Swing lesson 18 | Werribee

You know if Swing is not your thing, there is a music update you can read…

(Wednesday nights at Werribee Kindergarden Community Room)

Wednesday night is the best Swing night of the week! Even better than the Fun Pit! Celia and Daniel are the two coolest Swing Patrol teachers around, and tonight they taught us the most moves we’ve ever done in a single night, anywhere!

As we were a class full of regulars, we didn’t have to go over Charleston basics, so we went right into our through-the-middle kick-turns that we learnt last week…

– Then into outside kicks where leads swing their left legs out on beat 3, turning around and kicking with the right leg on beat 7 while swapping which hand we’re holding the follow. We plant and do the routine again, this time when we swing the right foot back to the middle, with our right hands holding the follow’s left, we lead their arm forward and stamp our right foot to stop the phrase, step around with the left foot which follows mirror with their right, and stop their right arm with our left, meaning we’ve stopped in a position facing each-other.

– We then spin the ladies with our left hands which brings us to open position. From there we use a 6-beat phrase to close up back to Jockey position.

– Back in Jockey, we did the bust-outs that I’d previously learned at Yarraville last week, but this time after bringing the follows back to closed-position, the lads spun around in the next phrase for their own bust out! How cool is that!

– Returning to Jockey, we led the ladies into a single through-the-middle kick backwards, back to front-facing position, then on the return through-the-middle, we led the girls in a full spin and returned to closed/Jockey position!

I don’t expect anyone to make sense of anything I’ve written, they’re notes for myself, but man – that was a lot of phrases in one night! Heaps and heaps of fun! One of these days I just know it’ll all come together and I’ll actually be able to fluidly lead this stuff, one phrase after the other and hopefully look as cool as Daniel does when he shows us his moves after each lesson.

Totally – rocked – out.

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