Like all dances, WCS is composed of several fundamental patterns. Unlike many other dances, west coast patterns can extend or break the “rules” that make the fundamental patterns work. This gives WCS an amazing degree of flexibility but also increases the chances of moves not working on the social floor. To understand why some moves… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Concepts
Introduction to Playing
This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series PlayingWest coast swing, unlike most partner dances, encourages play between the partners. The leader can give the follower the freedom to do whatever she feels at a given point in the song, and the follower can request time to interpret the music instead of being… Continue Reading
Rock and Go
The rock and go is leadable syncopation for combining two patterns. Instead of ending the first pattern with an anchor and then starting the second pattern with a walk walk, the rock and go replaces all four beats of the anchor and the walk walk with a two beat connector. For six-count patterns, the anchor… Continue Reading
Elasticity
One of the distinguishing features of west coast swing is the elastic look and feel of the dance. This effect of stretching away from each other before moving in the same direction is distinct from the rock step motion that characterizes other forms of swing. Most dancers first learn about elasticity on the anchor. At… Continue Reading
Where the & Belongs
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Music and CountingThe biggest difference between straight and rolling count is when the weight transfer between the beats happens: either directly in the middle of the beat, or closer to the upbeat. However, there is another significant difference between the two forms of counting. Each… Continue Reading
A Two Beat Dance
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Music and CountingAlthough west coast swing is composed of six- and eight-count patterns, the actual dance itself is a two-beat dance. Every movement in west coast swing goes through a downbeat-upbeat pair. Those pairs of downbeats and upbeats are then joined together into a full… Continue Reading
Rolling and Swung Counts
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Music and CountingThe first part of this series introduced the difference between straight and rolling counts in west coast swing. In this post, we will introduce the third kind of count common in WCS music: the swung count. As we saw earlier, the rolling count… Continue Reading
Standard Foot Positions
All forms of dance share several standard foot positions. This article will describe the standard foot positions and explain where they turn up in west coast swing. First Foot Position In first foot position, the two feet are next to each other. Like all foot positions, this position can have varying degrees of turnout. In… Continue Reading
The Challenge of West Coast Swing
West coast swing is generally regarded as one of the most challenging social dances to learn. The purpose of this post is to explore some of the reasons why WCS can be challenging in order to help dancers understand why learning WCS can be difficult. Obviously, I believe that west coast is well worth the… Continue Reading
Rhythm Units
Almost all dances can be broken into 2-beat units of a downbeat and an upbeat. Each unit of the dance, in turn, can have a different number of weight changes and can have those weight changes occur at different times. To keep track of the “how many” and “when” of weight changes, we use rhythm… Continue Reading