Course Level: Experienced

Welcome to our course all about rhythm!

Rhythm is so  crucial to lindy hop. When you understand and express your rhythm better, your movements will look and feel better, and your dancing can better reflect the feel and values of this Black American art form. In this course we'll share ideas and exercises that we love, which have helped many students make their dancing more rhythmical, more "in the pocket" of the music. Our goal is to help you develop your ability to hear and react more in each moment of your dancing; we'll explore a variety of approaches to improve your awareness and build references in your own body, and we'll give you a few variations and decorations to give your training some fun and variety, and all so that you'll be better able to express yourself in a way that matches the rhythm section.

This course is meant for lindy hoppers who are already comfortable with the basic ideas and repertoire of the dance, and we'll work on both your solo and your partnered dancing. The first class is an introduction and listening session, and for the rest of the course we'll hit the dance floor to put those ideas into practice.

IN PROGRESS: we're in the process of recording and editing this course; we're aiming for about 8-10 lessons in total and it may take some time before they're all published. Thanks for your patience!
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Welcome to our Lindy Library!

On this page we’ve collected as many moves from our Swing 1-6 courses as we could (and added some bonus videos, too). Just like in a dictionary where you look up a meaning of a word, in this library you can have a quick look for a move, including the counts and what steps it consists of.

Videos are grouped by their content. In the description below the video player, you can see in which course and class this move appears, so if you’re looking for more details you know where to go 🙂

An important note about lindy hop culture

This dance is not a fixed list of moves. You don’t need to collect lots of moves to be a great dancer, and you don’t need to see the library as a fixed list that can’t be changed. Quite the opposite!

Great lindy hop can be done with only a few moves, and every dancer can create their own at any time.

So: we encourage you to use this library in a way that honors the origins and culture of lindy hop. Use it as a reference, to revisit moves you like or moves you want to practice; with no pressure that you must “complete” your list.

And, once you’ve looked at and practiced a move, it’s important that you don’t stop after learning the move. Try to explore what else you can do with it. How can you change it to make it your own? Learning a move from a video should just be the first step. The real work should start after that: make it your own, explore it further, create something new with it. We hope you take this philosophy to heart and experiment and explore with each move in the library.

By the way: we would LOVE to see what you create. Come and join us in the train together sessions to practice the moves, get creative with them and if you like, share what you’ve created with others at the end of the session.

Most importantly, have fun!

P.S. one more little note: you might know many of these moves by different names. In lindy hop, some moves have a very common classic name that nearly every lindy hopper agrees on, some moves have a few names, some moves are really common but have no name, and some moves are just things we made up. You’re welcome ;P
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The Shim Sham is a classic! Find out how different it can be when some of Lindy Hop’s inventors add their own style to it. Al Minns and Leon James were two of the most famous lindy hoppers of their time, and in this course you’ll learn their interpretation of the Shim Sham. Their steps and combinations are a bit more challenging than the classic shim sham version that we modern lindy hoppers got from Frankie Manning, so the routine gives you a lot to dig into.

Aside from just being a fun routine, the combos are really great for putting into your dancing, whether you’re choreographing or improvising, and it gives you a window into how Al and Leon injected their own style and flair into the dance.

Join us and put a whole new spin on your Shim Sham!

What will I learn in this course?

Of course you’ll learn the routine itself, we’ll guide you step-by-step through all the moves and sequences you need to be able to dance Al & Leon’s Shim Sham with confidence. But you’ll get much more than just a routine out of this course! You’ll also train important concepts that will improve your dancing overall:

Basic rhythm, groove and posture

Swinging rhythm; Ball-changes, Half-breaks

Classic but challenging moves: Full-breaks, Eagle slides, etc

Combining kick movements with other jazz elements

What should I know before I join this course?

This course is mixed-level solo dancing, from beginner-intermediate all the way up – anyone can benefit from this course, even advanced dancers. We will build up each movement “from scratch” with no assumptions about which moves you know, but we’ll dig deep so there will be a challenge for any level.

