Hi, Tessa here. Since 2002, I've been writing advice articles for West Coast Swing from my perspective as a WCS Champion and 30 years as a professional teacher and coach. My mission is to help dancers #trainWCSsmarter and teachers #teachWCSsmarter, which we do thoroughly in our Swing Literacy training programs.
These articles are my way of contributing some free, bite-sized education to the community to help inspire and motivate with practical, actionable advice for your dancing & teaching.
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I highly encourage everyone to leverage these free resources by sharing them in your community groups and with friends you know who could use them. Enjoy!
Here’s a master list of all those “If only somebody had told me” tidbits of information might make the difference between you finding Westie Heaven or Westie Wasteland! Over the years, we have collected questions from both Beginner and Experienced dancers. They live on our website in the FAQ section, which grows constantly. It’s kind of a
West Coast Swing lives online, and if you don’t know how to operate your social media tools, you risk missing opportunities or being left out of the loop entirely. Even if you are savvy with Facebook, you may not realize how some of the features are restricting you if you don’t take control of them.
Last week I released Tough Love: Read at your own Risk (Part 1). You really should read that first, in order to put this article in perspective, and catch the points that are made about aspects of WCS outside of competition. This article is aimed specifically at Competitors. Whenever I start coaching a new student, I assess their sensitivity
As an educator, I spend most of my time trying to make learning enticing: convincing kids to want to learn more. They want to freeplay, but there are so many life skills that they need to learn that are mundane or challenging. As a dance teacher, most of the time I get to teach people who
Coming out of Sweet Side of Swing, I’m always full of warm fuzzies. I’m reinspired, revitalized, and refreshed. It’s a great way to kick off a new season: bonding with other like-minded, pedagogically invested Pros and creating cathartic epiphanies that in turn serve to bond the community. This event more than any other, puts me in
Does this sound familiar? “Workshops are all the same”“I don’t learn well in workshops”“Workshops are only for beginners”“Workshops are only for serious dancers”“I’ll never retain it all anyway” These are all reasons dancers give for why they can’t/don’t need to attend workshops. They sound valid on the surface, but are actually evidence of a global epidemic.What if
I am simultaneously appalled and entertained by some of the things my students say in lessons. I don’t blame them for ignorance and I’m not disappointed in them in any way. But sometimes they report “facts” about the WCS scene that they have heard from their peers (and sometimes unfortunately from a teacher) that are
I love that while our dance evolves as fast as technology, we use technology to evolve our dance. YouTube is a great source of inspiration, but for the most part, a horrible teacher:YouTube doesn’t know what you need to improveYou have to force yourself filter out the entertainment aspectIt doesn’t provide the irreplaceable hands-on learningBut since this
For social WCS dancing, you can wear whatever you want – no one is judging your 3T’s here. So be yourself. Be comfortable. But for competitions, it’s a different story. I wish there were some guidelines like this way back when I entered the scene, so I’m hoping to pass on some hard-earned wisdom.Dress for the gameDancing taught
The inside scoop on the hotel side of dance events:When to book your room and whyHow to save and earn perksHow ED’s can take care of businessMeet fellow Canadian Julie Epplett, hotel wizard to event directors. Julie is the the expert smart Event Directors have in their back pocket when negotiating hotel contracts for dance
I had a workshop student say to me recently, “I so badly want to take private lessons from a Champion like you. I hope someday soon I will be good enough.” “Pardon?” I queried, confused. “Good enough?” He stared at me with a blank expression, baffled about why I was questioning his apparently obvious reasoning. I clarified, “Why
The complete 2015 Westie Wisdom collection! I’ve always been a collector of motivational quotes. Westie Wisdom Wednesdays was originally intended to populate the newly introduced WCS Rising Star Support Network on Facebook, which was created to propagate, support, and motivate the Rising Star movement. But why should Rising Stars have all the fun? Some of the images are native