Amazon.com
West Coast swing is a tremendously popular dance. It's fun to dance and fun to watch: playful, often sexy, complex, and varied enough that it's never the same twice. It's also a fairly complicated dance to learn, a "lead and follow" dance in which the partners do not mirror each other--their footwork is completely different.
The instructors, Robert Royston and Laureen Baldovi, are country dance world champions dressed in country-Western garb (although West Coast swing is by no means a strictly country-Western dance). They start at the absolute beginning, so even if you've never had a dance lesson, you'll do fine. In the first segment, they spend several minutes just teaching the rhythm. Then they introduce the beginning framework, the notion of dancing in the slot, and the basic starter step, throw out, underarm turn, sugar push, and side pass. They teach slowly, patiently, and clearly. Although the instructors progress from one move to the next, giving you plenty of moves for your money, they remind you to use your VCR's pause button to practice each pattern before continuing. The second segment teaches some combinations, building on the steps you learned, and introducing some new ones, such the basic whip and lock whip.
The instructors do their job well. The only problem for beginners is the lack of any practice to music until the end of each segment. It would help to dance each move to music right after learning it, even for 15 seconds. Viewers would also appreciate seeing a demonstration of a more advanced level, to see how much fun the dance can be and what a dancer is aiming for. --Joan Price
From the Back Cover
Welcome to a lesson in West Coast Swing. It is considered one of the "Coolest" and "Sexiest Dances" known to man. (and woman) No one does it better than the World Swing Champions themselves, Robert Royston and Laureen Baldovi. They will take you step by step through the basics to intermediate, and all in the privacy of your own home. Se let the "Masters" help you master the West Coast Swing! See you on the dance floor....
(3)
$24.95
(13)
$30.99
(10)
$12.99
See all 10 customer reviews...