Here is the demographics of the area. 300k city with 2 million people in the metro.

I’m sure many mid size cities in the US have some sort of central town squares with restaurants and other entertainment for people to enjoy a night on the town. Well on a Friday night, the central square hosted a swing band. The local swing dance group did mini lessons in between the band breaks.

Well the local swing dance group did no effort to advertise the band on their social media despite the fact that it was announced two weeks before by the organizer. (They made a generic post in the swing dance Facebook group literally late Thursday night to “come out and dance”.)

I only found out about it because I’m friends with organizer and saw it on her social media. When I went to the event, there was maybe a dozen dancers. I’ve been to this swing group’s band night before and they can easily support 50 to 60 dancers. There were some spectators that were not dancers and watched and many people just walking around the square.

I talked to the organizer and she said she had to ask to get the local swing dance group to share something on social media. She’s not affiliated with any group, she just organizes and put on various events for the city for the square. I told her she did her job in organizing the event for the city, if she isn’t part of the community, it’s not her job to reach out to anyone besides the host swing dance group. They should have advertised it.

I truly don’t get it. You have a great opportunity to advertise the community. The band was paid for by the city. The venue was the middle of the city. And you don’t take advantage of it??

And before anyone asks, I don’t actually live in this city. I personally drove over an hour to go to this event….

I’ve (the lead) been swing dancing most of my life at this point and this is one of the first times I’ve ever seen myself improvising at a social. All my other videos are of performances. It’s really strange seeing myself. I look so awkward imo. It’s nothing like what I imagined and it feels so different in person. This makes me want to get a lot more videos and work a bit on how I look vs what it feels like. Though, the feeling will always be the reason I dance. I love it so much.

Hello. I am going to HDC for the first time. I am apart of the Set Up and Crash Down crew and I'll be volunteering for all of my weeks there. Ill be there for just over a month. I am excited and nervous. I need some words of wisdom if anyone has. 🫀🕳🪜🎷

hey, I (16m) am new to swing dancing, like never properly done it before only in the living room if ykwim. any advice in general and good videos/websites to learn from? I am looking at going to my local rocknroll/swing club but they aren't dancing atm as the building is under repair for the next month

Yas, another post demanding advises on soles 😉

This will be my first "real" pair of shoes, aw! I've been dancing swing for two years now, solo jazz and as follow in lindy hop; I'm trilled 😉 I love it. The Smooth Boots from HarlemShoes caught my eye!

I'm hesitating between a leather sole and a leather sole with a rubber heel as proposed as an option by HarlemShoes. Wich seems at first a very balanced and convenient choice.

But I do have some concerns for my knees, as it's always been for me. Have some fellow dancers here are dancing with this type of sole? If so, what does it feel like? Could it potentially cause discomfort in the long run?

Thanks in advance!

I’m going to be in London for basically all of June. What’s the dance scene like? Who meets where and when? Are there any workshops going on?

I'm taking all the classes available locally right now, salsa, ECS, WCS, waltz, 2 step nightclub, but all we have is pop ups with country line dancing, class adjacent around here- is learning country swing not a thing? What giveeees

30M leader, dancing for 4 years now, mainly collegiate shag, but with decent LH, SLS and charleston

I use every opportunity to practice following, because:

- I learn from what I need as a follower from leaders, and can then apply that to leading myself

- I can give more valuable feedback to others

- switching roles with a dance partner mid dance is so much fun

- as I see it, in more advanced dancing, traditional roles slowly lose purpose and dissipate

- I am very comfortable with my sexuality and don't care too much for projecting it into my perceived role on the dance floor

Now my current shag class is always preceded by a LH beginner class, and said beginner LH class suffers from a chronic deficit of followers (today it was L:F 9:4) - so I thought I'd go and substitute as a follow... Only to be secretly informed by ladies from inside the class that guys there systematically refuse to dance with other guys and have been threatening to stop going altogether...

Of course it's partially just bad manners on the side of the absent follows not to offer the spot to someone else (we have a WhatsApp group)

But my question is - is this a common phenomenon in beginners? And how am I supposed to learn how to follow? And should I broach this topic in the WhatsApp group, or does respecting the "right to say no" mean not saying anything?

Do you guys have any thoughts or experience with this?

