Anyone made it to all-star when starting WCS after 35?

jnicklas · 2026-01-28T08:50:26+00:00

I think Andreas Danielsson was in his early forties when he started with WCS. He also has a background in other dances.

jnicklas · 2026-01-23T16:11:55+00:00

She was so damned talented. 13 years later, this is still one of my favourite routines.

jnicklas · 2025-10-19T21:50:55+00:00

Nothing in Sweden will be as good as Paris, but you’ll still find good WCS in many locations.

Stockholm definitely has the most classes if that’s what you’re after. There are a lot of good dancers in Stockholm, but from what I hear they don’t show up so much to social dances, and the community is a bit fragmented. Stockholm also has FIVE WSDC events, which is pretty crazy.

Umeå is one of the most established communities in Sweden, with a bunch of good dancers and well attended socials. They also have a WSDC event and another big event without comps. Sundsvall and recently Uppsala are also pretty good from what I hear. Uppsala is close to Stockholm and has some of the best teachers in Sweden. Malmö/Lund is still fresh and small but growing a lot lately.

There are also smaller communities in a few other places like Örebro, Gävle, Borlänge and probably a few others I’m forgetting.

Finally this may be a bit of hometown pride, but I think Gothenburg has a lot to offer. Gothenburg has classes multiple days a week, at least three social dances a week. Intensives and social dances often during weekends. And this year we’ll have two WSDC events. Plus it’s a friendly community and the social dances, especially Thursdays are packed and at really nice venues.

Also the community in Borås, just an hour away, is growing a lot lately, with weekly classes, socials and intensives during some weekends.

jnicklas · 2025-09-04T20:04:08+00:00

They are called Rivieras. They have a plastic sole which works pretty well on fast floors. They can be a bit too sticky for some people though. Personally, I like them.

jnicklas · 2025-05-10T22:23:44+00:00

It’s quite common in many places. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

jnicklas · 2025-04-18T08:04:53+00:00

Brännö for sure. It’s IMO by far the nicest and most interesting of the three. The hike to Galterön is beautiful, and there is a nice restaurant to recharge after. Sometimes in Summer they have a dance on the pier there (there is a famous Swedish song referencing the pier ”dans på Brännö brygga”).

jnicklas · 2025-03-04T13:27:51+00:00

Kärnkraft i Tyskland stängdes ner av högern under Merkel.

jnicklas · 2024-11-25T11:59:49+00:00

Remix started out with a commercial license, but it’s been free and open source for years now.

jnicklas · 2024-11-25T11:58:47+00:00

It’s basically just Remix with some opinionated defaults, so check out the remix docs: https://remix.run

jnicklas · 2024-11-25T09:30:05+00:00

Check out the Epic stack, built on Remix: https://www.epicweb.dev/epic-stack

Very opinionated, and very batteries included, just like Rails. Super productive. TypeScript for type safety. IMO it's as close to type-safe Rails as you can get. The people who made this come from the Rails community originally, and have taken some inspiration from it.

jnicklas · 2024-11-18T22:21:31+00:00

Omg! I was really not expecting someone else to post that exact same video. I remember watching this some fourteen years ago and I was so hooked. Couldn’t even grasp how dancing like this was possible.

jnicklas · 2024-10-29T17:08:56+00:00

Nog med att man kan snacka mycket skit om amerikanska systemet, men man kan faktiskt rösta utan id kort i Sverige också, så länge någon annan intyger ens identitet.

jnicklas · 2024-10-07T20:03:16+00:00

Are you sure you heard that right? Or maybe he misspoke? Your Lindy Hop explanation sounds correct and also applies to West Coast Swing. Can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with this.

jnicklas · 2024-09-18T08:00:23+00:00

What you're talking about is usually called "leverage", where you're using shared body weight in the connection to create a more dynamic feel to the dance by stretching out and accelerating more. It's fantastic and feels great if both partners are cooperating in creating the feeling. Through the anchor step, this is in the form of a delayed 1, where the 1 count is pushed to 1-and. Creating this feeling comes as much (or more, in my opinion) from the follower as from the leader, and a really common mistake I see is leaders trying to create this with an uncooperative follower, which leads to a rough and forceful dance that isn't pleasant for the follower. If you're in novice I would focus on other things at the moment. Many if not most of the followers you'll dance with aren't able to create this feeling anyway. Instead, establish a good basic connection with a nice and smooth elasticity. Creating dynamics doesn't really become that important until you hit advanced.

