I've been thinking about WCS. I've done a dozen lessons but do them so infrequently. By the next time I do a lesson I end up remembering the names of the moves but not much else.
IMHO, WCS will be a minority dance because it's very hard to learn relative to Modern Jive. It's often tried out by modern jivers looking for something new. But it's so hard to learn relative to MJ a lot of guys are put off going back.
It IS a lovely dance which is great fun to do. And you can do it to music you can't MJ to. But, against that it's hard to learn, there's hardly anywhere to do it, there's hardly anywhere to learn it, there's hardly anyone who does it, etc, etc, etc.
What I would prefer to see is dancers getting really good at MJ. IMHO, done at it's best MJ is just as good as WCS in terms of fun: done at it's worst, MJ is dreadful. What we need are better MJ schools dedicated to getting dancers up to a reasonable level of skill - or even getting dancers up to a high skill level. That way we have a smooth progression plan for dancers. It's so easy to start learning MJ it's easy to get up to a level of competence and then ....
.. nothing
Or nearly nothing. I know some Ceroc classes offer advanced classes. Having done a few I've found that means the teaching of difficult moves. IMHO advanced dancing is mostly about how you execute the moves, how you lead, how you follow and what you do to the music that's playing.
There seems to be a school of thought amongst a minority of dancers that you can/should progress to WCS or Lindy Hop once you've proved you are a good MJer. There is an, unsaid, implication, that these dances are somehow senior or superior to MJ. This is rubbish. When you've got better at MJ you can continue to improve until you're really good.
So, my advice to MinnieM is to go to her local MJ classes, do the lesson as a woman/follower and help guys learn how to lead better
That way she will get nice dances close to home and can stop all this travelling massive distances to get a decent dance. It's what I'm doing and we are getting there but it won't happen overnight. But all the time there's the mind set that the grass is always greener in terms of more distant classes or other dancing styles the progress will be even slower for MJ. There is a certain mentality that says "Me, dance locally? I'm far too good for the people who dance round here now I'm a decent dancer - I go to London/Cheshunt/Greenwich/Hipsters/Jango/Hammersmith, etc to dance with superstar dancers A, B, C, D, etc" We'll never get superstars outside the big population centres unless someone changes that mentality - and who's more mental than me?
Rant. Moi?
