Just to point out that Samantha Buckwalter, MikeyR, SugarFoot and PaulF probably all have a strong interest in this being true.
Perhaps exceptionally skilled teachers, after putting great focus on beginners can accurately say 'Yes - West Coast Swing is made too hard'.
Considering the question below illustrates why they've got their work cut out.
Because of the much greater difficulty, and relatively unique hurdles faced in West Coast Swing to make the dance enjoyable after one class.
Modern Jive, Argentine Tango and Cha Cha make a good comparison set for this purpose.
Last edited by frodo; 25th-May-2010 at 09:44 PM.
Hey, if it's not a "dead arm" then you are better than 90% of all the other dancers out there
Spare arm: The main options are...
- Cowboy (keep your hand hovering above your holster, ready to draw)
- Belly hand (hand over belly button, elbow forward - not too far over or it looks like a signal)
- Mirror (so in a yo-yo, extend the left out, mirroring the right)
- Match (try and copy what the follower is doing with their spare arm)
- Swap (Always try and be moving the spare hand to catch the follower's hand or be placed on the follower to lead them)
Whatever you do, do it with confidence and extension, otherwise it looks worse than not doing anything with it.
"Enjoyable"? Dunno about that. I said I could get them dancing, I can't guarantee they'll enjoy it.
For another comparison, I can get people dancing salsa socially after 1 hour's class. This doesn't mean I'm a great salsa teacher, it just means it's possible to do.
So what are these unique "greater difficulty" and "relatively unique hurdles" in WCS?
Why those three?
I hadn't really made the connection between good and Andy. I was thinking of the, very obvious, camp/Andy connection.
Do I think I'm good? To be honest, yes I do. Do I think I'm great? No I don't. Do I think my dancing can improve? Unfortunately I've reached the age where I'm never going to be as good as I was
I also think that Gerry is, in the grand scheme of things, a good dancer.
Do I think my teaching can improve? Absolutely!
I tried that for a while until a lady asked me what was wrong with my tummy.
And on reflection (at least for me) it never quite felt right.
I sometimes go for a hand on hip - and end up in the camp camp - usually it is a bit random - hmmm, something to work on............
As usual, this whole debate seems to rest on semantics.
The question, "Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?" can mean several things.
Firstly, it's worth thinking about the issue of 'hard'. If you look at it comparatively, I'd rate beginners WCS in the middle of the scale. It's on a par with Argentinian Tango or Salsa (my experience of these dances is minimal, so others may have different views). I've found it not as difficult as the ballroom dances (both ballroom and latin). It's definitely more difficult than ceroc's take on modern jive (I've a lot more experience with ballroom and ceroc).
If you look at 'hard' absolutely, then I would say that beginners WCS isn't particularly hard. It requires a few basic techniques and a few basic patterns to be a competent beginner. None of these techniques or patterns are hugely challenging.
So when someone says 'WCS is hard' (or 'too hard'), I suspect they really mean, 'WCS is harder than MJ'. Given that WCS is not MJ, my instinctive response to that is, 'Yeah, and...?' If some people find a dance hard, this is not a reason to dumb-down the dance.
When someone says that WCS is made too hard, this could mean either the dance itself is made too hard or that poor teaching overcomplicates it. As I've already said, I do think WCS is a more difficult dance than ceroc for beginners (I'm using ceroc here, as it's the most standardised form of MJ and most other forms of MJ do follow the same model). But I also agree when teachers say, 'it's not a hard dance'. These are not at all contradictory statements: they simply reflect that ceroc is made really, really easy for beginners. I'd make exactly the same comments about Salsa and AT.
I do think this is a weakness of MJ as a dance form. The foundations aren't laid well enough at the beginners level in ceroc, where the focus is on social and getting people through the door. However, there are other models, where dance styles spend more time laying the foundations to build on. To suggest that every dance style should follow the ceroc model is just wrong (even to suggest that MJ must follow the ceroc model is wrong!) I don't think there's a case for making WCS itself easier for beginners: I think it is easy enough.
That leaves the issue of whether the teachers are the ones making it too hard. No doubt there are some bad teachers who do this. However, there are also some very good teachers who don't. However, the same is also true of MJ in general and ceroc in particular. Ceroc do a good job of training their teachers and creating a robust system for handling beginners which reduces the variations. However, this also limits what is taught to beginners and, despite this, there are some teachers who are far better than others.
This leads to the areas where WCS might be able to learn a lot from ceroc in terms of how they approach the beginners level to get people confident and dancing quickly and to ensure some sort of consistency and quality in the teaching. However, ceroc (and MJ in general) aren't the only places to look. All the other dances I've mentioned have their approaches that can be learnt from. The good news is that the good WCS organisers appear to be doing this already. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement, but most of the organisers are trying to continuously improve what they do.
With all this in mind, the short answer to the original question is still no, in my mind. I've read all the comments and so forth and, as far as I can tell, there's no real substance to original charge. WCS is not hard, but it's harder than ceroc for beginners (which can be particularly jarring for a long-time cerocer who has to start learning to dance again). Some of the teachers are better than others, but this is to be expected. And, while I never found it too hard to be a beginner again, there are various approaches to both teaching and organisation that are being tried to make WCS more friendly to beginners.
These comments all refer to the beginner's level; all of the dances get richer and more complex as you advance.
Thought I'll join in the fun and bore you with you my thoughts on the matter.
