Tips for Practicing Outside of Class

Practice for All Levels

1. Listen to swing music! You can also practice finding the beat, counting in sets of 8, finding the “one”, and clapping on the 2’s and 4’s. Need help finding the beat? Take our Beginner Series: Let The Music Groove You topic. Higher level dancers can start to listen for structure, patterns, rhythms, and form opinions about how different parts of the song make you feel!

2. Practice your footwork! Whether it’s rock steps and triple steps, charleston kicks, or even footwork variations, practice them to all tempos, ranging from very slow to very fast! For beginners learning their 6 and 8 count basic footwork, try following along to this video!

3. Social dance! Obviously you should stay for the dance after class is done, but you can also find even more opportunities to dance in the bay area! Check out this volunteer-run calendar. Tip: Beginners improve a lot just by social dancing. More intermediate dancers might have to social dance with a goal or intent of something to practice if you want to see improvements!

Practice for Intermediate+ Dancers

1. Record yourself dancing! We get it, it’s hard to watch yourself dance, but it’s one of the best ways to improve your dancing. Identify parts of your dancing you want to change and experiment with them. You can even compare your videos to videos of other dancers online to pinpoint actionable steps. Plus, the earlier you start recording yourself, the sooner you can start looking back at those old videos and see how far you’ve come! Tip: Ask your classmates right after class to record what you just learned… then compare side by side with your recap video of the instructors!

2. Work on drills! So many parts of Lindy Hop can be practiced as individual pieces. Practicing your footwork, your rhythm, your turns, your musicality, etc. on an individual basis will help you actually improve on them, as opposed to how we oftentimes fall back to habit when we’re out social dancing. We’ll have some example drills linked down below, but any drill that you’ve learned in a class is also worth practicing outside of class!

3. Come to Practice Session! At the end of every month, we host Int/Adv Practice Session from 7-8pm. Great if you’ve been dancing for over a year and aren’t taking an Intermediate class series that month. It’s a space for self-driven practice, where you can work on drills, collaborate with other dancers, even ask someone to help record with you!

Example Drills

Rhythm

Turns

Triple Steps

Fast Dancing