Joined swing dance

Writing this a bit late (roughly 5 weeks!), but have finally decided to get around to it. I’ve started to take my dance game to the next level! So at the start of term, I decided to check out the swing dance society. (I’m guessing walking past it on my commute to YSTV had made me a bit curious!)

First thoughts are it’s quite interesting and new! Both the moves and the dynamic.

Sessions

The sessions run roughly like this:

• Filtered into the dance hall (in this case, James Hall).

• Get given a name badge.

• A little bit of chatting with your fellow dancers.

  • Some of the more keen dancers however will already be making moves. Particuarly the session instructors!

• The instructors will then kick off the session, getting everyone to form into a circle.

• A brief pre-ample of the dance to be learned and a warm-up exercise.

• The room is split into two, leads and follows each taking a side of the room.

• The first dance is revealed. Going step by step, doing it solo.

• Then pairing the leads and follows! Forming a circle of partners.

  • Whichever role has a surplus, they will rotate partners clockwise around the circle.

• Proceed to try to dance as a pair. New moves gradually introduced.

• When a milestone is reached, a song is played to appreciate the moment.

• Then the lesson ends after roughly an hour and a bit!

What I enjoy

To highlight a couple things.

Learning

I’ve only really done freestyle dancing, so doing something organised / formal is quite different and it’s great! As I’m expanding my dance move options, and also giving inspiration for new moves for me to explore.

Dance as a language

It’s made me realise that dancing is a lot like a language (and thinking of it more, how many other things are also!). Where a new move is like a new word. It kind of reminds me also of standards, as if someone else knows the moves it makes it great for putting you both on the same wavelength for the dance. I’m quite enjoying the perspective!

Communication

The dance moves are quite clever as they implicitly tell the partner what move is next through positioning and emphasise of actions. Really cool as you can have two conversations with people, one through speech and the other through dance and you can combine the two to create great communication!

Partners

Whilst I do dancing with other people. Doing a specific collaborative dance with just someone else is fantastic. Feels like the moves are a lot cooler!

Rotating partners

The rotating of partners dynamic fantastic. It’s great socially as you get to meet a lot of people and also makes the learning interesting as well as the skill level varies so much as sometimes you are learning off the partner or the inverse happens and really helps getting down the moves.

What’s happened since starting

It has been a while since starting so to give an update on the current progress. Done quite a couple of sessions now, we’ve done a lot of Lindy Hop which has been great fun, I do need to try to keep practicising in my own time. The classes have now started to cover Charleston, I really like how much you move with it.

The future

I hope to keep it up! Next year I’m not too sure exactly what my plan is, but I’m certainly going to keep exploring dance.

Also, it has helped me think, “oh there are other things than student tv!”. Since then I’ve now officially joined 7 societies and jumped on a new committee! Which you can hopefully hear more about it a later blog post!