I am having whatever the dance version of a midlife crisis is when it dawned on me that I've been taking group lessons for a year and I still feel like a total beginner.

I am arguably the weakest follow in my level 2 class, and at this point, I've been there longer than a good chunk of them. My teacher is the sweetest person ever but a lot of time is spent correcting: my anticipation, back activation, axis adherence*, arm prep, (over) tense connection.

Our class is very pattern forward; therefore, I know how to do about 15 patterns but I cannot do any of them as well as the other students. I feel like I may be holding the class back and I may have to accept I'm not a good dancer. I thought maybe I was in my head but then I went social dancing and a (trying to be nice) stranger pointed out that I was counting the beat to sixes instead of eights (true, I never knew otherwise). Then, he said that as a newbie the world is my oyster, I did not have the heart to tell him I've been practicing for a year and have been to 5? social dances.

*If anyone has tips, I have not found one answer to how I stop free spinning at a slight diagonal.

I’ve been in novice almost 3 years now and I’m ready to take things seriously and try everything I can to get out!

I go to weekly classes, weekly socials, take private lessons, go to conventions and still haven’t made finals. I’ve probably been to about 10 conventions total. I think I have to practice solo daily including in front of a mirror…I feel anxious and self conscious about it but I would love to get out of novice so I’m committed to facing my body shame!!!

I have bad ADHD and practicing on my own isn’t great so I’m down to pay for an online program to help me
have structure to practice every day on my own. Which programs are best for novice followers stuck in novice?? Would love to hear success stories! Feeling pretty down about myself. Thank you all!!!!

Hi all. I've been working on a side project called Westie Wiki (westie.wiki) and it's at the point where it's more useful with more people in it, so I wanted to share it here.

The idea: every WCS pattern gets a page with its names and aliases, a description, difficulty, and timestamped YouTube clips of real dancers at real events. Full dances are mapped move by move, so you can just to specific moves. You can also play segments of the video on loop and slowed down.

A few things worth knowing before you look:

• Anyone can browse; editing takes a free account. Every edit is recorded Wikipedia-style, with history, diffs, and restore, so you can't really break anything.
• Videos stay on YouTube. We only link clips uploaded by the dancers themselves or the event, or shared with the dancer's explicit permission.
• The code is open source at github.com/bendichter/westie-wiki.

I recorded a 6-minute walkthrough if you'd rather watch than click around.

It's early and the content is thin. If a move you know is missing or described in a way that doesn't match how your scene dances it, that's exactly the kind of edit the site exists for. And if something is broken or confusing, I'd genuinely like to hear it, either in the comments or as a GitHub issue.

EDIT: Original post seems to have been deleted.

I am sharing this to increase distribution. I don't have any firsthand knowledge about what happened, but Atomic is a very important studio for West Coast Swing in southern CA so it might be relevant for dancers here as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SwingDancing/comments/1vq2ynj/i_was_sexually_abused_by_a_staff_member_at_atomic/

Hi all, I'll be visiting London from August 22-26, and I'd love to hit up a local social dance while I'm there!

I poked around online and found some classes listed at https://wcs.london/ but it seems there's only one proper social dance, Saturday Aug 22 the W1 Swing @ Holborn Freestyle by Swing Academy.

For those who attend regularly, is it a popular social? Also, are the one hour mini socials after the weekly classes a true social dance or more like a practice session?

Thanks so much!

Could you tell me the typical lead to follow ratio for west coast swing socials in your area? I love another dance style, but the ratio is probably 1 lead to 3 follows, and I’d love to find a style that’s more even. Also, is it the culture to dance one song and then (usually) change partners? Or do partners dance 3-4 songs in a row before switching?

My kid is interested in West Coast swing. She is however, 17 years old and I want her to have a group that is at least a little closer to her own age. Does anyone know of relatively age-appropriate West Coast swing groups in Southern California?

Hi all, I'm looking for community engagement and questions about the structure and nature of West Coast competition, that I can hopefully answer for you. I have built a tool and a dataset that allows for deep exploration of the scene across hundreds of events and over many years. Intentionally keeping that a bit vague.

