Gary Stewart

Hi Jim, Your dance related article section is a fun read. I thought I would add to it a new-ish WCS dancer's perspective on the learning curve.

It all started in the 1980s, not with WCS but with the more familiar ECS (jitterbug) format. In the dance scene then dance apart rock was pretty much the partner dance for most people.    The changeover began for me when I was looking for a new room mate. I'd stopped at a San Francisco referral site to place a card. The owner of the referral business also owned the Avenue Ballroom. That is where it all started.

I began attending the Saturday evening parties, and found I really enjoyed the East Coast Swing lessons and dances. Occasionally I'd attend on a Friday evening and try the West Coast Swing format but that somehow seemed much harder to learn.

The passage of time took us to the San Diego area, life intervened and dance activity was more or less put aside. Various other changes brought me into the search for new activities.   I remembered the fun times from Avenue Ballroom and started looking online for dance activities. I found many in this area.

The first few times in WCS classes were frustrating. I was thinking ECS while trying to do WCS and doing lots of things in reverse order.

The learning curve changed when I took private lessons from a local instructor who uses Skippy Blair's teaching style. The errors soon smoothed out, the body muscles got used to the new idea and a sense of confidence developed. I especially liked the idea put forth in the class that you can be a beginner but do not need to look the part.

Has the learning curve reached the level of Accomplished yet?   Definitely not. Has the level been reached where I feel confident enough to have fun with the dance? Yes.

The learning curve reminds me a lot of the learning curve for skiing. The instructor gets you confident enough to feel safe trying the hill. After that point you get better with lots of practice. On that note, every so often I will watch the movies of my first skiing attempts. Will anyone get to see these films, heavens no, they are highly classified. I will then compare them to later skiing films just to remind myself of the learning curve present in any activity.

I have also decided at this stage to keep the patterns simple and concentrate on working within the music as additional task loading seems to quickly over-ride the basic skills.

I will see you all out on the dance floor. Keep the beat.

Gary Stewart