This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Anchor VariationsThe anchor is arguably the essential element of west coast swing. In your beginning classes, your instructor almost certainly spent a fair amount of time talking about the standard anchor: a triple in third foot position. This series aims to expand your anchor beyond… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Drills
Prepping Continuous Chaines Turns
All spins require a prep, in which the rotating side is held back in order to create the torque for the spin. This is easy to do for single turns, but when doing a continuous series of turns it becomes more difficult. This drill will extend the chaines turns exercise to focus on the prep.… Continue Reading
Measuring the Spin Exit
This drill is designed to help you measure your movement as you step out of a chaines turn. Before practicing this drill, make sure that your chaines mechanics are solid. If you want to get some extra practice on your basic chaines first, look at the basic chaines drill. The Drill: Without a partner, you… Continue Reading
Hard and Soft Accents
Not all musical accents are the same. The notes in “How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong?” demand a sharp, hard movement. Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” calls for a longer, softer, drawn out movements. Learning to dance the same accent in either a hard or a soft way can substantially improve the musicality… Continue Reading
Fitting Your Play Vocabulary to Music
This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series PlayingSo far, you’ve discovered your play vocabulary and cleaned up your movements so they look good. Now that you can execute your movements consistently, it’s time to fit them to music. The Drill: For each movement that you’ve developed, do the movement without music. Ask… Continue Reading
Polishing Your Play Vocabulary
This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series PlayingIf you’ve hosted your closed-windows dance party, you should have some movements that have the potential to be good play pieces. How do you polish them so that you’re willing to dance them in front of people? The Drill: This is a solo drill. Start… Continue Reading
Learning from Pro Styling
Developing your own style is a challenging task. Most of us look to pros for inspiration on what our dance can look like. This exercise will help you move from inspiration to imitation, so that you can start adding elements of the pro’s styling into your own dance. The Drill: Make a list of your… Continue Reading
Building a Play Vocabulary
This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series PlayingYou can get into play and you can return to the normal dance. Now what? This is the part of the process that is different for everyone. In short, you need to develop your repertoire of movements that fit you and your dance style so… Continue Reading
Expanding Your Palette
This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Coloring the DanceThis series has gone over a number of ways to add color to your dance. At this point, you know enough about coloring your basics to start exploring new ways of coloring on your own. This post will give you some ideas for… Continue Reading
Getting Into Play
This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series PlayingNow that you know how to get out of play, it’s time to get into it. Play is a temporary break from the standard WCS structure. So, you can indicate that play is starting by departing from what would normally be expected in the WCS… Continue Reading