New to Line Dancing and want to learn?
Try a Beginner's class to start with and expect to spend a few weeks getting used to the style
of dance and getting in some practice.
A Beginner's Class will include dances for those who have done no line dancing
before and want to learn both the basic steps (such as the grapevine,
the shuffle and the pivot turn) and some great dances that
everyone can do right from the first evening.
Each week, expect to
- learn one dance new to everyone (newcomers and older-hands alike),
- review dances taught in the last few weeks so you'll be able to learn them if you missed a
week
- and there will also be a reminder for older and more familiar dances
that have been taught and reviewed before.
When you start line dancing....
- Don't expect to be able to do ALL the dances on your first evening!
Do one or two (ask the instructor which ones are best tackling if you are new).
Sit out and watch. You can learn a lot from watching others.
- Wear the right shoes, ones that have some "slip" on a wooden floor.
You can't dance in trainers unless the dance floor is very slippery!!
Wear shoes with a smooth sole or a leather sole.
- Remember to drink something during the evening as all forms of exercise,
including dancing, will make you warm. If the venue does not have a bar,
take something to drink. Non-alcoholic drinks are better for quenching
your thirst and even just plain water tastes great when you are warm.
- Come back a second week and it'll seem more familiar. It usually takes a
few weeks just to get used to line dancing
and to get those brain cells into gear too - especially the ones that tell your
feet what to do! But by then you'll know the names of some steps.
Learning the names of dances takes a few more weeks!!
Absolute Beginners progress to Beginners pretty quickly.
If you start attending a Beginner's class, don't expect to learn
everydance in your first
few evenings!
Many people are happy to attend just the Beginner's Hour because the dances are easy to learn,
not difficult, so you can soon enjoy dancing them to the music.
Beginners-Intermediates, sometimes called Improvers or a Step Further
is a continuation of the Beginners hour and includes some more dances
progressing to the next level up from Beginner. This part of the evening is especially f
or those at beginner/intermediate
and intermediate level dancers - which is the level the vast majority of
line dancers are at. Dances beyond Intermediate level (Intermediate/Advanced or Advanced)
are quite rare.
Is there a class where I live?
Links to Line Dance News, Events, Mechandise
- A truly great site is Bill Bader's
with links to many line dancing web pages in many countries as well as
line dancing news and collections of dances and music.
- The Yahoo group "Line Dance UK" is a useful newsgroup and bulletin board for asking questions, finding out about hot new dances and events in
the UK, etc. especially if you are a line dance teacher:
Subscribe to LDUK
- The
Linedancer Magazine is a monthly
magazine of new dances, news, events, reports on competitions and charity events
with lots of useful information on line dance CDs, clothing, etc. Well worth sibscribign
too (it's delivered to your door) if you've caught the line dancing bug!
Step Sheet Links for Dance Scripts
A Beats-Per-Minute Timer
I've written a little
Beats Per Minute timer that you might find useful too
if you want to find the speed of a piece of music. I use it find the BPM to tracks on a CD which makes it so much easier to choose alternative tracks to a dance or find a slower track for teaching.
It is a web page that will work on any browser (make sure JavaScript or Scripting is enabled in your preferences). If you save the page it will work offline too.
More details?
I left Guildford in 2002 and now live near Bolton. I don't have a regular class that I teach (but watch this space!)
but do run lots of fun evenings for
parties, schools, church and charity events, etc especially for
those who haven't line danced before.
Including line dancing in such an event has the advantage that you don't need
an equal number of men and women as in other types of dance and it's
so simple
to learn that I'll have you on the floor and dancing your first dance within 5 minutes!
Please email (details below) for rates and availability in the Bolton/Chorley/Manchester area.