West Coast Swing Competitions

Competition music #

West Coast Swing competitions usually feature pop (high energy, staccato), contemporary (ooey-gooey, legato, smooth), and blues (bouncy) songs around 100 beats per minute.

Competition tips #

If your face is stone cold without making eye contact, you will be perceived as less confident, less sure of yourself, or hiding something, meaning you will be graded more critically. Your smile is part of how your dance is perceived. Having a stone-cold face also makes your partner feel more critical of your dance and her own dance. It is an overall unpleasant experience.

Smiling will let the judges be more forgiving of your mistakes. Smile, look at your partner, and enjoy every moment.

Dancing competitively is a visual sport, so judges can only judge what they see during your performance. Judges are not supposed to use previous knowledge of your dancing even if they dance with you before competing.

Jack & Jill #

Jack & Jill competitions involve dancing with people and music picked at random. You do not know what music will play or with whom you will dance.

There are three divisions:

• Leader Jack & Jill: For those who want to compete in the leader role.
• Follower Jack & Jill: For those who want to compete in the follower role.
• All American: You get to dance with people of every division: Newcomer, novice, intermediate, masters, advanced, and all star.

The only two divisions that will give you WSDC competitor points are Leader Jack & Jill and Follower Jack & Jill divisions.

Tips #

In Jack-and-Jill prelims and semi-finals, the leader and the follow are judged individually. Because the judge only looks at you for 8 seconds, your dance must be extremely busy, full of quality motion. Be repetitive because you will only be judged a few seconds and you do not know when that will be. In other words, do basics, but style them as much as possible without affecting the partnership or the footwork. Everything below the knees is WCS, and anything above is for you to style. Amplify and style often. Do not wait for the anchor step to style. Be selfish, be flashy. It is upon the partner to amplify and style to get to your level. Do not try to be less flashy to try to avoid creating an imbalance; meet your parter where she is if she is being flashy rather than dumbing down the dance. That’s not what Jack and Jill is about; you are being judged individually so do your best independently of your partner. Start moving soon. Do not spend too much time to start the dance. Waiting 16 beats is definitely too much.

In newcomer division, doing clean basics may win, but in novice it will not. In novice division you must have clean basics and lots of variety in your movement. If you see advanced followers, you will see their lats and backs are constantly rippling.

A straight spine has no styling. Quality motion comes from engaging the upper body, specially the lats, and improving footwork. Quality of motion is the most important in competitions. Do not confuse movement across the dance floor with motion within your own body. Quality motion, not movement, is more effective for looking good when swing dancing in general.

In the finals context, the criteria changes. Rather than focusing on quality of movement and variety, the focus is on connection and partnership.

Strictly Swing #

You choose your partner, but not the song.

Tips #

Every dance is judged like it is a final, meaning that the leader and follow are judged as a couple.

Pro-Am Strictly Swing #

You choose your partner, but not the song. You get to dance with a pro, so only you get graded.

Routines #

You choose your partner and the song.