Swing dance instructors, like other kinds of teachers, should be a nurturing, accommodating influence. The needs of the student should come first and the expert should be receptive to the ideas of the novice. If swing dance teaches anything, it’s mutual respect and empathy; we’re all on a learning journey, after all. As such, there perhaps shouldn’t be any unreasonable demands an eager student could make of their tutor; requests likely to outrage, and which should be met with uncompromising rebuttal…but there are.
Two demands I previously pandered to, but which I now generally refuse, are these: firstly, “I only want to dance with one partner” and secondly, “just teach me a sequence of steps.” These ideas should—I have unilaterally decided—be unconscionable to swing dance instructors. At best, they should be vehemently opposed; at worst, they should be permitted only temporarily, as a soft entry into swing dance and only during private classes.
It’s not a power play, nor is it to make anyone’s life more difficult or less fun. Rather the opposite: it’s a stance intended to preserve the unique essence of swing dance and increase everyone’s enjoyment thereof. (I should qualify this by saying that choreographed exhibition pieces, usually performed by professional couples who practice mainly together, are another beast entirely.)
Lindy hop—the 1930s craze r
