Heh. There is East Coast Swing (I suddenly feel like I'm about to stir up an East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry too). I also do East Coast swing. It's probably more what you think of when you think of swing dancing. Boogie woogie bugle boy and all that. I think of East Coast stuff as being cute. Bouncy. Fun. But not sexy.

t runs away from msbelle

This is maybe a dumb question, but is there East Coast Swing?

Apparently yes! But I've read the descriptions of both on Wikipedia and still don't get the difference.

no need to run away. I don't think of east coast as sexy, just swingy. It is fun to dance. I've never done west coast, but the slides and pausing in it (of what I've seen) bother me. This is kinda sexy WC swing and I still don't like it to watch: [link]

Oh they're very different!! When you're not dancing in competition, just in a big group of people (which is how I do it--obvi, competition is going to be different from everything):

East Coast swing, the basic is step, step (side to side), backstep (or triple-step, triple-step, backstep, depending on the speed of the music and who's teaching you). It's bouncy and fun. You and your partner face each other, and don't tend to move out of your spot much, but may kinda go in circles. So you start with that side side backstep and then start throwing in turns and kicks and so on and so forth.

In West Coast, in theory, you and your partner are in a "slot", so you have a space on the dancefloor where the two of you may move back and forth in a line. It's more similar to a LindyHop, and I'm sure it is known as west coast swing because it somehow evolved from East Coast blah blah etc etc. There are a few different basic moves, but the first one they usually teach you is called a sugarpush, and the follow walks towards the lead (you're facing each other) (one-two) they are together for a sec (three-and), and then the lead pushes the follow away (four) and then there's a step (five-and-six). There's more hip action. Which I like. :)

I've never done west coast, but the slides and pausing in it (of what I've seen) bother me

Hah! And that's what I love. You can have a lot of fun with the music if there's pauses or sudden stops in the music and BAM! It's something people do a lot in LindyHop too.

It makes a little more sense to me now. Maybe what was bothering me about the WCS last night was that it felt too jerky, because I don't see any jerkiness in the pauses in those videos. So it was slow, and it didn't feel like the flow of the dance was maintained during the pauses. I also came away feeling like WCS was related to line dancing, or the country dancing I see people do in "cowboy bars" here, but I think that was the fault of the costumers.

Heh. Well, that's where I do my WCS, Sassy, but...

Now I really want everyone to come out to Seattle and watch the gay ballet dancer and his partner dance them some WCS. Forget me and the GILF, you can't take your EYES off them two when they get going on the dance floor.

I definitely was not hanging out in the right places in Seattle! I don't see the sultriness (that looks like sluttiness so maybe I am spelling wrong- but I guess that too!) in the "Country dancing" that I see in those examples of WCS, but the moves are similar. Either that or these crazy Montana kids don't know how to dance sexy!

Heh. Maybe it's cause I"m hanging out with the gay country dancers. Who dance at the leather bar. :)

But I feel like if someone besides BENJI taught a sexy WCS to someone on the show (like, say, Mark. Or Joshua.) they could tear that up in smokin' style, and not in cheesy "look, we're doing cartwheels and pasting big grins on our faces!" ways.

To, y'know, bring this thread back around to the topic of SYTYCD. :)

Butting in to sit in the sexy WCS corner with meara -- I lovelovelove East Coast very deeply, especially to watch, but IM(very limited)E it's not quite as loose and playful as WCS to dance.

I did a WCS class once years ago where they had us all form a huge double circle, leaders on the outside, followers on the inside, and had the leaders move one partner over every 4 bars or so. And sparks were flying all the hell over the place. The best dancer there actually turned out to be a little bitty Wallace Shawn-esque pudgy middle-aged balding man, who was just ludicrously at home in his funny little body and had a gorgeous sense of hip-sway and play and slow lazy fun. By the time he'd rotated all the way around the room, he could have taken every single straight woman there, and half the queer women and most of the men, home with him if he'd wanted.

Less fun to watch than ECS, but crazy fun to dance. I'd happily commit a felony to get Hec to take a class with me.