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Ambidancetrous
Last night I finally got up the nerve to ask one of our hippest and most accomplished young follows, a girl I don’t even know, to dance one with me. We had a acceptably fun dance, and she thanked me...
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Remember Me?
So yesterday I took a private lesson as a follow. As always, I wanted to work on swingouts. And among other advice given me by my esteemed instructor (the lovely and talented Ben White from Seattle),...
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Who’s Driving This Thing?
Have you ever had a dance like this? Last night I was dancing with this kid who also leads and follows. We were switching off roles, experimenting with cutesy ways of getting into and out of a lead or...
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Footwork Variations
As promised, here are the notes from the workshop Mindy and I taught on Sunday: First, we discussed the difference between a weight change and an axis change. A weight change can be limited to just the...
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Dancing Slow
Thursday we had a band, and it was fine and nice and everything, but there was this problem. See, they insisted on playing different tempos. In our scene we have an extremely high percentage of swing...
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Why We Bother
It’s Wednesday, and I’m almost recovered from the Portland Lindy Exchange this past weekend. And like every year, I have to ask: why do we do this to ourselves? An exchange is a ton of work. Not just...
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Dancing Badly on Purpose
One of my dearest friends in the whole wide world has an interesting job. She’s an actual, authentic, professional, jet-setting rock-star dance instructor. This is a woman with whom I’ve shared...
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My Favorite Things
Here are some of the best things that can happen while you’re out swing dancing: Practically your favorite lead in the whole wide world is visiting from out of town to teach a workshop, and you get to...
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Homework
Real quick, here’s a fun exercise you can try… Stick on your music, and then proceed to make the following into an eight-count footwork pattern for yourself: One rock step One triple step One kick ball...
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Still Dancing Badly
Okay, so awhile back I mentioned how I decided that whenever I was dancing with someone who made me feel intimidated, instead of trying my hardest to dance perfectly, I was going to try to dance badly....
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