WCS in Surrey - can you recommend a good beginner class?

[Phil_dB]

Hi,

it has been suggested to me that I should do a little WCS in order to improve my Ceroc! I've not been dancing very long at all, so I'm looking for a friendly beginner class, in Surrey, - can anyone recommend anywhere at all? I've been googling but haven't found anything...

Regards.

[Paul F]

In surrey you have, I think, 3 classes.

1. Twickenham - This is the biggest one in the south and is run by Cat and Paul. I am assuming you have heard of them. :grin: A number of experienced dancers go here.
www.westcoastswing.co.uk

2. Farnborough - I used to teach here but havn't for some time. It is taught by Debi now who I think is absolutely awesome. I still run the website which is why my details are on there. Not connected with this class any more though before a mod jumps on me :blush:
www.morethanmoves.com

3. The final one that I know in Surrey is taught by Ann Naylor (i think). I have looked for the website but cant find it. I think it is based in Kingston. Fairly quiet but good from what I hear.



Edit : I think Anna Naylor teaches in Surbiton. Still cannot find website

[DS87]

I started to learn WCS to improve my MJ as I liked the smooth style and the idea of footwork. Unfortunately the more I learned the more it took over my life until I was fully converted to the Dark Side and now I only really dance WCS. I don't want to put you off because it is a great dance with a friendly social side but it take a lot of time to learn properly.

The best class in the area is without a doubt Paul and Cat's Wed class in Twickenham as it has been running the longest and has the largest base of experienced dancers :respect:. If weekly classes are a problem then you could attend the monthly workshops (which is the way I learn). Paul & Cat (http://www.westcoastswing.co.uk) do a monthly workshop in West Drayton and Lee Easton does one in Bisley on behalf of Jive Bug (http://www.jivebug.co.uk).

WCS is a lot of fun and I hope that you enjoy the challenge of learning it.

Steve

[Phil_dB]

Brill - Many thanks for all the info. :nice:

I see that both Twickenham and Farnbrough follow the same '3 part' format as Ceroc, which is good, - how accessible is it to complete beginners, - or is it more designed for people who have done other forms of dance (Ceroc is the first type of dance i've ever done).

Kingston would be the closest to me, - Twickenham isn't TOO bad... Bisley's not too far either - a workshop sounds like a good idea.

The instructor also recommended that I try Lindy, - watching clips on youtube, WCS is the one that appeals. He said that the dance was more difficult, but said that the transfer in skill over to Ceroc would be very beneficial to me.

[robd]

you could attend the monthly workshops (which is the way I learn).

So where were you on Sunday then Mr DS????? I would say I missed you but truthfully I missed dancing with your lady more :na:


Back to the OP's question I have to echo the recommendation already there for Twickenham. I think to develop your dancing you need a night that has dancers with a range of experience levels attending and Twickenham certainly has that.

Trent Park with Lee Easton teaching is probably too far around the M25 for you.

The big two monthly workshops both now feature separate beginner's refresher sessions and I can't stress enough how important it is to really feel confident in dancing your basic patterns before moving on. I spent a good few months when I first took an interest in learning WCS in just doing beginner workshops and only dancing the 5 basics socially until I could do them confidently and without counting, either aloud or in my head. I don't regret that time at all. Don't be in a rush to move on and don't be afraid to dance socially even if you only can remember the 5 basics.

EDIT - it's not only WCS that can help to feed back in and improve your Ceroc/MJ (though beware that it can also introduce some timing confusion) - Salsa, Ballroom, Latin and Tango among many others can also enhance elements of your leading and your style within Ceroc/MJ

[Andy McGregor]

Hi,

it has been suggested to me that I should do a little WCS in order to improve my Ceroc! I've not been dancing very long at all, so I'm looking for a friendly beginner class, in Surrey, - can anyone recommend anywhere at all? I've been googling but haven't found anything...

Regards.If you want to improve your Ceroc I suggest you do more Ceroc classes - however, Ceroc is a brand of Modern Jive. If you want to improve your Modern Jive I suggest you shop around ALL the Modern Jive classes in your area, not just Ceroc, do loads of workshops, get some private lessons - all in Modern Jive.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn other dances. They're all great fun. But none are as easy as Modern Jive and none can be danced so easily by beginners. Modern Jive done badly is still quite fun. WCS done badly is not much fun. And ballroom and Latin done badly are no fun at all.

[Paul F]

And ballroom and Latin done badly are no fun at all.


I don't know. I seem to enjoy it :rofl:

:D

[Phil_dB]

Andy, the suggestion wasn't to replace more Ceroc classes & workshops, but to supplement them, - it was at a Ceroc workshop where the instructor suggested this...:confused:

What sort of money would one expect to pay for one to one tuition?