If you haven’t done any solo jazz before, you might feel more comfortable starting off with our Solo Jazz for Beginners course. On the other hand, if you are eager to work hard or a fast learner, you can even give it a go without any prior experience.
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The Trickeration is an amazing jazz routine.  It has such strong and inspiring rhythms, such a great flow and groove, when you dance it you feel like you’re really swinging.  It also has some real challenging moments, it can be hard to get “just right”, so it’s a great routine to use for training.

The Trickeration is also rooted in the history of the dance; an old Harlem chorus line routine, shared with modern lindy hoppers by the late great Norma Miller and passed on by those who learned from her, carrying it forward lets us be a part of the lineage of swing dance and its culture.

Come join the other worldwide fans of the Trickeration – make your dancing more cool, more rhythmical, more swinging, more tricky!

What will I learn in this course?

Of course you’ll learn the routine itself, we’ll guide you step-by-step through all the moves and sequences you need to be able to dance the Trickeration with confidence. But you’ll get much more than just a routine out of this course! You’ll also train important concepts that will improve your dancing overall:

Basic rhythm, groove and posture

Swinging rhythm; Ball-changes, Half-breaks

Changing the groove to fit your movement

“Air-time”; precise combos

What should I know before I join this course?

This course is mixed-level solo dancing, from beginner-intermediate all the way up – anyone can benefit from this course, even advanced dancers.  We will build up each movement “from scratch” with no assumptions about which moves you know, but the learning pace will be fairly quick and the techniques and sequences are not easy.

If you haven’t done much solo jazz before, you might feel more comfortable with our Al & Leon Shim Sham course first, or even Solo Jazz Basics (which also has a lot of not-so-basic challenges in it).  On the other hand, if you are eager to work hard or a fast learner, you can even give it a go without any prior experience.
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Want to improve your dancing? Wonder how great dancers hold their balance and why their footwork always looks so easy? We have the answer: learn and train solo!Dance your triple steps cleanly, whether fast or slow, traveling or turning; keep your own flow and rhythm reliably no matter which partner you dance with. Join Solo Skills & Drills: put in the solo work you need to make partner dancing easy!

What will I learn in this course?

Example themes include:

body isolations & body awareness/posturespins & turnsquality triple steps & other footwork variations

What should I know before joining?

This course is mixed-level, from intermediate and up. Anyone can benefit from this course, even advanced dancers. In order to progress well we expect you to have at least 6 months experience in Lindy Hop and Charleston and to know the Swing Out (for example you have taken our Swing 4 course). To have solo dance experience might be useful but is not needed.

If you are not sure whether the course is right for you, don’t hesitate to ask us 🙂
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Want to improve your dancing? Wonder how great dancers hold their balance and why their footwork always looks so easy? We have the answer: learn and train solo!Dance your triple steps cleanly, whether fast or slow, traveling or turning; keep your own flow and rhythm reliably no matter which partner you dance with. Join Solo Skills & Drills: put in the solo work you need to make partner dancing easy!

What will I learn in this course?

Example themes include:

body isolations & body awareness/posturespins & turnsquality triple steps & other footwork variations

What should I know before joining?

This course is mixed-level, from intermediate and up. Anyone can benefit from this course, even advanced dancers. In order to progress well we expect you to have at least 6 months experience in Lindy Hop and Charleston and to know the Swing Out (for example you have taken our Swing 4 course). To have solo dance experience might be useful but is not needed.

If you are not sure whether the course is right for you, don’t hesitate to ask us 🙂
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In this course, you’ll learn some of our favourite social dancing lindy hop moves. It’s intended to be a good challenge for both leaders and followers as the movements are pushing our limits in rhythm, balance and connection.

What will I learn in this course?

You’ll learn difficult lindy hop moves, moves with accelerations and turns, and moves that play with various connection techniques.

What should I know before I join this course?

The course is intended for dancers who have at least 1-2 years of experience (for example if you regularly do SwingStep courses you’re in Bachelor, Master, or Graduate.) You should be a comfortable social dancer before you attempt this course.

Whether you’ll take this course alone or with a partner, we created a video to explain how you can get the best out of your online learning experience with us. You’ll find it in the Lesson Content section, under the main video of the first class.

If you are not sure whether the course is right for you, don’t hesitate to ask us 🙂
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