Hello, my name is Jayne.  I am 63 years old and very late to the dancing world.  I live in North Texas and there are very few places in the area that offer dancing.  I have always had a desire to learn.  I am mesmerized by dancers and I have always wanted to join in the fun.  I never had the opportunity to do so.  In my 40’s, I developed severe arthritis that destroyed my knees and nearly had me wheelchair bound.  Thank God, I found a wonderful surgeon who gave me new knees a couple of years ago and when he asked me what I was hoping for as an outcome to my surgery, my answer was “to be able to dance”. Once I completed my rehab, I began my journey of finding dance venues and dance lessons and found none.  I turned to You Tube and discovered Brian and Megan but, I don’t have a dance partner and even though the videos are excellent, I wanted to learn with a partner.  After a a lot of tenacity and determination, I have found a private dance instructor to work with once a week.  However,  once a week only gets you so far.  You have to practice and that is what led me back to Brian and Megan.  I am relying on the WestCoastSwingonline team to help me learn more, improve faster and build my stamina and confidence.  I look forward to the journey and getting to know the community.  

My wife Ann & I have taken ballroom, swing & Latin dance lessons on and off for about 4 years.  I would say we’re at an intermediate level.  We discovered your on-line WCS site a couple of years ago and have learned so much from your crystal clear, step by step instructions – thanks!

Thanks for adding the Pattern Tree reference list with the live links!  It really helps us see at a glance all the different steps grouped together so we can easily explore different variations or quickly jump to other moves of interest. 

We’re also glad you’re adding other types of dances to your site too!  We haven't learned much 2 step, so that's next on our list to try via your videos. These are the best on-line video instructions we’ve ever seen!

My husband and I just started taking lessons 3 weeks ago. So we are brand new to East Coast Swing dancing. So far we are enjoying learning from your videos.

Happy February everyone!!
Hope everyone has had a great start to the new year!

Does anyone have any new struggles or questions for us?
We're here for you! :-)

As a former dance instructor I have sent many people to your site and highly recommend you because I love the clarity and insight of how you teach and that's of course on top of a great technique. Looking forward to dance with you in person one day 🙏🏻

I just wanted to send a huge thank you for the awesome instruction. Me and my wife just started with the east coast swing videos and we both are absolutely loving it. We have gone to a few local dances and have been asked where we took lessons! The steps are very well explained and demonstrated. We are looking forward to adding new steps as we get grow.

Just a question. What would be a good next dance to pick up for us that would make an easy transition from east coast swing? Foxtrot?

Thanks

Jason

Hi! I just created an account hoping to learn country swing. I loved your you tube tutorial on this but don’t see this option here… any advice? Maybe in in the wrong place?

I started to dance in 2002 by taking WCS classes. I shifted to smooth and Latin ballroom with my late wife (we met on a dance floor). Eight years after losing her, I'm finally ready to try dancing again. I found a twice-monthly dance nearby and hope to knock off the rust and re-connect with dancers (who are such fun people). These videos look like a way to make progress between live dances.

I’m so grateful to be a part of the WCS community. I’m 72 years old and I’ve been dancing WCS for the past 3 years, started ballroom dancing 3 years prior to that but now want to concentrate on West Coast Swing. Biggest challenge? Working on one-leg spins right now. Plus musicality, always!

I've been involved with the social dance community in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for close to a decade at this point. We have a local chapter of USA chapter of USA Dance, and we're fortunate to have a few fine professional instructors in the area. My greatest personal challenge is retaining intermediate/more advanced patterns/moves learned in classes (or gleaned from instructional video like yours!). Of course, practice/repetition of new material is key, but do you find that crafting patterns into routine-like sequences is helpful to retention? Some instructors seem reluctant to teach routines for fear it will make students dependent on a particular (restrictive) sequence of steps, inhibiting the flexible floor-craft needed for social dancing.