Ben Morris & Melissa Rutz - 1st Place - 2016 Boogie by the Bay (BbB) Champions Strictly Swing - 4K

Ben Morris and Melissa Rutz take First Place in the 2016 Boogie by the Bay West Coast Swing Dance Champions Strictly Swing.
Watch the complete 2016 Boogie by the Bay competition playlist including Champions, All-Stars, Classic and Showcase Divisions with results: • Benji Schwimmer & Leme...
Competition Emcee: Mario Robau, Jr.: www.MarioSwingD...
BbB Competitions DJ: Beth Bellamy www.musicfordan...
The 2016 Boogie by the Bay (BbB) was held on October 6th - 9th at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport: SanFranciscoAir..., and is held every year during the Columbus Day Weekend.
For more information, visit the BbB website: BoogieByTheBay.com or on Facebook: / boogiebythebay
Sponsored by The Next Generation Swing Dance Club of San Francisco: www.NextGenSwin...
To purchase videos or live feed of all or part of Boogie by the Bay, or watch live broadcasts of other dance events, visit Global Dance TV: www.GlobalDance.tv

[@TropiKen]

Be sure to check out Ben's playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2HHppt6rpWfd8k, as well as Melissa's: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYi4mGered6Jbqc. Thank you for your likes and comments. Hope to see you at the next Boogie by the Bay in October!

[@daleuhl9976]

I would like to know if there is like a Biolography on him, Melissa, Jessica, etc. To get to know them. Thank you Is Ben married now? 2020?

[@bbh80088]

Melissa will always be at the top for my favorite WCS followers! 💚

[@cjhdancer1]

So in tune with each other for this dance. Awesome sauce!

[@lijeminaable]

She has a natural dancing rhythm that no school can teach.

[@Amelia-hh1df]

Omg! This is blowing away amazing!!!!!!

[@deborahbaca1345]

never seen her dance better, even loved that caveman drag at end too.

[@kamasdancer2615]

Wow! I love the way Melissa joyfully threw in some idioms from other dance forms--almost in a parody of them. Isn't it a real hoot when Ben instantly switches into a response with humorous mimicry of those initiatives? How often have you ever seen Melissa drop into a split? As was evident here from her ealier slide ride, her floor/shoe interface must have been extra slippery. Obviously things went too far for graceful recovery from the split. It looks like it took Ben less that 250 milliseconds to see her predicament. John Lindo in the dancer pool throws up his hands in expectation of shocking disaster--he could see Melissa's face. We then see this dance team's world-class improvisational skill lift victory out of the jaws of disaster. Awesome! West Coast Swing at its joyful very best. They make it look so easy. Unless you've had some dance floor background, a lot of sophisticated artwork can whiz by unnoticed and you can fail to appreciate how hard it is to go out onto the dance floor and do this stuff on the fly while keying improvisational interpretation to the music.

[@kamasdancer2615]

I've come back to this video numerous times to look closely at world-class technique. I figure that the two brief--and very entertaining--moments of another dance form (0:51 - 0:57) that Melissa threw in was Samba. ?? When I first took Ballroom, the mix of lessons didn't include Samba but at the end the instructors did an amazing West Coast Swing demo and we had two "bonus" lessons of WCS. I was so blown away and thought: I just went through the lessons of the other somewhat robotic dance forms that I probably won't use much since I've now experienced that WCS is just so far-and-away, breath-takingly superior...

[@Pam0284]

Awesome!

[@Kitkat-mn5ud]

Love it

[@jon1nim]

Amazing!! What else is there to say.

[@deborahbaca1345]

the look on Nick Kings face 1:45 too hilarious.

[@pambonbrake2230]

Did she tear her shoulder? Ouch!

[@mayan9458]

Her poor arm..... lol