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!
Watch this 3-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement when you are struggling to learn a new dance skill or move. Transcript below.Watch the video: Isn’t it frustrating when you’re trying a new dance move and you still can’t get it after 10 tries? Let’s entertain an analogy: There are lots of
Watch this 2-minute video pep talk to give you some realistic coaching and encouragement to help you discover more styling potential immediately. Transcript below. Watch the video: Feeling limited in your styling? When you dance, do you ever feel like you are colouring with a box of only primary colour crayons? In each WCS class
You love your classes and you love your teachers, but it can be challenging to build new skills when the partners you rotate to or practice with have bad habits or bad attitudes, right? So let’s talk about how you can still manage to get meaningful learning from every partner you rotate to in
Struggling to find dancers in your area who want to practice? Need to find the words to approach partners and suggest practicing? Here’s a complete guide to who to ask and how to approach them.
Many dancers know they should be practicing and want to practice together… But how? This is a format you might not be used to, and the last thing you want to do is waste time and frustrate each other, right? Problem solved! In this article, I’m going to explain how to practice effectively with a small
Can’t get your body to do what the teacher expects? You could be dancing in the wrong profile. I’ve got good news for you: It’s not your fault – there’s nothing wrong with you, but you need different tools. You are not alone – most dancers are struggling to conform to an ideal. There
Something doesn’t add up…. How many WCS patterns do you think you’ve ever learned? Just calculate how many patterns you learn per week, then multiply that by how long you’ve been dancing. Now, how many of those patterns have you actually adopted into your social or competition dancing? Oof. That’s a big difference. That’s a
Do you hear feedback from teachers and judges that you need to work on your timing? Or maybe you can feel you’re off time a lot but don’t know how to fix it? Being off time could be referring to 10 or more different issues. Whenever a teacher or judge tells you you are
It’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Beyond your local classes, what else is out there? And how do you know if it’s for you? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a diagram or flowchart showing all the components of this West Coast Swing world and how they fit together? Showing
Do you live in a community where there’s not a lot of dance resources? (dancers/dance parties/instructors) Do you have a bunch of keen dancers that want to practice outside of class but aren’t sure where to start? Are you starving for feedback to know that you are on the right track? You
Quick access to the best 2017 articles you may have missed – SHARE SHARE SHARE! The Coach’s Corner blog allows us to discuss common topics our students asked, published in a format that dancers worldwide could learn from and respond to. We enjoy “talking shop”, but for the blog I draw the line at skill development:
No matter your level, when it comes to dance instruction, nothing gives you more bang-for-your-buck than private lessons. Private lessons are a part of a balanced dance diet. The one-on-one feedback fills your bucket with encouragement and homework to last you a few weeks to a few months of social dance practice. BUT, there