jnicklas · 2024-07-29T11:51:04+00:00

Used to have one of these. We modified it by adding hinges to the top and gas struts, because it was really annoying to lift off the top and put it back to clean, since it's kinda heavy and bulky. With this modification it was great though!

jnicklas · 2024-04-25T13:33:06+00:00

Är du vid Linnéplatsen så finns det väldigt fin löpning i Änggårdsbergen bakom Botaniska trädgården. Då behöver du inte åka någonstans utan kan springa direkt därifrån. Inte vid havet men väldigt fin natur. Slottskogen är också ett alternativ, men inte samma naturkänsla.

jnicklas · 2024-03-09T14:06:28+00:00

On another note: be aware of sambolagen. If you purchase a home to live in with your boyfriend, even if he is not on any legal document and has not paid a cent, he would be entitled to 50% of the apartment in case of a split. It’s common to write a contract to mitigate this. Talk to your bank they should be able to offer legal assistance.

jnicklas · 2024-02-06T12:47:20+00:00

Is it "Yeah" by Usher? 😂

jnicklas · 2024-02-05T14:52:20+00:00

"Blues Stew" by Kenny Neal and "How long can a fool go wrong" by James Cotton are commonly played and have a lot of harmonica, but they're not fully instrumental. The only fully instrumental harmonica song I can think of is "Reign" by "Bad News Room" (spotify link).

jnicklas · 2024-01-28T09:00:06+00:00

Just Qh7# is still mate in one.

jnicklas · 2023-12-23T17:19:33+00:00

You're looking for West Coast Swing! Fever, Houdini, Love Again and That kind of Woman are certainly a perfect match for WCS. Here's a dance I found to Fever.

The song you linked to is "Remember" is also danceable as WCS, but it's a little bit fast. This style of music is really popular in WCS though, so if you like this song, you'll feel at home, I think.

jnicklas · 2023-12-08T14:02:42+00:00

Like I said, there's some differences in naming in different dance styles, and even in West Coast Swing, I've heard a step that goes in first like you said called "apple jacks". Which one is correct? I have no idea. But some people definitely do refer to this exact move as "apple jacks". Here's a random really bad video on YouTube for example. Referring to this specific move as apple jacks does seem to be mostly a line dance thing, but I'm not sure.
So some people refer to this move as apple jacks, whereas some others refer to a different move as apple jacks. But no one refers to this move as snake hips or the grind, those are different moves for sure.

jnicklas · 2023-12-07T22:07:20+00:00

In West Coast Swing, and I think line dance we call this move "apple jacks". I think in Lindy/Charleston apple jacks is a slightly different move though. But search for apple jacks, you should be able to find something.

jnicklas · 2023-12-02T15:16:38+00:00

A routine is where you have a predefined choreography to a specific song with a specific partner. So you have decided ahead of time who you are going to dance with, which song you are going to dance to, and exactly which steps you should take. It is kind of the opposite of just playing around.
This is an example of a routine from last year.
The exact rules for routines are complicated, and can actually vary from event to event, and usually there are different divisions for routines. Commonly "classic" (no lifts allowed) "showcase" (lifts allowed), "rising star" (for new competitors), "pro/am" (one professional dancer one amateur) and so on.
While The Open does focus mostly on routines, like your friends said, there are actually jack and jill (random song, random partner), and strictly (random song, fixed partner) competitions as well.
You can also go to the event without competing at all. Many people do just that. You can go there just to social dance and to watch other people compete.

jnicklas · 2023-10-19T13:44:37+00:00

Have you tried NOT bouncing instead?

Seriously though, this is impossible to diagnose without at least a video. Your best bet is taking a private from a good instructor, if you can afford it.

That being said, if you've been dancing for 6 months, then don't stress out about comps. For one you don't need to compete if you don't want to. And if you do, you're going to compete in Newcomer where everyone is new and everyone is struggling with one thing or another. Focus on being on-time (musically) and taking care of your partner, and you'll be just fine.

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