WEST COAST SWING ANCHOR - "What Is It REALLY?" 

It makes us so happy to hear that our videos are helping! WCS is one of those dances that you either love it, or you just don't understand it ;-) We would love to travel to England one day!

We’re glad you liked it! Thank you for joining in

A life of dancing! We love that ❤️ We hope that’ll be us too

Glad it was helpful!

Basics are where it's at!

❤️❤️❤️ We’re excited to be there! We will be at the Thirsty Horse!

Clear as mud? 🤣 We’re glad you enjoyed it!

@@countrydancex no 🧐 crystal clear 🍸no joke 🤗

We teach all beginners a basic triple step anchor too! The point we're making is that the "stretch" of an anchor is what really matters, not the footwork :-)

@@countrydancex thanks! I'll try not to get so hung up on steps and focus more on cues/stretch.

Of course. We are on tour this summer ... xdance.com/cdx-bootcamps

Have you tried our WCS basics videos? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hEzyT0LJ8F4.html

@@countrydancex I will check that out. Thank you.

Ernest, the 1,2,3&4,5&6 of WCS comes from a Syncopation of the beat applied to stepping. What’s syncopation? It’s where you take a beat and split it into halves. It sounds or reads like 1&,2&,3&,4&. The result is instead of just 4 whole beats, you now have 8 half beats. Different Styles of music will have different syncopations. IMO the simplest musical Style to demonstrate this would be Cha Cha, which can be very similar to 4/4 time Swing music. In Cha Cha the 4/4 musical time 1,2,3,4, takes the 4th beat and splits it into 2 halves. So the Rhythm looks like 1,2,3,4&,1,2,3,4& ….in stepping you have 5 steps instead of 4 steps. Swing music commonly has a 4/4 time rhythm with a syncopation that looks like 1&,2,3&,4, not to be confused with the step count of 1&2,3&4,5,6. Clear as mud? I completely understand. Dances come from musical style and the feeling of movement the music generates. There are primarily two categories, Smooth and Rhythm. Within those two categories there are 6 Movements and 4 Elements that make up the construct of an unlimited number of leadable patterns. Besides Frame, how you connect or hold your partner, and Line of Dance, how the dance moves around the floor, there is really only 1 movement that Rhythm dances have that Smooth don’t. That Movement is Hip Roll. Smooth dances like Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, CW 2 Step, Nightclub 2 Step, have no Hip Roll. Swing, Salsa, Bachata, Rumba, Cha Cha and all of those other dances whose name end in vowels, do. Swing and Cha Cha use a lot of syncopated movements reflecting the beat of the music. The big difference between Cha Cha and Swing is Cha Cha is a consistent 1,2,3,4&,1,2,3,4& where Swing can be all over the place. Antony and Rose do a great job in showing this. Their approach is very movement based as opposed to hard pattern and steps. I know it can be very confusing, but keep reviewing their videos and the concepts will start to fall into place. Good luck.

@@christophercasson5200 oh damn that is as clear as mud hahahaha. But that explains so much that has always confused me and no one could ever answer. I appreciate that explanation.

You’re welcome and thank you for reminding us to plan dinner

😎