dancing, but also other areas of your life you may be self-sabotaging. Let me give you a little definition first, then I’ll discuss how this could be… the most important thing you ever learn in dancing.Defining Growth
Does this sound familiar? “Workshops are all the same”“I don’t learn well in workshops”“Workshops are only for beginners”“Workshops are only for serious dancers”“I’ll never retain it all anyway” These are all reasons dancers give for why they can’t/don’t need to attend workshops. They sound valid on the surface, but are actually evidence of a global epidemic.What if
Private lessons are a mystery to many dancers, not just the newbies. Veteran dancers tend to forget this valuable resource that can help guide them through the tough phases in their dance development and achieve their goals. Let’s demystify and help you understand exactly:Who can benefit from Private LessonsWhy you should bother considering themWhere you should
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 to be appropriate:
In every skill-based activity there’s a difference between the beginners and the veterans. This makes sense – the longer you work at something, the better you get at it. Notice I said work at; just because you hack at something longer, doesn’t mean you’re improving.But the dance community is full of distinctions, divisions, labelling…ways of
Enter your text here… Wanna improve your West Coast Swing? Social dancing isn’t enough. You need to actually practice. But practicing is actually a skill unto itself, one that most partner dancers never actually learn explicitly, so it ends up being resented, inefficient, or neglected completely. But you neeeeeed it and there are so many
The West Coast Swing world is a strong supporter of social dancing: the improvisation side of the dance. The idea of speaking a language in order to carry on a conversation with anyone in the world without planning, is of the highest value. However, almost all dance forms have a facet to them that involves a
It’s great to see students all over the world taking the initiative to practice on their own. Practice of personal movement skills is part of a balanced diet of partner dance learning and skill development, regardless of your ambition level. We are strong advocates of “homework”: once you learn your skills in your lesson, you need
And now for a little practical philosophy.
