Is Swing Dancing Good For Beginners?

4. Stand in the front! I cannot stress this enough. Even people who have taken dance class so many times in their life, standing in the back, you lose so many details. It kinda has the perception that nobody can see you but there’s no hiding. If you have a good teacher they can see you. And they continually move around the room to make sure that they can see all of their students, so there’s no hiding! So you might as well just stand in the front where you can get all the details of the choreography – drills – whatever it is that they are teaching you.
5. Smile – it’s not that serious – have a good time! You’re never going to have a first dance class ever again, so take that experience, and the nerves, and the stress, and throw it out the door. Smile and do the best you can because you should be proud of yourself for getting into class in the first place. Second, chances are there’s people around you who feel the same way as you so talk to those around you. Make some new friends and everyone will feel more comfortable.

For those of you who are going to your first beginner swing dance lessons, make sure you take these tips, some water, and a good attitude to your first class and you are guaranteed to have a good time!

5 Tips for Your First Beginner Swing Dance Lessons

Learning how to swing dance is a fun way to meet new people and have a great time. It can be overwhelming at first, but as you get into it and take more and more beginner swing dance lessons, the easier it becomes. 

The most common and easiest beginner swing dance lessons to learn is the East Coast Swing. It’s a 6-count step, which for me was really confusing because as someone who took aerobic dance class for years, I was always counting to the eight-count beat. 

This was confusing for about six months when trying to learn the Lindy Hop at the same time as the East Coast Swing. Both Lindy and East Coast dances were being taught together, so counting to beats of eight kept getting me confused. Eventually, I realized that counting in two’s was the way to go at my local beginner swing dance lessons.

East Coast Swing is the most popular dance in the United States so it has a lot of online resources for learning and socializing. For that reason, it’s easier to get into if you are new at dancing. It’s also easy to learn because there are not too many techniques to keep track of when compared with other dances like Argentine Tango or Viennese Waltz. Practicing from these videos is a great way to start feeling comfortable with your dancing before you step out and go swing dancing tonight in Phoenix.

Solo Beginner Swing Dance Lessons

Beginner swing dance lessons aren’t just for two people. You can also learn how to dance solo. Solo swing dancing is a great way to learn the basic steps of this popular dance style without having to rely on a partner. It’s perfect for beginner swing dancers who want to build confidence and develop their dance skills at their own pace. In a solo swing dance lesson, you’ll learn the fundamental techniques and rhythms of the dance, as well as some fun and easy-to-remember choreography.

In swing and jazz music, you will find that the steps that show footwork and vocabulary are very similar in many different dance styles. You can find basic Charleston steps in Latin American styles and street styles – it’s the same step, but what will make the difference is the groove.

The “bounce” in swing dancing refers to the up-and-down movement that dancers create in their body as they dance to the rhythm of the music. It is a way to accentuate the rhythm and add energy to the dance. So what is the swing and jazz groove? It’s called bounce, and it goes like this together with the bass. 

The bounce lives in the pelvis and in your knees. Every time it’s about collapsing, going down, and imagining that instead of joints in your knees, pelvis, and hips, you have jelly there. But every time you go into your bounce, it never stops. It’s super essential because this is your timing – this is the music in your body. This gives the dance a lively, energetic feel. It’s important to keep your movements light and controlled, without jumping too high or too hard. As you become more comfortable with the basic steps, you can experiment with different variations of the bounce to find what feels best for you in your beginner swing dance lessons.

The bounce has an enemy, which looks very similar but is completely different. Its name is jumping.

You can definitely notice that the intention of the two is completely different; Jumping has an intention to go up, while bouncing has an intention to go down.

When we jump, we lift the weight of our brain from our head to our chest or hips. We work very hard with our arches to lift our body up and down. This is very energy-consuming and not necessary.

Bounce has an idea of release – breathe down, and keep continuous gravity to the floor.

When you are practicing solo swing dance for beginners, Imagine you have a gigantic golden medal hanging from your chest. You’re folding your body, you’re folding your bones. It’s very important to be aware of how we’re folding. Because if we say let’s go down bouncing, something like this can happen (left) when what we want to look like is on on the right:

It’s important to define where the hips go. Instead of wanting to connect your hips with your chest right here, as if you’re eating something with your belly, we want this trajectory.

On the other hand, imagine you’re sitting on a bar chair but the hips are drawn back and the chest is drawn forward. The weight is primarily on the balls of your feet.

It’s interesting because the jazz dance styles – the roots are in African style. Therefore, we want this position, this groove. We pretty much never have straight legs in jazz dancing. 

A live body, every part of the body moves. There’s no need to become something like this just going up and down. Everything is alive! There’s blood running through every single part of your body, and we’re grooving with the music and the bass.

What do you think? Is swing dancing good for beginners your style or would you rather try solo swing dance for beginners?

Once you fall in love with beginner swing dance lessons, you might start traveling to swing dancing events all over the world and immediately speak the same language – dance!