ETA - so you're suggesting that it might be a better use of my time to go to Leroc, Ginger Jive etc etc instead.....?

[David Bailey]

it has been suggested to me that I should do a little WCS in order to improve my Ceroc!
and:

The instructor also recommended that I try Lindy, - watching clips on youtube, WCS is the one that appeals. He said that the dance was more difficult, but said that the transfer in skill over to Ceroc would be very beneficial to me.

I'd echo Andy's comment. If you want to improve your Modern Jive, you need to work on, well, your Modern Jive.

Yes, learning other dances will enrich your Modern Jive technique - but there'll be a steep learning curve for those dances as well, so you certainly won't see any short-term improvements.

By all means, learn the other dances if you want to dance them - but don't learn them just to improve your Modern Jive.


Andy, the suggestion wasn't to replace more Ceroc classes & workshops, but to supplement them, - it was at a Ceroc workshop where the instructor suggested this...:confused:
Blimey, Ceroc are their own worst enemy sometimes aren't they? :rolleyes:

Doing other dances is great if you have infinite time and money - but in the real world, a couple of classes won't help much. You need to focus on a dance, for months or years, to get good at it.

Yes, then you see results, in Modern Jive dancing, but a lot of that's just because you'll have learnt to dance "properly".


What sort of money would one expect to pay for one to one tuition?
Typical dance private lessons are around £35 - £50 per hour, I believe, depending.

[HelenB]

Back to the OP's question I have to echo the recommendation already there for Twickenham. I think to develop your dancing you need a night that has dancers with a range of experience levels attending and Twickenham certainly has that.

:yeah: Me too - I've recently made the decision to spend my dosh travelling down to this once a month instead of dancing weekly nearby

[DS87]

So where were you on Sunday then Mr DS????? I would say I missed you but truthfully I missed dancing with your lady more :na:


Well where were you on Sat eve for the Freestyle; we were both there!:doh:

We both had privates with Paul so we gave the Workshop a miss, Damn credit crunch:angry:

Back on topic; I have to agree that, whilst learning any pure dance form will help improve your MJ, you will probably find that in the early stages of learning the best thing is more and varied MJ.

Not that you shouldn't try WCS. Have a look on YouTube to see if you like the look. The dance is awesome!:clap:

[TA Guy]

I too am of the opinion that to improve your MJ, you need to seek better MJ dancers or classes. Doing WCS will improve some aspects of your MJ, the same as doing Lindy will improve some aspects of your MJ, but it's a very slow way of doing it.

IMO, MJ-wise what you'd get out of a private with, I dunno, someone like Howard (of H&N), would be far superior than learning the odd random crossover thing during multiple WCS nights.

As to WCS classes, Twickenham is great and seems to be the center of WCS in the UK, but to be honest, they have so many experienced WCS dancers, I personally don't think they handle beginners that well (nothing wrong with the individual teaching, it's more an overall thing). I would pick Farnborough, at least right at the start.
(Tho never been to Lee Eastons, so can't comment on that).

[Lynn]

I've not been dancing very long at all... I'm not saying don't try WCS, or other dances, and I'm not sure how long you mean by 'not very long' and everyone progresses at different paces ...but... you may find that taking on another dance style at the moment, if you still are learning a lot of basics in MJ could end up confusing and/or discouraging you.

WCS is great, but there is a lot to learn and its often best to maybe stop MJ for a while to really get into it, which would sort of defeat your purpose. Yes, learning another dance will improve your MJ, but if you think about what it is about your MJ you want to improve, what you want that other dance to help with - its often better to go and get a couple of privates with a good MJ teacher to work on those things instead. Eg connection, leading skills, musicality.

I'm not saying don't try WCS, because you won't know until you try, just don't worry if you find its more confusing than helpful at the moment - it just might not be the right time for you to learn it.

[Andy McGregor]

Andy, the suggestion wasn't to replace more Ceroc classes & workshops, but to supplement them, - it was at a Ceroc workshop where the instructor suggested this...:confused:So am I :confused:


What sort of money would one expect to pay for one to one tuition?£30-£60 an hour depending on who it is. Possibly £100 if you hired someone special.


ETA - so you're suggesting that it might be a better use of my time to go to Leroc, Ginger Jive etc etc instead.....?Yes. But an even better use of your time would be to get intense and tailored time in a private lesson.

However, if you really want to enjoy your dancing and improve slowly you could simply attend more and different MJ classes.

[frodo]

Doing other dances is great if you have infinite time and money - but in the real world, a couple of classes won't help much. You need to focus on a dance, for months or years, to get good at it.