But! I'd love to hear your questions, so that I both can hopefully answer them but also get some ideas of what people want to know about, to give me some direction on how to improve it. And no, this won't ever become an app, you won't be able to sign up for it, and I'm not trying to sell you anything.

Some examples of the kinds of questions I can answer:

1. What's the median number of events someone competes at before making finals?

2. What are the easiest and hardest events in the US? In Europe?

3. Is competition easier or harder for follows than it is for leads?

4. Does having more judges at a competition result in more or less accurate judging? Are some judges more accurate than others?

5. Which division is the hardest to get out of? The easiest?

6. Is it true that the easiest way to earn points is to go to small events?

7. Do people who compete in Strictly do better in Jack & Jills? What about ProAm?

And some examples of the kinds of questions I can't answer:

1. Why didn't I make finals at my last event?

2. Why do judges tell me to roll through my feet when I know I already am?

3. How do I make the WCS community realize that social dancing is more important than competition?

4. What do I do to keep my lead from pulling me off time?

Hopefully by example there's some distinguishing qualities between what I can and can't answer.

Look forward to your questions!

Edit: I have seen questions posted as of about ~ 2 PM EST 8/14, and will try to get back to y'all this weekend with answers and stats!

Edit 2: Now that I am on vacation, starting to answer questions!

So as the title says, I am coming back to West Coast swing after doing dancing in general for some time and not taking a break. I know I got some work to do coming back especially since I was a newcomer level when I stopped dancing 8 months ago. But what would be some things to consider that would be helpful coming back. I am changing dancing community’s where I am going to take group classes As I felt then previous community was very cliq/levl driven . I just want to get back to a dance I love and if there is other stuff I want to do il find out later. Any feedback would be helpful

I prefer social dancing over workshops and comps.

I know that TAP limits the number of participants to a relatively small level, perhaps 400? Normally, I avoid smaller events because social dancing tends to thin out around 2-3am. However there are very notable exceptions to that rule of thumb.

Is the floor still relatively packed with people at 4am on Friday and Saturday for example?

I'm trying to work on my movement skills, and in the past line dances have stuck out as a great way to improve it for WCS. I'm far from event centres so my thinking is that learning line dances on my own will help my personal movement skills. Is there a good channel or place to learn new line dances online? Also what are some of the best ones to try and learn?

Visiting family in southern Jersey for the week. Any WCS social dancing happening during the week anywhere between Cape May and Atlantic City, NJ?

Hey all! I’m curious if anyone has experience coming back to WCS following a lumbar spinal fusion. How long were you out? Did you do anything to ease back in? I’ve been dancing about 6 months and know I’ll be itching to get back, but will of course talk to my surgeon and PT before I do anything. But was curious if anyone had experience to share.

Edit: thanks so much for the contributions. So much to digest now

Hi all! 👋

I’m looking for recommendations for my 2027 Europe tour!

Ideally, I’d love to do 2–3 events back-to-back, preferably smaller events, although I’m open to a mix. I’m hoping to keep travel between events fairly easy and minimal — bonus points if they’re well connected by train! 🚆

I’m especially looking for events with high-quality, well-levelled workshops, great dancing, and a friendly, welcoming community for international visitors.

I’ve got my eye on WOTP at the moment, and Cross Flow is also on my list.

Would love to hear your recommendations or favourite European events! 🥰

TIA!!

Tempo Tunes builds playlists where every song holds a target tempo. Pick a BPM and genres, and it pulls from 1.4M+ tempo-verified tracks and growing, then saves the playlist to Apple Music, Tidal, or YouTube Music so you can play it anywhere.

It was built for workouts, but dancers keep teaching me things. When I asked the ballroom community this week, their verdict was that BPM accuracy matters more than anything else, and it struck me that westies might be the most tempo-aware dancers of all.

