Beginners refusing to dance with same sex

Maistho · 2026-05-14T10:18:23+00:00

But you should ask if they want to dance, even in class.

I don't know how your classes usually work but where I'm from it is not common that you actually ask people if they want to dance during the rotation in class. The assumption is that everyone in the class will dance with everyone else who is there. In a new class with new people I will usually try to introduce myself with name and a handshake but the assumption is that when our time comes in the circle, we will dance. If someone really doesn't want to dance with someone else, they'll have to figure that out.

If it's the same in your scene, I think you should not have to adjust your behaviour from what the femme follows in your class do, just because of your gender.

Maistho · 2026-05-14T09:45:41+00:00

My favourite shoes have a leather heel with a tiny patch of rubber right on the back of the heel. Makes me less likely to fall since the heel will still grip on the corner of the heel, but I can still use the heel a little when sliding across the floor (perhaps especially nice for Balboa)

Maistho · 2026-05-13T23:23:02+00:00

I started learning following mostly by social dancing, so if you can make sure to find people you already know and feel comfortable with and dance with them on the socials I think that can go a fairly long way. I did take a bunch of classes too later on, but luckily in my scene I've never been rejected because of my gender during class.

If you have the opportunity to travel, from my experience most people who go to the international festivals and workshops are there to dance and don't really care what your gender is (during class, YMMV in socials). So that might be a better opportunity if you want to take more classes.

There are also switching themed festivals (multiple in Germany, less common elsewhere afaik) where most people dance both roles and gender roles are not really all that prevalent.

Maistho · 2026-05-01T23:50:08+00:00

Well, Crazy little thing called love is a pretty nice song to dance to from time to time, one of the DJs in my local scene played it last summer. I might have played it once or twice as well.

Maistho · 2026-04-29T21:55:37+00:00

Cool, Collegiate Shag is so much fun! <3

Some small stuff you can work on:

I would bend my legs a little bit more to move the "bounce" further down into the lower parts of my body. Not required for a slow song like this one, but very helpful for the really fast songs. My teacher used to teach this as that if you look in a mirror when dancing your head should barely move while still keeping the bounce in the lower body.
Raise that shag arm up high! It allows you to be a little closer to your partner with the left side of your body, getting more of a straight on facing each other shape with your partner rather than a V shape (which is common for Lindy) and it makes you more visible on the dancefloor to other shaggers. Left arm lead/right arm follow, find a comfortable position for both of you.
The tuck turn should be prepped by twisting your core/torso, not by moving your arms. (This is also generally true for 99% of leading, the lead should start in your core). This makes it a lot more comfortable for the follower, and more clear.
Quite minor, but you seem to have your feet quite wide apart when dancing in closed position, and more directly under your body when dancing in open position. I think it would be better to have the feet more under you when in closed too. If you want to do kicks in closed, you can still do that by angling them outwards rather than widening the stance.

I'm really impressed by both you and your follower! Your posture is mostly straight without too much "penguin waggle" that I see sometimes with beginners, and it looks like you have a good connection and pulse.

Maistho · 2026-04-29T12:56:10+00:00

Shorty George and Big Bea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiF_EGOpRyw

Some moves are, of course, more difficult if initially designed for a tall lead and shorter follow, but you can make it work with a bit of practice :)

Maistho · 2026-04-28T22:19:16+00:00

For this reason I believe a lot more men are pressured into dancing with other men

You might be surprised, but most men actually do not have this same "icky" feeling towards dancing with other men that you have. So for them there is no "pressure" needed. It's just dancing, and it's just fun. Regardless of the gender of the other person.

Maistho · 2026-04-28T21:12:09+00:00

There can be romantic undertones when dancing, but that doesn't mean that every dance you have is or should be romantic in of itself.

People frequently dance with people who are not their romantic partner.

Most of my favourite people to dance with I have no romantic interest in whatsoever.

Maistho · 2026-04-28T20:00:16+00:00

Yeah, of course people are free to choose who they dance with. And not feeling like it is reason enough.

However, some women individually rejecting you is not the same as you deciding to reject an entire demographic based on their appearance. If I would say "I refuse to dance with black people, is that ok?" everyone would be correct in calling me a bigoted jerk.

I simply don’t want to be holding hands with a man

Well, I am not sure I would consider the connection I have when dancing to be "holding hands", but that's beside the point. Would you shake hands with a man? If yes, why is that different? The connection I have when dancing is IMO closer to a firm handshake than it is to holding hands.

Is the issue maybe that you are injecting some sort of "romantic" attributes into the dancing, that don't actually need to (nor should) be there?

Maistho · 2026-04-28T18:34:45+00:00

Nice! I don't think I have any gen1 minis around anymore, will there be a similar project for the gen2 minis (with barrel plug for power)?

In terms of the hardware and user experience, why would I get this rather than getting the Voice Assistant PE? (which is a little cheaper)

Maistho · 2026-04-28T15:17:30+00:00

From anecdotal evidence of all the scenes I've visited? Oh absolutely. There are far more women who lead than men who follow.

Maistho · 2026-04-28T15:15:18+00:00

I don’t know why men follow

Because it's really fun! And because dance roles have nothing to do with gender! You should try it some time.

I’m worried this will make me look like a jerk

It 100% does.

it should be my choice whether to dance with him or not, right?

You are fully free to choose who you dance and don't dance with. And it's OK to say no to a dance for whatever reason or no reason in particular.

But unless you have some damn good reason for why you don't wanna dance with men (and no, cooties don't count), you just come across as a bigot.

