beginner

Below are a list of beginner level skills/moves that HSDS instructors suggest all swing dancers explore. We recommend that prior to exploring any of the skills listed that you take a moment to do a self assessment. We have designed a spreadsheet to help you figure out where you are in your dancing and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Naturally, you'll find holes in your dancing especially if your coming from a different dance scene or if you've taken lessons on a less than regular schedule. If you have a specific question about some of the content (i.e.

Here are a few tips from the Knoxville Swing Dance Association Website. Obviously the dances aren't at the same time, but the rest of the tips apply.

• You do not need a partner
• No special shoes are required, but somewhat slick shoes help
• Flats are preferred over heels
• Dress comfortably
• Most important of all HAVE FUN

One of the hardest things in dance is to figure out how good you are. It's very easy to over-estimate or under-estimate your ability. It's also easy to be good in one area or multiple areas which hides your weakness in another. Alternately, a dancer may focus on their weakness without realizing their strengths in other areas. Finally, it is hard to recognize how your ability to dance is spread across various styles, various targets of your dance and various skills associated with dancing.

The pages below are targetted at helping completely new and beginner level dancers think about their swing. The content will increase slowly over time.

I also recommend you check out Going Out Dancing by Richard Powers of the Stanford Dance Division.

Recently we've been adding more actual content to the website. To this point, you've had to search for what you wanted to find. While that isn't bad, I'd like to make it a bit more structured. By following the links below, you should be able see what content is available without really having to search for it. It will start out with very little content, however, over time that will increase.