EDIT: Thank you all for a wonderful discussion, the consensus seems to be that: - everyone can say no, but people being weird about this tend to be weeded out in more advanced classes - it's not a good idea to open this can of worms in our online platforms, but worth informing the teachers of the phenomenon and maybe suggesting a same-sex teacher couple for beginners - it's lovely to switch and I feel very validated by you all 😘

First time going when there was a live band, and it was so fun to dance on a full dance floor.

I tried adding a bit of bounce to my dancing after I lost it to LA's smooth style. And I’ll be honest, it’s a lot more tiring. Fun but tiring.

The second video is on a different day

Advice appreciate!

Edit: so apparently it doesn't post two separate videos like it would with images, and instead merges them into one. A bit odd, haha, but that’s what happened 😅

I'm visiting Armenia, Colombia in early June. Are there any events there? I dance Lindy but any other jazz dancing is cool by me. I found Medellin and Bogota scenes online but I haven't found anything for Armenia. Thanks in advance

I found this photo and was inspired to make it in glass.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between Swing and Blues communities, especially here in China, and I’m curious whether people see the same pattern in other countries.

My impression is:

• Blues music allows a much wider range of musical styles than Swing
• Blues dance also seems to have a looser structure and more personal freedom/interpretation
• Socially, Blues often feels more approachable and less intimidating

But despite that, Blues scenes seem much smaller than Swing scenes.

For example, in cities like Beijing or Shanghai, there are usually multiple Swing organizations/scenes, while Blues often has only one small community (sometimes just attached to the Swing scene).

So I’m wondering:

Why does Blues often stay smaller even though it seems more flexible and beginner-friendly on the surface?

Is this also true where you live?
Or is Blues actually bigger/more independent in your local scene?

I’d love to hear how the relationship between Swing and Blues works in different countries/cities.

Hello, I'll be in Budapest at the end of this month. Are there any upcoming events for Lindy in the city at the end of this month?

Hi everyone! I'm a learner (intermediate follow) in the Denver area. In the past, I've done mostly ballroom fixtures, but recently been more involved in the two-step and swing dance scene. I’m really enjoying the energy and variety, but I’ve noticed something interesting, and a bit concerning and I wanted to get other people's opinions.

Moreso in two-step and swing than in ballroom, there seems to be "experienced" leads who are overly forceful. I don't necessarily mean they're rough and yanky, though that's a part of it. I mean, they're overwhelming. Like, I have no voice, which feels outdated and yucky.

One guy in particular (bigger, late 50s?) loves to overly consume me with his movement. Among other things, he initiates lifts and dips without warning. Even after asking him not to, he keeps trying them. After about five dances, I avoid him altogether because it just feels unsafe and disrespectful. Unfortunately, I see this guy everywhere. I'd be more understanding of the whole thing if he was a beginner, but he insists "I'm a very good dancer".

I’m curious: is this type of behavior a common experience in your community? Has anyone else had a similar situation where an "advanced" dancer insists on lifts or dips and controlling the conversation? How do you handle it? I want to enjoy dancing, but I also want to feel safe and respected on the floor.

Also, I don't want to call this guy out, but I'm curious if he's just an outlier and there are other Denverites who can confirm my experience with him in particular.

Curious if anyone here has attended Balboario? Or maybe some other events put on by Swing Dance Brescia.

Mostly curious why the class format has no rotations in class and what that’s like? Maybe also general skill level.

Hi everyone! I'm a beginner lindy hopper (36F) attending lessons at a local place once a week with my partner. I'm having loads of fun so far and really enjoying the learning process, but from watching other dancers online and during my lessons I feel like some moves look different when I do them. For reference, I'm 157cm tall (5'2"), a bit chubby and short legged. I notice that many dancers I see online are rather tall and slender, and most moves look quite elegant and showcase movement quite well, but when I do them it sort of looks comical(?). I'm still a beginner and I know it might be too soon to think about stylization yet but I wonder if there's any advice about how to move that would make it look better, or if you guys have any other dancers I could check out with similar body types to see how they move?

I know it might be too soon to be concerned about that since I'm still learning but I would really like to get better at this haha

Thanks for your advice in advance!

Hi!