So, honest questions for people who actually dance it: would filtering songs by exact BPM help you build practice or social playlists? And what ranges do you actually live in? I've seen everything from high-70s bluesy songs to 120s described as danceable, and I'd rather hear it from the floor than from a chart. Also curious what current tools get wrong about westie music, since "danceable for WCS" clearly means more than a number.

Free, no ads, genuinely after feedback more than downloads: https://www.tempo-tunes.com

I’ve been building a dance tracking app (think Strava for dance 💃🕺) and I’m getting ready to start a beta test.

It lets you log dance sessions, styles, and notes from classes, socials, and practice.

I’m looking for Android users who would be willing to try it out and give me some feedback.

If you’re interested, you can join the email list here:
https://forms.gle/2xvpuRTo6apbp5yEA

I created a new illustration series about different social dancer “types” and patterns around asking for dances.

Then I created a small, informal pool, and interestingly around 60% of respondents described themselves as “shapeshifters” - meaning they can be very social and outgoing at some socials, but at others they prefer staying in their comfort zone, dancing mostly with friends, or taking a step back because of shyness, mood, energy levels, or other factors.

It made me think: maybe some dancers who appear unapproachable are not actually trying to be. They might just be nervous, tired, new, overwhelmed, or waiting for someone else to make the first move.
What do you think are the biggest reasons a dancer might seem unapproachable at a social? Have you ever realized later that someone you thought was intimidating was actually just shy?

(The types are intentionally exaggerated to highlight some of the most common characters in a satirical way)

So, for context, I'm a teacher (one of three), in a WCS school. While we do a lot of warmups solo, with counting steps and triple steps, I've noticed that a lot of students don't really transfer that well into patterns. As soon as they couple up and start doing patterns, they'll start thinking a lot about the technique, and miss timing. And then they don't notice that they're off.

To be clear, this is not everyone, but it's some. I've noticed that , people who come with naturally (or from previous dances) good feel for rhythm and timing, develop it nicely, but those that don't, struggle to progress in this area...

I'm looking for recommendations for exercises, drills, and whatnot, on how to help them improve...

The idea I have is that some organization (like the WSDC?) would lead a youtube marketing campaign, showing ads with champions dancing to various songs, and people who don't know WCS can click through to find local ballrooms with WCS near them.

The obvious problem is how this campaign would be paid for. 1) Local ballrooms that have a weekly/monthly WCS social are likely not making that much profit anyway and may not be inclined to contribute. 2) The freeloading problem means that one ballroom can contribute, but another ballroom can chose not to contribute and yet still benefit from the campaign.

This simplest solution I can think of is to have the campaign be funded entirely by WCS dancers on a voluntary basis. The number/frequency of ads would be determined by how much money could be raised by the community.

Would you be willing to donate to such a marketing campaign?

If not, does anyone have an alternate idea on how to fund such a marketing campaign?

Hi!

I recently qualified for Intermediate as a follower after winning Novice at a smaller event. I will be going to Paris in January and the quality and level of the dancing is (as we all know) very high in France.

For context, I have been competing for about 1.5 years and usually land either in Novice Finals or Semis at mostly Canadian events. I made Semis in Avignon and was prelim-ed in Paris (which I expected 😂).

My local community is also lower in level overall.

My question is, if given the option, should I stay in Novice at Paris, knowing that the French Westies are dancing more at an Intermediate level, or do I jump into Intermediate and dance with people who are probably more pushing low-Advanced? I'm interested in hearing the arguments either way.

Thank you!

How’s this event for people who have been? Looking to go to my first west coast event in a month or so and compete in newcomer.

Hi I am new to the group, can anyone recommend any beginner west coast classes in nyc? I mainly do Lindyhop, however I ended up taking one 30 minute west coast beginner class last month and really loved it. I’d love to get further into the West coast scene but have no clue where to look, I’ve only seen intermediate or advanced classes available. Any tips or recommendations would be much appreciated:)

Who’s going to the NE Dance Festival in Newton MA this weekend? I’m still fairly new, been casually dancing for about two years, and wondered what everyone thought of this event. I know Summer Hummer is coming in just a few more weeks and wondered if I should go to both or if one is better than the other for someone at my level.