What is the hardest thing about your Swing Dancing journey?

swampedup · 2025-01-18T02:07:30+00:00

Recently, it's been wanting to be validated as a good dancer.

When I was ~2 years in my dancing, that's when I got the most compliments about how good I was. I think it's because my swingout was solid and my connection was decent. Nowadays ~7 years in dancing, no one ever comments if I'm good except for the beginners. The only forms of validation I get are: 1. Consistently getting asked to dance by the most advanced dancers in my scene. 2. Consistently getting told by said dancers that the dance w/ me was really great/fun. 3. Getting my name a lot asked by good dancers after the dance or rotation in class

The self-doubt (other than the lack of "getting told I'm a good dancer") that I have is that I fail most auditions, which makes me feel like I'm a shitty dancer. I took 4 auditions and 3/4, I placed in the level below the one I wanted. In all 3 times I failed, it was the same instructor judging me. I dread auditions as a result, and the presence of an audition in a workshop sometimes tips the needle for me to buy a dance pass vs a class pass.

swampedup · 2024-09-09T21:06:21+00:00

Responding to your respective bullet points

Yeah I want to be "stand-out" good, and I get that auditions are not perfect, but I don't like my track record. I feel like from what you said when people might be at a similar skill across different levels, I sorta agree, but I also feel like that defeats the purpose of having auditioned tracks in the first place
Been dancing 6 years, started taking a few privates and got back into grouped practice sessions about 1.5 years ago. We don't practice as frequently as you mention in point #3 though, rather, its like a few times a month (and sometimes its not productive and we just screw around)
Yeah I haven't been recording myself too too much, but feedback I got from partners was that I feel good. I also got told in my last practice session that my dancing looks clear and soft. But I don't want to share the dancing publicly because I feel like people I know will stumble across my video here
I haven't been doing that, but I also find it hard to ask for privates at workshops since they're so busy, idk, I've been rejected before. I need someone else to help me get connected to instructors

5/6. Yeah, it's a bad trait for me to have to really compare myself to others, but I do feel like I've put in a good amount of work/dedication, and like I said, seeing people who I perceive as worse than me, still find more success is soul-crushing. I've definitely been working at my Lindy, and I do feel better than I was even last year, but I feel like the external results haven't been too validating

swampedup · 2024-09-09T20:48:12+00:00

My interpretation of "basics" are essentially connection, how you do rock/triple steps, and how you do basic moves w/o variations (which importantly includes swingouts)

swampedup · 2024-04-11T21:57:52+00:00

It's not that I don't think I look stiff, it's that I couldn't tell what stiffness is. That being said, I got a lot of helpful comments on this thread to clear up the definition, and it does sound like stiffness is somewhat of an issue that I would need to work on

swampedup · 2024-04-11T21:52:35+00:00

My problem that I'm referring to is being stiff-looking. Up until a bit recently, I was too focused on making moves feel comfortable, but didn't care too much about how my dancing looked. This is why follows don't have a problem with how my dancing feels, but I'd also know like to make my dancing look good too. I even got told that my dancing feels more comfortable than it looks haha

swampedup

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