Dance Smarter, Not Harder: Mastering Your West Coast Swing Skills!

How I'm improving my West Coast Swing skills with intentional training - by doing less, instead of trying to do more.
Isolating one or two skills only - so that you increase repetition and can provide feedback on what works with those skills and what doesn’t.
In this video, we’re not focused on fancy moves, complex patterns or performing to an audience or judges as if we’re simulating a spotlight competition dance.
Instead, we have two primary focuses.
1. The first is our communication through our connection.
This is difficult to see visually, which is why it’s so important to train. Amanda and I for the most part during this dance are dancing with a very light connection.
That means Amanda is very easy to lead with small impulses… and it also means if she decides to add or change anything in our dance, I can feel that through a slight change in the strength of the connection.
It also allows me to focus on Amanda’s weight changes. Where she is settled into her anchor or while she is still in motion.
For new dancers we can often observe a leader pulling their follower out of an anchor before they’re truly settled. So focus on connection and weight distribution is a great skill to train.
2. The second is musicality.
As a leader we can often be so overwhelmed by the challenge of variety that we lose ourselves in the music. We become pattern driven, chasing the next pattern and the next. This often becomes overwhelming and our mental capacity is reached and consumed by what we’re doing next.
When we over think, it’s impossible to allow room for our partner or the music. The dance itself then suffers as a result.
By removing the busyness of patterns or competition we have a new capacity to be ‘in the moment’ - enjoying the music and our partners movement.
This super simple dance then becomes a moment of shared partnership to the music. That was our goal, and we can take away important learning moments from it.
The results of training like this become more obvious, as you return to your usual dancing. I’ve noticed my overall dance capability improve. That includes: Partner focus, musicality, breath and pause, connection and responsiveness and personal movement.
These are the fundamental skills in West Coast Swing.
Let me know how you train with your dance partners. I’d love to hear them.
I'm dancing with Amanda @xcessivedancer on Instagram.
Follow me on Instagram / stevefitzlive
Follow Amanda on Instagram / xcessivedancer
Visit my website stevefitz.com/

[@maxpower8052]

I really enjoyed the message in today's video and watching you both dance together. I am going to see if I can find a dance partner to try this out. So far though, I would say I feel like I perform my best in a dance partnership when I am on top of my diet and training contralateral movements like crawling. I just feel the connection in my core when these two things align and I lead and adjust to my partner so much better when I can feel her subtleties of movement in my core. These two things have been all over the place the last few months for me but I am trying to improve both.

[@SteveFitz]

I hear you. My core is on and off throughout my dances. I think that's a result of me specifically training to engage my core in moments of certain moves. EG: Every dip I have my core engaged and when I am behind my follower in a cut off it's engaged so my follower can feel my movement and have awareness of where I am. Other movements I know it's engaged without me thinking about but I would like it to be permanently on whenever I dance. I remember Heejung Yung telling me she began to train her core right around the time she made it into Advanced level and it would be on and off. So, like me right now, she said she would actively think about it during her dances and realise it wasn't engaged, then engage it... rinse and repeat throughout a dance. She told me she only really achieved a permanent core while dancing when she made it to All Star level. Which was encouraging to me to hear - great technique takes time to develop.

[@maxpower8052]

So true. I definitely need to put in the work and remain focused on the process. Thank you for your reply sir =)

[@colindoyle9594]

I bow in gratitude to the KZbin algorithm for bringing me to your page... I really, reeallly appreciate these videos. I'm a mere newbie in the WCS world - about 3 months in, and so I don't suspect *much* of what you're sharing to be attainable just yet (still in the mental mode of trying to make sure my feet are moving somewhat appropriately) but boy do I love what you're saying. Your perspective really inspires me. Looking forward to playing with these concepts, and to watching more of your content.

[@SteveFitz]

Welcome to the world of WCS - sounds like you caught the bug just like I did :) I appreciate your feedback too, my goal is to inspire others so it's really nice to hear your thoughts. Hopefully we'll bump into each other near a dance floor one day!

[@GFSwinger1693]

I have a stupid question. I hear two tempos in this song that you used, 67 BPM or 134 if you double time it. In your mind which are you dancing to? Watching you you seem to be using the 67 but maybe you accelerate certain sections bouble timing it. Am I reading this correctly? Thx.

[@SteveFitz]

Not a stupid question at all :) We're playing with tempo in this, so we do switch the tempo during the dance to highlight the music we hear. There are parts where the timing gets a little disconnected, which would be due to the freestyle nature of the dance where it's all improvised and we're using our connection to lead/follow and influence. I hope that makes sense :)

[@GFSwinger1693]

@@SteveFitz It does, thank you!