My opinion is that WCS is harder to pick up in comparison to Ceroc and that's because of the following reasons:
Class format: Ceroc has an excellent teaching format which is standard across UK and maybe in other countries as well. There is a good balance between learning & practising. A beginners revision class that leads on to freestyle till the end of the night gives the beginners more chance to see and hopefully dance with intermediate dancers. WCS doesn't follow a proper class format as different teachers have different style of taking a class and focus is on different things such as connection, moves, fundamentals etc. The ceroc format is, I think, transferable in a WCS environment and I have a feeling that some venues do teach in a similar way. What success they have I have no idea.
Footwork: Ceroc is designed for masses and with not much footwork involved it is an ideal platform for newbies to start dancing. I believe, most men, like me, have never danced in their life before trying modern jive. Most women on the other hand have some form of musical or dance association, may it be something they might have done at school. Adding footwork just complicates matter for people who've never danced before.
Lead and follow: Ceroc is what I like to term a 90:10 dance, where the man leads 90 percent of the time and lady might take over 10 percent of the time. This is not about styling just about leading/controlling moves. The ratio is variable depending on the level of dancers. WCS on the other hand is more or less 50:50 dance. This is one concept people from modern jive background find it hard to get used to, leaders just want to lead pattern after pattern and followers just want to be lead. There is no play between them .
Variability: WCS has 4 basic patterns, there are thousands of ways you can vary these 4 basic patterns. The 4 patterns provide a very flexible framework which can be used and abused as long as the framework is respected. Again, for this, both leaders and followers need to have an open mind about letting each other play and get out of the habit of doing one move after the other. The most annoying thing I have found with WCS is teachers who insists on telling their students to do things in one particular way. I agree there are some basic rules relating to connection, posture etc but the rest of the things like how to step, lead a whip or an underarm turn etc can be done in various ways.
Being a beginner again: WCS is new/re-emerging while dancers have been doing modern jive for a considerable amount of time. One thing I have come across is that dancers are struggling/frustrated with the notion that they are back to being a beginner at WCS after being an intermediate/advanced dancer modern jive dancer for such a long time.
Anyway, think I better stop my ranting. I have some of my notes on WCS, things I have picked up in the past year or so. I am still learning so there might be inaccuracies. if anyone fancies a read, I have it on my blog abhilash-westcoastswing.blogspot.com .
Happy dancing everyone.
xx
I really didn't want to join this debate, as many know I learnt WCS over 10 years ago, Paul Warden was one of my fellow students. My WCS has not improved since (my fault as I dont attend classes)
BUT............. I can't agree with the above quote and maybe that is the reason why people think WCS is hard to learn
When learning, both WCS and MJ is is defintely LEAD and FOLLOW totally, when experienced it is possible to 'PLAY' with the follow in both AND the amount of "play" depends on the musicality of the dance and the experience of the follower IN BOTH DANCES
--ooOoo--
Age is a question of mind over matter, if you don't mind, it doesn't matter
Leroy (Satchel) Paige (1906-1982)
Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, Minnie, made her film debut, along with Mickey, in "Steamboat Willie" on November 18, 1928.
That date is recognized as her official birthday.
Depends what you define as 'learning'. As a beginner I agree, WCS is mostly lead and follow. I been dancing WCS for over a year and I am still learning so much about it. Over the year, I have seen dancers give up WCS because all they wanted to do was learn new moves and do move after move. Which is a shame as WCS doesn't have that many moves to learn and hence in theory should be easier.
Regarding the amount of 'play' in both dances, I have never seen so much 'play' in ceroc as in WCS. I am comparing my dancing of 5 years in ceroc with 1 year in WCS.
I think that depends on where you learn. I find my Ceroc is very open to play. But then I've always been taught Ceroc in a slotted style and our local teachers are Val and Rocky, Bill and Bex Cooper, David and Lily B and Rob May. So really learning from some of the best out there.
As I'm sure others can testify if you dance with me it may involve Ceroc, a little WCS, a little blues or footwork, body leads, depending on how the track is going. Usually stripped right down though these days. Very little arm flashy moves happening. I can only hope that as I get asked to dance a lot that this is what the ladies want.
I've just started WCS (I couldn't take the nagging at Utopia any more ) and I have to say I thought Paul Warden was a great teacher on the fundementals at his workshop, the second part run by Ed, less good. Still good instruction but no attempt to find out where we were, as Cerocers we obviously had no idea of frame, connection, slot etc. which is a little condescending.
Samantha B stuff on the weekend, very good a very high level of detail and relaxed stuff. I'd put her on a par with Paul. Trey seemed a bit bored by it all, but he's young and didn't have the mike much so its understandable.
Overall I'm not really finding it very difficult. Its just some simple footwork for the basic patterns and then being able to count time with the music to fit it all in. I'm sure a teacher could offer me a ton of pointers as I am just starting out on a WCS journey, but I don't think its all that difficult for a competent dancer and I don't think I know it all, I'm just a beginner and its going to take a while to get up to Kyle Redd standard.
Do you not feel that it as much to do with the aspirations and training of the followers and training given to the leaders as much as the dance itself?
The concept of listening to your follower could be taught in MJ but generally is not.
I have found you can have anything from followers almost dictating the whole dance to totally following and all shades in between in MJ, so the concept does exist but generally taught.
Hey, and we've even seen u at S&N's classes too
In the 3 years I've been dancing Ceroc/MJ, I don't recall it ever being taught anything but slotted, however concede that some teachers make more of mentioning said slot than others. It's when it gets on the freestyle floor, the crazy roundabouts start!!
As for my WCS, I'm not much further than your good self, but found that a combination of WCS and slotted Smooth Jive worked very nicely in my dances at the weekend with Sam B and Sarve
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