I. Toxic dance culture, competitions, and connecting
Feel free to skip this section if you just want the useful content without the ramblings
Being a westie, I'm going to start from our perspective first.
I think that people who dance wcs tend to have a weird resentment toward dancers who come in from other dances and seem to progress really quickly. Part of this is due to a cultural issue in how we teach and share wcs--the 'you need to stick with it for 6 months,' there's a high barrier for entry, don't expect to have fun right away mindset. Apart from hampering the growth of our dance, it brings a potential bitterness when westies see someone skipping the initial struggle step that they've been brought up to believe is mandatory.
This reveals itself in local communities, classes/lessons, etc. as well. Someone coming from fairly serious lindy doesn't have to go to a beginner lesson and learn to count in 6 or 8 or triple step. Sure, it's a different dance but it's not so different that this is necessary... if you've been doing lindy for a few years this can feel insulting and honestly, I think some westies might want it that way. It's a 'you're doing the weird old version of the dance, you need to pay your dues and go do sugar pushes with these other people who have never danced before.'
On the flip side, when encountering this attitude I think that lindy hoppers (and others who do or are coming from more classic swing dances) can feel a little threatened. This results in the 'we do a real swing dance' or 'west coast is all selfish styling, we actually connect' type mindset.
As a somewhat relevant side note, I do think that west coast is in an interesting position due to the extreme cultural emphasis on competitions. For example, it's popular to be 'contrary' and say "good competitors don't make good teachers or social dancers." While this is true to an extent, the very best, say, 10 leads and follows in the world ARE the ones with the best understanding of the dance. And they're connecting in ways that no one else can, they aren't there just because of the charades.
There's not a 1:1 ratio between competitive skills and the actual ability to do the dance well with another person, but there's a trend in the same direction. The people who everyone wants to social dance with at conventions are almost always at least going to be eligible to compete in advanced. Yes, there are high allstar/low champ dancers who are awful at things like shifting their weight, communicating intention to their partners, and so forth because they are simply very very good at posing; but that doesn't prove the general rule.
I do believe that it's easier to 'mime' west coast than it is lindy. You just can't dance that quickly without certain physical things happening in the partnership. Watching a lindy social recently I said that the middle-tier dancers on the floor had a better understanding of slotting physical energy and counterweighting than most westies--I could be wrong but I really do think that the speed might make it more necessary. While if you're dancing sub-90bpm you can make lots of pretty shapes without really finding connection.
Anyhow, westies need to respect lindy hoppers more and recognize that (and it makes sense, historically, like duh) good lindy people have massive potential to dance wcs very very well even just on a semi-casual level. They should be welcomed! Jesus christ people, you'd think we didn't want our dance to grow at all, sometimes. And lindy hoppers can try maybe a little harder to look beyond the negative popular perceptions--even if they are easily propagated by the bad attitude of some westies. WCS is something that you can transfer almost all the skills you've worked so hard on and enjoy a ton of different music tempos and genres.
II. Translations.
There isn't that much to adjust in terms of habits if you're doing west coast as a lindy hopper.
1. Getting used to two beat redirects--hanging out in tension rather than rock stepping
This might just be the biggest one! Being able to have tension on the connection and hold it, keeping it the same and maybe increasing it before redirecting/being redirected. Literally, if a Lindy follow can just wait until they're led forward, following wcs on a social level is going to be pretty darn easy.
2. Not compressing into the redirects
This is pretty much part of #1. When doing WCS, you'll seek out tension rather than expecting compression. For a follow, even a stop in the hand moving down slot doesn't mean 'rebound into compression'--it might just mean to pause, then continue backing up! For leaders, you don't need to push westie follows into their anchor. They'll get there! Be patient juuuuust a second longer.
3. Not compressing into other places.
Wcs is about 80:20 tension: compression. I've heard that good Lindy is 60:40 or even 50:50. Yes, there's a reason these top 3 adaptations are more or less the same idea. There's no compression into a stationary spin for west coast.
4. keeping the slot dynamics in mind
Pretty much everything we do is down line. Sticking with the free spin example, if you free spin a westie follow it'll be progressively down line, never in place. And they'll expect this. If you're following west coast, you'll feel that those spins have a direction, down slot, and you'll travel as you rotate. Rejoining hands is going to happen in a different place, geographically, than where you let go.
Even tucks are, on a basic level, more of an ellipse where the follower walks a small circle after turning away to the other end of the slot. The common styling variant of pivoting into the compression rather than stepping forward is also still more of a travelling rotation than a spin around an axis.
5. Take your time getting places
Wcs as it's done today doesn't involve a ton of leverage (i.e. we're relying on each other for balance, it's weight support within tension) in the basic patterns. If you rush to the end and keeping pushing into more tension, you might pull your leader over (if you're following) or, your own movement might feel like a lead even if you don't intend it to be (if you're leading). There are different philosophies of connection for wcs but the general idea is that there'll be a gradual build in tension as you move further away.
As I told several potential crossover dancers:
The patterns all function similarly enough that you won't have to throw a bunch of stuff out or rethink it. It's just stretched out lengthwise and you hang out in varying degrees of tension a ton more. As much as I love all the little details; that big picture is, in my opinion, fairly easy to grasp!
Be willing to come give it a shot. After all... we have cookies ;)
III. Respect the ancestors!
Some of the natural lindy habits might be considered rude for wcs socials. It's important both for the westies, and lindy hoppers giving wcs a shot to know this.
This is a quick final point that, hopefully, will bring some understanding. A follower self-leading forward rather than waiting to be led is annoying, as is a leader who uses compression to try and send their follow everywhere. Also, using excessive weight and energy in the connection can be perceived as yanky to westie followers; and a lot of weight in stretch on an anchor can feel excessively heavy and even physically limiting to westie leaders.
Given the slight habit alterations that lindy hoppers will need to make; it's important to realize that these can be almost an 'ew' feeling to westies in a social, particularly less experienced ones. For wcs dancers, recognizing that these are a normal part of lindy hop can help when it comes to giving grace. If you've ever done other dances, you know how hard it is to change your habits!
Westies, we can welcome lindy hoppers to the social floor and look forward to having some exceptionally skilled and fun people to dance with.
Lindy hoppers, if you enthusiastically mention that you're giving west coast a shot and do a lot of lindy, you can break the weird cultural ice quite easily.
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