Modern Swing ForumConcepts

Don't Do This

  • Don't bounce
    • As West Coast Swing evolved from Lindy Hop, it lost its characteristic bounce. Instead, it acknowledges beat with other forms of pulsing: leg extension, movement speed, etc.
  • Don't raise hands above elbows
    • In West Coast Swing, the connection point is kept low, generally by allowing hands to fall down with the gravity. Hands above elbows is a sign of artificially and unnecessarily holding them up.
  • Don't autostart on 1 (as a follower)
  • Don't expect the follower to go on 1 (as a leader)
Vlad Sitalo10

gonna remove that section for now! (you can recover actual text from the history of edits of the page fyi)

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Vlad Sitalo10

@RightLeftWrong thank you for expanding on some of those things. 
I now understand better what you meant by Don't raise hands above elbows but I don't love that as a summary (as we're constantly rising hands above elbows for styling, tucking, turns, etc). 

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  • Don't bounce
    • As West Coast Swing evolved from Lindy Hop, it lost its characteristic bounce. Instead, it acknowledges beat with other forms of pulsing: leg extension, movement speed, etc.
  • Don't raise hands above elbows
    • In West Coast Swing, the connection point is kept low, generally by allowing hands to fall down with the gravity. Hands above elbows is a sign of artificially and unnecessarily holding them up.
  • Don't autostart on 1 (as a follower)
  • Don't expect the follower to go on 1 (as a leader)
Vlad Sitalo10

Hi @RightLeftWrong thank you for contributing! I think it'd be great to add "why" for the don'ts (and maybe why people have the relevant instincts). 
 

Also I'm a bit confused on what do you refer to with 

Don't raise hands above elbows 

Can you elaborate/give an example?

Reply
1
Vlad Sitalo
@RightLeftWrong thank you for expanding on some of those things.  I now understand better what you meant by Don't raise hands above elbows but I don't love that as a summary (as we're constantly rising hands above elbows for styling, tucking, turns, etc). 
1
Vlad Sitalo
gonna remove that section for now! (you can recover actual text from the history of edits of the page fyi)

List of (non-obvious) things that we generally don't do in West Coast Swing. In particular, things that other dances do, but we don't.

  • Don't bounce
  • Don't raise hands above elbows
  • Don't autostart on 1 (as a follower)
  • Don't expect the follower to go on 1 (as a leader)
•
Created by RightLeftWrong at