You're right, a good follow, which comes with dancing with lots of people, can become very good at honing in on a particular partner's style or learning the step because they're communicating about it, whereas someone who only learns that one partner is learning more by rote. They're basically memorizing the motions, they're not necessarily having a "conversation", they're reciting a script. Which is fine, especially for performance and competition dancers, if that's what two people want to do. But it's not social dancing, and it's not a relationship I agreed to have. The follow who learns that way will have a very hard time dancing with any other partner.
What you call the Rock'n'Roll beginners basic and the three-step are both the same dance - East Coast Swing - and with a good enough dance partner and the right style of music, you can switch back and forth between single and triple to accommodate a wider variety of patterns. Whether you learn the single or the triple step first depends on which teacher you learn from. Most free lessons that are offered at the beginning of public swing dances teach the single step because it's the easiest to teach a large class with a range of skill level. If the free lesson has enough time or it's a series or an "intermediate" class, they'll probably teach the triple too. Private lessons depend on what the teacher thinks is the best way to learn, and every teacher thinks they know the "best" way. As a beginner, there are only three readily-available style of swing dance lessons that you'll find: East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, and Lindy Hop.
East Coast Swing is also called 6-count swing (even though all versions have 6-count steps). It's a side, side, rock step dance that is a "spot dance" - that means that it's danced more or less in the same spot, with both partners spinning and whirling around each other (like tango & ballroom salsa).
West Coast & Lindy are slot dances - dances where the lead dances more or less in the same spot and the follow moves in a line or "slot", crossing back and forth in front of the lead. They have both 8- and 6-count patterns.
I'll be honest - I can't really see much of a difference between West Coast and Lindy, except in culture, although I know the history and I understand where they diverged. West Coast seems to be much more popular with the country music fans while Lindy seems to be popular with the college & post-college set who want to romanticize and relive the '40s era of zoot suits and newsboy caps.
West Coast & Lindy are typically thought to be done with a slower tempo of music than East Coast, but that's not a mandatory element of the genres, as the younger dancers in both the country music scene and the neo-zoot-suit crowd like to show off with aerial lifts and fast movements. But when I go social dancing that has both types of dancers, typically West Coast is done to the slower, bluesy music and East Coast is done to the faster music. When I go to either a country bar or an event targeted towards the younger Big Band set, West Coast & Lindy tends to be done to faster music there.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Hustle
Date: 8/24/13 06:38 pm (UTC)From:What you call the Rock'n'Roll beginners basic and the three-step are both the same dance - East Coast Swing - and with a good enough dance partner and the right style of music, you can switch back and forth between single and triple to accommodate a wider variety of patterns. Whether you learn the single or the triple step first depends on which teacher you learn from. Most free lessons that are offered at the beginning of public swing dances teach the single step because it's the easiest to teach a large class with a range of skill level. If the free lesson has enough time or it's a series or an "intermediate" class, they'll probably teach the triple too. Private lessons depend on what the teacher thinks is the best way to learn, and every teacher thinks they know the "best" way. As a beginner, there are only three readily-available style of swing dance lessons that you'll find: East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, and Lindy Hop.
East Coast Swing is also called 6-count swing (even though all versions have 6-count steps). It's a side, side, rock step dance that is a "spot dance" - that means that it's danced more or less in the same spot, with both partners spinning and whirling around each other (like tango & ballroom salsa).
West Coast & Lindy are slot dances - dances where the lead dances more or less in the same spot and the follow moves in a line or "slot", crossing back and forth in front of the lead. They have both 8- and 6-count patterns.
I'll be honest - I can't really see much of a difference between West Coast and Lindy, except in culture, although I know the history and I understand where they diverged. West Coast seems to be much more popular with the country music fans while Lindy seems to be popular with the college & post-college set who want to romanticize and relive the '40s era of zoot suits and newsboy caps.
West Coast & Lindy are typically thought to be done with a slower tempo of music than East Coast, but that's not a mandatory element of the genres, as the younger dancers in both the country music scene and the neo-zoot-suit crowd like to show off with aerial lifts and fast movements. But when I go social dancing that has both types of dancers, typically West Coast is done to the slower, bluesy music and East Coast is done to the faster music. When I go to either a country bar or an event targeted towards the younger Big Band set, West Coast & Lindy tends to be done to faster music there.
cont...