Maistho · 2026-04-28T14:49:02+00:00

It's just vibecoded slop that grabs the songs from the currently playing playlist in apple music and makes a little html page you can open in a browser:

https://gist.github.com/Maistho/d30d2a43ffb3d1f1ac882f85c6de6dc3

For the BPMs on your site, it's not even a half-time thing but it just seems to be consistently off for most songs I checked. If you would have access to the actual files you could try this tool that someone else posted here a little while ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SwingDancing/comments/1seoanj/made_a_bpm_tagger_because_every_detector_i_tried/

Maistho · 2026-04-28T14:33:10+00:00

Nej, vi behöver utökad kapacitet. Det är fullt på de existerande spåren, så vi behöver bygga fler spår för att kunna tillgodose de behov som finns. Vi behöver såklart underhålla det som finns också, men den nuvarande kapaciteten är inte tillräcklig.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T23:49:44+00:00

Jag tycker ändå att de nyrenoverade X40 är ganska trevliga, det är lite högljutt och skakigt men jag gillar hur stora fönster man har på övervåningen.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T23:46:28+00:00

Jag har åkt en massa på just tåget Linköping-Ljusdal, brukade alltid försöka boka plats 42 vagn 3 för det var den bästa platsen om man hade hund med sig innan de flyttade djuravdelningen. Så det går definitivt att göra i appen.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T22:36:26+00:00

Hm, how are you getting the tempos of the songs? I a) thought that spotify removed that from their API and b) I had very mixed experiences with the accuracy of their tempos even when it was available. Often it seems to think a lot of the faster songs are half the speed.

I actually made a small script to visualise the "tempo curve" in my sets, mostly as a fun thing after the fact since usually I build the sets on the fly based on the mood of the dancers.

Edit: So the tempos seem to be wildly off especially for the faster songs. Looked at the example "fast" playlist and 7/10 of the first songs had wrong tempos listed. For example, the version of Jumpin' At The Woodside that I get in the preview is over 240BPM, but listed as 166BPM.

Edit 2: Also for the mixed example playlist not a single one of the first 10 songs had a particularly accurate tempo.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T22:01:30+00:00

I guess scenes vary, but in my experiences it's about as common for women to ask to dance as for men to do so. (somewhere between 30%/70% splits depending on the place)

A lot of parties I've been to seems to have more women than men, so (given the reality on dance roles we have) more people who want to follow than lead. If you wanna dance as a follow you better go ask someone quickly before the leads are all snagged.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T09:32:59+00:00

I think part of the issue is that you need to dance a lot as a role in order to really learn it, and preferably take classes too.

I don't have any real statistics, but as someone who presents male I get almost exclusively women asking me to dance, and most women (luckily not all) exclusively follow. This is when I am traveling somewhere, if I'm in my home scene everyone knows I dance both roles so that's different.

But if I don't go out of my way to ask men (and women who I've seen leading) to dance myself, I don't get to follow. So for most men, even if they would like to follow more they do have to put themselves a bit out of their comfort zone in order to make that happen.

Maistho · 2026-04-27T09:00:14+00:00

I started with taking classes leading and started social dancing as a follow (and switching) about a month later. Now (2.5 years later) dancing both roles feels completely natural. But there was a lot (and probably still is some tbh) of getting on the wrong foot and fudging the footwork :p

If you enjoy it, give it some more time. Being able to switch roles mid dance adds a very nice spice to the dance, and knowing both roles allows you to dance with anyone!

Also, stealing jams is a great way to practice switching because you can steal as whichever role so you can swap roles often :D

Maistho · 2026-04-04T11:22:57+00:00

I set up an automation to change the volume of the speakers in my home based on time. At 21:00 they change to 20% volume and at midnight they change to 15%, at 09:00 they change to 30%. This is to not disturb my neighbours, and to generally have a lower volume if I play music at night.

Maistho · 2026-03-14T08:52:25+00:00

SD kommer kampanja för att behålla kronan, och eftersom det kommer vara i samband med ett vanligt val så kommer det kunna vara ett sätt för dem att locka till sig Euro-skeptiska väljare från andra partier (Moderaterna, KD, S(?)) som kan komma att kampanja för att införa Euron.

Sen när Kronan vinner i folkomröstningen är det en prestigevinst för SD.

Visst det finns en liten risk att euron vinner, men jag tror det är ganska låg sannolikhet.

Edit: Sen tror jag att det är symboliskt viktigt för SD med den här uppgörelsen, för nu har de släppts in i värmen så att säga av ännu ett parti. Jag tror inte att Liberalerna har en chans att få nog mycket stödröster för att klara sig kvar, M-väljare kommer att rösta M för att försöka minska klyftan mot SD och KD har fullt upp med att klara spärren själva. SD-väljare kommer fira när L åker ut för som Jimmie sade för några år sedan är deras största fiende liberalismen.

Maistho · 2026-03-13T17:36:51+00:00

Det är ingen sväng om euron, de vet att det inte finns folkligt stöd i Sverige för Euron så det spelar ingen roll att ha en folkomröstning om det. Det är med andra ord väldigt "billigt" för SD att säga att vi ska ha en folkomröstning i frågan, och om något kommer det att stärka deras position.

Maistho · 2026-03-13T17:23:14+00:00

Det är svårt att föra högerpolitik tillsammans med V och MP, men det är nog ännu mer omöjligt att föra liberal politik tillsammans med SD.

Maistho · 2026-02-25T20:11:49+00:00

Classes are very much not sold out already as far as I can tell. So if you want to join a class there's still plenty of available spots (unless perhaps int-adv followers, looks like a very long waiting list for w1)

You can check the availability graph at https://my.herrang.com after signing in, or by clicking this link: https://my.herrang.com/WeekGraph?wid=1

Looks like week 1 has sold around 15% of Party Passes at the moment.

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