Yes, then you see results, in Modern Jive dancing, but a lot of that's just because you'll have learnt to dance "properly"

I think that is questionable. Yes to see results in dance in question takes time.

However, it doesn't follow that you won't pick up significant things to help your modern jive very quickly.

[Andy McGregor]

I think that is questionable. Yes to see results in dance in question takes time.

However, it doesn't follow that you won't pick up significant things to help your modern jive very quickly.I think this is right. The teaching of MJ in some classes is very light on technique. There is much more emphasis on technique in most other dance forms. Therefore you'll get a lot more advice on technique in those other lessons - however, some of those techniques do not apply to MJ!

[robd]

you certainly won't see any short-term improvements.
Doing other dances is great if you have infinite time and money - but in the real world, a couple of classes won't help much. You need to focus on a dance, for months or years, to get good at it.


I think that is questionable. Yes to see results in dance in question takes time.

However, it doesn't follow that you won't pick up significant things to help your modern jive very quickly.

I agree with Frodo - you could pick up things in just a couple of lessons that would improve your MJ. Case in point, Chris & Katrina were recently over here teaching WCS and concentrated a lot on the relative proximity of partners to one another during the execution of moves (i.e don't get hyper extended) Now I know that in good MJ classes this (and other partner dance fundamentals) should get covered but it's certainly not universal.



£30-£60 an hour depending on who it is. Possibly £100 if you hired someone special.


I know the value of someone will be different to different people (i.e what they get out of it will determine whether it was good value or not) but I don't think I'd pay more than £50 per hour and I would have to view them as pretty exceptional to want to pay that.

[Geordieed]

Having danced both Modern Jive and West Coast Swing for a number of years and taking private tuition from both in that time I would recommend the benefits that WCS can have on your Modern Jive. At the start of any private tuition you have the opportunity to request specifically what you want from the fee that you pay.

I think all the points that you want covered can be catered for. Your desire to improve your Modern Jive and at the same time learn a little West Coast Swing is easily possible. Yes it takes a little while to learn West Coast Swing but if your initial/primary objective is to learn more to help your Jive I can't see a problem.

Along with a couple of other dances Modern Jive seems at this moment in time to take alot of cues from both Tango and West Coast Swing to maintain its' progression as a dance.

[David Bailey]

I think that is questionable. Yes to see results in dance in question takes time.

However, it doesn't follow that you won't pick up significant things to help your modern jive very quickly.
Such as?

I guess my sense is that it takes time to internalise lessons in technique - well, for me it does, at least. And then it takes more time to adapt those lessons from one style to another, and then more time to internalise them in the new style.

Whereas a technique-focussed lesson in MJ will still take time, but is likely to be less hassle because of the lack of faffing around transferring from one style to another.


I agree with Frodo - you could pick up things in just a couple of lessons that would improve your MJ. Case in point, Chris & Katrina were recently over here teaching WCS and concentrated a lot on the relative proximity of partners to one another during the execution of moves (i.e don't get hyper extended) Now I know that in good MJ classes this (and other partner dance fundamentals) should get covered but it's certainly not universal.
Yeah, but that's not an argument to try a new dance style, that's an argument to find a good MJ class.


I know the value of someone will be different to different people (i.e what they get out of it will determine whether it was good value or not) but I don't think I'd pay more than £50 per hour and I would have to view them as pretty exceptional to want to pay that.
I thought that too - £60 would be a bit much, I reckon £50 is my upper limit also.

[tsh]

WCS classes do seem to be hard to find, I only found Kevin's class in Kingsbury after I suggested someone try Trent Park, then they told me they'd found another class!

There is a listing site http://uk-wcs.co.uk/ but it gives the impression of not being very up-to-date...

Sean

[Andy McGregor]

I thought that too - £60 would be a bit much, I reckon £50 is my upper limit also.I didn't comment on what people are prepared to pay. I commented on what people charge. When you consider the likes of Anton DuBeke (formerly known as Tony Beck) you'd probably be paying even more than £100.

[Geordieed]

It depends what you need at the time. Getting what you pay for has more meaning to it. These days I would pay more for private tuition because the information I am looking for is very detailed and specific. Having paid premium prices for some pearls of dance wisdom I can see it was worth it. I know it would have been a complete waste of money when I was starting out.

Sometimes what is appropriate will save you money. Afterall you don't need to use your best cutlery every time. The dilemma is knowing who to spend your good money on who qualifies under the top tier. Plus what the teacher is prepared to teach you, whether you hire a man or a woman the list goes on.

Apologies as this is probably for another thread...

[Martin]

If you want to improve your Modern Jive I suggest you shop around ALL the Modern Jive classes in your area .... do loads of workshops, get some private lessons - all in Modern Jive.


:yeah: