A brief history of swivelicious

I'm up late and can't sleep! Thought I'd take it out on my keyboard and the internet and write some stuff... And I thought, heck, I may as well let all you good folks out there know my story! ...no, not my whole life story, just my dance story.

The A Frame

I guess it started in 2008 when I decided I wanted to take dance classes. I'd always wanted to learn foxtrot and quickstep... Little did I know back then that they took their roots from the great family of swing! (I do still want to learn the foxtrot and quickstep one day...)

So I think it was November or December 2008 when I started taking ballroom classes. It was a rotational class, promising a mix of styles - they started with salsa (one of the styles I was hoping to avoid, truth be told, because I knew too many people who did it and I'm an indie kid. That stuff is just too mainstream for me.). It was nothing too serious, mostly old people in the class, and learning mini-routines of maybe 6-10 moves over a period of about 4 weeks. After my third lesson, the instructor ended the class with a message that sounded like "that's the last class for the year, we'll resume again on January 16". Which would have been fine, had I not been flying out to Canada for exchange on January 6... So that was the end of that, much to what I think to be my then boyfriend's unspoken relief.

Then, February of 2009, a friend of mine who was living in the university dormitory with me invited me to a swing night that had been organised by David, who was a friend of hers. He would go on to teach me my first air steps and lindy basic in November/December of that year, and not long thereafter, become my boyfriend (and one of my favourite dance partners - and not just because of the romantic interest). I decided this swing dancing thing was a lot of fun, but did not really want to commit while I was overseas. I put it on the backburner and decided I would check out swing dancing upon my return to Australia.

Meanwhile, I took a short salsa course (I think it was 6 or 8 weeks) that one of my friends had invited me to - despite my standing objections and prejudice - because it was something to do and it was free of charge.

Throughout 2009, I attended a few more of these swing initiation nights, I think I attended about 4 in total. One of these nights, David taught me my first airstep: the pop jump (though I later learned the variation of pulling my knees up like a sitting frog, which creates the illusion of being higher!). That same night, he also taught me the honeymoon (first part of this video) and the chair (a.k.a. shin splints, as shown in this handy tute).

March 2010 saw me make the commitment to swing, signing up for my first swing class with Swing Patrol, Sydney. My first teacher was the fantastic Jake Meadley, who unfortunately, after just four months, had to make the move to Perth, where he knew the swing community really needed him. Man, he was fun, and we were all sad to see him go. So in July, I started taking classes from the no less fantastic Derek and Trish Carruthers. Amazing and inspiring dancers and awesome teachers... In the time I took lessons from them, I learned the basics of pretty much every style of swing dance: six beat (or what these Canadians like to call East Coast), six beat and eight beat lindy, charleston (20s, breakaway, hand to hand, side-by-side, tandem), and the very basics of balboa, shag and west coast. They also taught me a couple of swing line dances, such as the jitterbug stroll and the shim sham (a few months later, around March 2011, I did a workshop to learn the Al & Leon shim sham, which I posted in a previous post, but haven't quite got the hang of, yet). My lindy hop (towards which I am frighteningly biased) improved a LOT, in terms of technique, repertoire, variations and musicality. I also began to attend social dances, starting at about once every two weeks and learned my first routine for the end of year ball. Early 2011 saw Trish take leave from teaching swing in order to have her and Derek's baby (who is an absolute cutie, just by the way) and the marvellously talented Brock Mifsud took over for her. LOVE the teaching team at SP Sydney!

In November 2010, I attended the Sydney Swing Festival (my first swing weekend!) and entered my very first competition with Conan French. We hit the up and coming division for GOLD!

I taught Conan how to do the chair, and he and I both watched a few youtube videos to figure out how to do the A frame (as pictured at the top of the post). We thought throwing a couple of aerials in would get us the medal, but it turns out our competition had the same thought! However, upon watching back the video I had asked a friend to take I saw that the connection between myself and Conan was much more evident, and while our technique was still a little sloppy, it was cleaner than the competition, so I can say, with as much humility as a winner can muster, that we truly deserved that medal.

My first solid (gold, although not actually made of solid gold or any gold at all...)
achievement as a lindy hopper!

Also, pictured with Conan after being awarded our medals (above left).

January 2011 saw the start of some highly public dancing (what can I say? I love the attention), mostly as an ice breaker (i.e. a dancer who is to dance on a dancefloor so as to encourage non-dancers to be dancers, even if just for the event!). One of the biggest highlights has to be the Trocadero recreation as part of Sydney Swing Festival 2011.

The Trocadero Team!

February 2011 saw the start of fortnightly blues classes and socials, which helped me to appreciate this somewhat... intimidating, for want of a better word... style of dance. At this point, I was dancing twice, sometimes three times a week and loving it.

Then, making the decision to move back to Canada for a working holiday (and yes, I'll admit, to spend time with the man who had become my boyfriend at the end of 2009 and with whom I was pursuing a long-distance relationship... but that's another story... although I would like to quote Jake Meadly, here, who, at one point, quite ironically said, "in swing dancing, we're normally apart more than we are together", which was the case for David and myself at the time that it was said...), I had to give up my regular swing regime in May.

Meeting up with some swingin' Sydney expats in Vancouver, on my way to Québec City.

Without many socials to attend over the Canadian summer, and no classes, I actually began to experience physical withdrawal symptoms, no jokes. I did get to a few socials, though, and experienced a couple of things which I had not yet experienced before:

(a) going to a social, getting a dance, then getting asked to dance by leads who said they had seen my style on the floor and wanted to take me for a spin (more or less quite literally) and

(b) getting to dance with Benjamin Ricard (yes, the world champion swing dancer of Ben and Gen fame) at a social, who said that it, and I quote, "felt really good". Yeah, that is a hint of smugness you detect there. ;)

Anyway, classes have recently started back up (this week, in fact!) and I'm really excited to be taking a swing class with my boyfriend for the very first time, and even more excited to be a part of my first troupe! Although I have been told that I would probably have had the moves to make it into the top troupe, the truth is, I didn't really want to because I didn't want to devote my whole life to swing (well, not just yet, anyway) and seeing as it's my first time in a troupe, I figured I'd want to ease myself into it and test the waters with the less demanding of the two. Anyway, I know I'll be learning at least two routines with the troupe: one for Christmas and one for the 2012 Canadian Swing Championships. All very exciting!

So there you have it, my lindy hopstory (as opposed to history). =)

And once again, a video. This is the performance ball routine that I would have done just last week, had I stayed in Sydney. Go level 3 Newtown! The audio and video is a little bit off, so I've included the rehearsal tape so you can see the musicality that's written into the choreography as well. The magic is in how it works in the group, though, so that's just below. ;)

The teachers doing the routine for the video diary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIR0d20pIX8

The routine on the night (unfortunately not on youtube, but this should work, nonetheless)!!
https://fbcdn-video-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-snc4/347702/17/10150312482371843_30181.mp4?oh=b724130f57367a174e0dea1a9066af96&oe=4E800100&__gda__=1317011712_363867c8bcbe312b4c5f328b21baac48