Swing lesson 5 | Werribee

(Wednesday nights at Werribee)

Tonight my brother Deej and I made our debut at the Werribee Kindergarden Community Room for their level 1 class. Werribee is run by two lovely people named Celia and Daniel, with Celia heading things up as leader which is great as she of-course is a follow. Werribee is a little different; a different vibe, a different method of teaching and quite a different crowd, but very cool nonetheless. Now that I’ve been to three different regional Swing Patrol classes, I’d say that Brunswick is the most thorough in regards to making sure everyone gets the phrases, Yarraville seems to be the fastest in regards to moving through different phrases, and Werribee seems to move solidly into some of the slightly more intricate basics.

6-beat is the dance of the semester it seems, and tonight we learnt tripple steps which eventually leads into Lindy! This of-course made Deej and I very happy indeed. Instead of our normal pump/kick steps for beats three to six, we shuffled tripplets; quite a physical workout. The good thing about tripplets is that they allow you to cover more ground in the same amount of time, and open up a whole range of new phrases.
After getting our basic tripple-step 6-beat phrase, we went into follows doing the inside turns to the open position that we learnt at Yarraville last week, then using a phrase to change to the cross-hand open-position we learnt at Brunswick on Monday, (it all links together!), then leads flung follows in an outside spin while turning around ourselves, taking the follow’s right hand again in our left leaving us in the open-position again, but now on opposite sides to where we began!
Brilliant!
The description doesn’t do it justice, but I can see it when I read it; you really do have to see it to understand, but honestly, it is so so so easy – I heartily encourage everyone to give it a try!

Driving home afterwards had us in such a buzz; dancing always leaves me energised. Every time I finish a Swing lesson, I feel like going for a flat-out sprint or playing a crazy game of hackey-sack or something. Of-course I’d just love to keep dancing, but at the moment such things carry time constraints, and I don’t really have anyone to practice with during the week, so I tend to prance around at home by myself.

Ultimately though, the movements of each phrase come back even if you forget them. As long as you have the basic steps in your muscle memory, everything else will flow naturally from it. Everything we do in 6-beat follows the same footing that we learn in the basic phrase, so no matter how we spin and fling and turn, with the exception of the poses and shuffles, everything moves with those same six foot movements – it really is that simple!

My 10 class discount card has arrived in the mail today, so it’ll last me just on three weeks at this point! I love it though, and right now I really do want to get as much Swing into my week as I can. Tomorrow will see the crew (minus Deej as it’s his league bowling night) Swing once again in Yarraville, and this Friday will make it two full weeks of Swinging for me back at the Fun Pit.

It’s a good day to dance!