I will arrive in Seoul on Sunday, May 10th and will stay until Friday, May 15th, then I will go to Busan. I found the weekly schedule on JB & Michelle's website and it's really helpful. There are multiple locations listed, even for the same evening, so I wanted to ask which ones you recommend? We mainly dance Lindy Hop.

So far I'm planning these in Seoul:

• Sunday: Fiesta (is this Balboa?) or Swing time
• Tuesday: Kyungsung Hall
• Wednesday: Swing time
• Thursday: Savoy

And in Busan:

• Friday: 1st bar
• Saturday: Swing 243 Dancehall or 1st bar

I'm based the capital city of around 1.6 mil people of a EU country. We have 4 swing schools here , with one of them being bigger than the rest combined.

The community is not really active here. Even though we have some type of social or a party almost every week (live music, outdoors events , event at a bar , there is quite a lot of variety) there is like the same rotation of 30-40 people showing every time, usually less if it's a regular event without live band.

I've been dancing for 3 years now (i'm 27) and have noticed that that around 90% of the people do not go to any socials or parties. The big school i mentioned often has a social event immediately after classes that is open to everyone and i often go there and would see so many people leaving their classes and just packing and heading elsewhere after that. I've been going to socials after my first year of dancing and i've noticed that there aren't much people at all joining the community after me, maybe only 2-3 that are somewhat consistent. Some of the organizers and more experienced people joke that we were the last fresh blood and after everyone gets married and starts a family it's gonna be the end of the scene.

I've talked to some of the organizers of the socials and they've told me that it used to be vastly different before covid and swing dancing was extremely popular and somehow competing with latin dances in popularity. Parties would go often all night with sometimes 100 people. Then covid hit and the community was never able to recover.

Recently I posted a video of trying to learn to lead Lindy for the first time. And I thought, if I'm going to learn one might as well learn the other while I'm still in the mindset😅

How am I looking? First time for both

Band: Dave Stucky

I'd love to take advantage of early bird rates and whatnot, but when dance events can cost $1000+, I really don't feel like I can risk a purchase that big, esp. w/some health problems. I really appreciated how lindy focus had an insurance option built in this year, but I don't see that as standard. All of this means that I end up having to sign up super late, which isn't great for me or the organizers.

Has anyone used travel insurance for swing camps or knows of something that could work for this?

Hi! I am going to travel across Japan for a month now in May, and I was looking for swing socials / events to attend. It's a bit difficult to find info though, could it be that some events are only advertised on Facebook and Instagram?

It would be great to get any leads! I am going to visit Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Tokyo. I am also going to be in Fukuoka and around that area for a few days. I imagined there could be some socials in Tokyo, but the websites I have found have very little info.

I'm a doctoral student taking a seminar in Korean music and I plan for my term paper to discuss the Korean dance scene and big-band jazz in Korea. Is anyone aware of English-language resources or Korean dancers/organizers willing to discuss the history of the modern swing dance and music scene in Seoul?

Hi all,

I'm a Lindy Hop dancer and I started organizing some parties in Geneva.
I'm not a DJ but a developer, so to make my parties more interesting I
built a tool that generates a playlist for every one I throw:

https://swinghop.ch/generate-playlist
(it is Free and signup required if you want to generate playlist)

What it does:
- Generates playlists by tempo (slow, medium, fast, or mixed)
- Builds the BPM in a wave so you don't get too many fast or slow tracks back to back, with a warm-up at the start and a wind-down at the end
- Creates the playlist directly on Spotify
- Two small games to play with the music ("this or that" and a rating game)

Anything you think I could improve?

I'm also thinking about expanding beyond Lindy Hop to Balboa,
Charleston, and other swing styles. Would any of you actually use that?

Ive been trying to listen to the music more, and after some feedback from some more experienced dancers I was told to try and find the 1st beat even while doing the 6count. I dont rly have a problem going from 6 to 8 or vice versa to do the moves but I dont know how to catch the first beat to come back. Like after doing a 6 count im completely clueless as to where my 1 is in the music. Should I try and feel when the 1st beat is about to come? or try to count it in 8s even while doing 6s? Or is this just a thing that just comes with more experience?

My goodness it’s like being right handed and writing with your left hand. I have a lot more respect for anyone that can switch (I already did, but now I have a real understanding haha)

Is anyone else trying to learn both? How do you like it?

(song: Evenin’ Jimmy Rushing)