SwingJive Courses
Below you should see tables showing all 10-Week SwingJive Courses coming up.
You'll find additional information about your particular level by clicking the following buttons.
SwingJive Courses starting Autumn 2024...
Absolute Beginners SwingJive Courses
For new starters! The Absolute Beginners SwingJive course assumes no previous dancing experience, knowledge or skill.
Intermediate SwingJive Courses
For those who have previously taken AT LEAST the Beginners course.
| Event | Date | |
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| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Green - Fareham |
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Booking & Info |
| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Green - Poole |
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Booking & Info |
Inters Plus SwingJive Courses
For those who, as a minimum, have previously taken both Intermediates Courses (Yellow and Green).
| Event | Date | |
|---|---|---|
| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Plus Orange - Poole |
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Bookings & Info |
| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Plus Orange - Dorchester |
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Bookings & Info |
| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Plus Orange - Fareham |
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Bookings & Info |
| 10wk SwingJive Course Inters Plus Orange - Havant |
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Bookings & Info |
Advanced SwingJive Courses (Lindy Hop)
For those who have previously taken AT LEAST all three Intermediates Plus Courses (Blue, Orange and Purple).
Get your dancing started on The Swing Dance Company's SwingJive courses! This page provides an overview of our series of courses and our teaching methods. You can follow the links within the article to find out more details.
Our company is best known for its popular series of 10-week Swing Jive Courses;
1 x Absolute Beginners
2 x Intermediate
3 x Inters Plus courses
3 x Advanced courses
Beyond these courses, you can find new challenges via workshops and mini-courses.
Our SwingJive courses draw on moves from various social partner dance styles. These including Rock’n’Roll, Jive, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, Lindy Hop and Charleston.
Progressive Pathway
These courses have been carefully crafted to allow you to follow a progressive pathway. They were designed as a route for non-dancers to start learning jive and swing without being overwhelmed. Other styles, such as lindy hop, present more technical challenges for new beginners. These courses are a perfect entry to social partner dancing for adults.
If you follow the core series of 9 x 10-week SwingJive courses from one term to the next, then you will be taken from a complete beginner to a confident and competent partner dancer over an enjoyable few years.
Structured Lessons For All Learning Styles
Our instructors follow a carefully planned teaching framework. This caters for you whether you learn by watching, doing, counting or whether it’s all about the rhythm.
In a typical class, everybody joins in the simple warm-up, then the previous week’s move is recapped and added to a routine. Tuition of the new move of the week then follows. New moves are generally taught with this format;
– teacher & assistant demonstrate the move, so you can see what’s coming!
– step-by-step instruction from the beginning, do the steps – you won’t be left standing.
– the teacher adds a rhythm, using trigger words relevant to the move. These words remind you what step is coming next, helping you coordinate the movement with rhythmical timing.
– teacher adds a count, numbers can play a big part in dancing. Many dancers find it helpful to do the move to a count.
– movement becomes fluid when music is introduced, now you feel like you are dancing!
Applied Dancing
You can celebrate each time you learn a new move, but to make it useful it needs to be linked to others you have learned. The teachers create 3 move sequences, including the new move, so you can practice linking other moves to it. The other moves in the routine are taken from earlier in your current course or from a previous course.
The essence of jive and swing dance is fun and spontaneity, so it’s important to learn to use your moves as a toolset, being able to draw on your moves in any order when dancing freestyle. During classes, the teacher will play carefully selected swing, rock’n’roll or rhythm’n’blues music for dancing so that you can try adding your new move into your existing repertoire. This will prepare you for taking your dancing out into the wild.
“Best thing i ever did was to learn to swing jive, i just love it. Thank you for all the great courses, events and swingeasy nights you arrange, keep up the good work.” Denise MacDonald, Fareham classes
“Best thing i ever did was to learn to swing jive, i just love it. Thank you for all the great courses, events and swingeasy nights you arrange, keep up the good work.” Denise MacDonald, Fareham classes
Venue-Based, Online Learning, or Both!
There are different benefits to learning online compared to a local community venue.
Venue-based classes allow you to start with a group made up of between 6 to 20 dancing couples, so everybody starts learning at the same level of experience. Our thorough, progressive and well-planned courses are led by instructors who have lots of dancing experience and who have trained to teach using our proven teacher training programme. Everybody gets on well in the classes so you’ll make new friends too. Participants learn with the partner they bring, there is no partner rotation on these courses.
Online courses can be taken from anywhere in the world where you have internet access, including the privacy of your own home. These are delivered by our lead teachers for the highest standard of tuition. All online lessons within each course are available immediately, and for 12 months after joining, for on-demand learning. This means you can enjoy them at a time of your choosing and refer back to them when it suits you.
Learn at Home, in a Community Venue, or Both
Start Your SwingJive Courses with a Free Trial Lesson
Have a go with a free introductory lesson before you commit to your Absolute Beginners Course. The free trial is just the starting point of an exciting journey.
New starters don't require any previous dancing knowledge. The Absolute Beginners course was designed so that you can easily get to grips with the basics. It includes simple course moves and minimal footwork.
At the end of the first session the instructors demonstrate all the moves that you learn on the course - you can also see videos of the course moves.
Then Join Your Absolute Beginners
For many, joining our 10-week Absolute Beginners SwingJive course is life-changing. The courses are a perfect introduction to a community that are active, sociable and love to dance to retro music from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Completing the beginner's course will give you the moves and the confidence to get up for a jive at your next party and impress your friends!
Continuation Courses To Keep You Dancing
Our series of courses are designed to carry you through a seamless learning experience. After your Absolute Beginners Course, you can progress onto the Intermediate level. Building up your repertoire will mean you can walk into the local Rock’n’Roll night or hit the lindy hop clubs with all the tools you need to have a great time.
Intermediate Courses
Our intermediate level offers similar, but slightly more challenging moves. Simple new footwork rhythms are introduced too.
By the Intermediate level, our dancers often ask, "Can we learn the moves that help make dancing to faster music easier?". Our Intermediate course achieves this; the 6-beat basic rhythm has a quick-quick-slow-slow pattern.
Everybody's favourite, the Charleston is also added towards the end of the Intermediate course. These rhythms help give leaders "thinking time", really important to help plan the next move!
Designed to be taken in either order, Green and Yellow Intermediate level courses follow Absolute Beginners. They contain different moves to each other and build on knowledge learned at the Beginner level.
Intermediates Plus Courses
Dancers can then move onto Intermediate Plus courses, named Orange, Purple and Blue, which contain fresh content at a higher level.
These courses take you further, with more Charleston and 6-beat based moves, more complex variations on Beginner and Intermediate course moves and a few flashy moves, such as seducers, dips and tricks.
Advanced Courses
Once you're ready for the next challenge your natural progression is to head up to the Advanced level, which is made up of lindy hop moves that build on the 6-beat and Charleston at Inters and Inters Plus levels, and adds swing outs and other 8-beat moves so that those who complete the Advanced level can consider themselves lindy hoppers.
Follow the Pathway from Absolute Beginner to Experienced Dancer
Enjoy your social dancing and look out for more specialized courses, mini-courses and workshops run by The Swing Dance Company to add to your repertoire.
We also offer Individual Tuition regardless of your ability.