On Judging (Part 2): Watching and Note-Taking Technique

In its simplest form, a judge’s job can be said to be simply this: 1. Look at competitors. 2. Make notes and rank them on a clipboard.

HEIDI ROSENAU: vintage dancer, in 13 acts

A Game To Develop Assessment Skills

A critical component for someone if they ever want to judge a swing dance contest or to become a good dancer themselves is the idea of defining ,then being able to assess what is “good dancing”.

Modern Follower Video Index of the Ages!

Hey Everyone! I need your help with a project – I want to make a (cue dramatic music) “Modern Follower Video Index of the Ages!” When I started dancing, I had to watch a lot of single time east coast swing videos, trying to find the really great lindy hop videos. Hopefully this will help.

Do dance weekends make you more passionate about dancing?

I’ve been reading the posts on the vernacular jazz dance tumblr and pondering if dance weekends really make you more passionate about dancing? VJD comments:

Heroes

Heroes can be lots of things. Sometimes they are close to you, sometimes you never meet them, and sometimes you can’t meet them because they exist in your mind. To me, Skye Humphries is all of the above at the same time.

Defining a Dance

Inspired by a recent Facebook thread, I decided to post an article on this topic that deserves more focus. Defining a dance is not a new concept. It’s a long and distinguished subject that people spend years in school studying.

True Improvement

Everyone has these waves where sometimes we feel amazing about our dancing and every night we go out we have an awesome time. But is this when we are truely getting better as dancers?

Less Talk, More Rokk (Rock)

A topic I have been encountering in real life and on the internet on a fairly consistent basis is anxiety related to swing dancing, usually its one of the following: “I am afraid to…”

• compete because I won’t do well/people might look down on me/I won’t make finals/people will see me dancing badly/I am not a good dancer and shouldn’t even be in this division/everyone in this division is at a skill level way higher then mine
• dance with (insert person here) because they are a really good dancer/i’m below their skill level/they are in high demand and other dancers will get upset/they are attractive.
• dance to this song because it is too fast/its too slow.

Mister John Clancy

At the end of August at ILHC Lennart Westerlund gave a LED Talk about the involvement of Sweden (in turn himself) of the swing dance revival back in the 80s and 90s. During the talk Lennart showed a clip of one of the first instructors they invited to Herrang, John Clancy.

Swing Analogies: Lindy Hoppers are 22-to-25-year-olds

Obviously it’s a ballpark figure. But after countless hours researching — taking wind measurements, trying to remember how to use our TI-82, training a lemur to swing out, and then trying to steal its styling when it looked cooler than us — scientists over here in the Swungover Laboratory Cavern have recently concluded that Lindy Hoppers are often at their best when they dance like 22 to 25-year-olds.

Arthur Murray: How to Become a Good Dancer

Here are some scans from Arthur Murray's book "How to Become a Good Dancer". Originally published in 1938, Arthur Murray's book illustrates the popular ballroom dance steps using the footprint diagrams he developed for his mail order dance instruction booklets in the 20's.