My First Swing Weekend Away from Home
When I left Extreme Swing after dancing my butt of for almost 4 straight hours last June, I was so giddy with happiness and excitement that I decided I couldn't wait until the Dance Stampede to attend another west coast swing event. I began looking up future dance events to see what might work with my schedule and budget and settled on testing out the Seattle Sea to Sky weekend that occurred earlier this month.
The format of the event was very similar to that of the Dance Stampede so it was super easy for me to figure out which workshops I wanted to attend and determine how to schedule my days. Since Bryan had come with me (and he doesn't dance) and I had never been to Seattle, I wanted to ensure some of my time was spent exploring with him while also getting my money's worth from the dance event.
My overall impression of this event was that it was pretty well organized but of a much smaller scale than Dance Stampede. It fell on par with Extreme Swing but seemingly with more instructors and perhaps more of a showcase. I was fortunate to experience workshops with some pros that I have never even heard of, my favorites being Nick and Tara by far. They both have such a great sense of humor and make their classes interactive; their teaching style was simple to follow yet very effective. I would love to take more classes with them again.
I especially appreciated that all the workshops I took focused on technique rather than patterns. As someone who was there alone, learning new patterns may not have really benefited me much in the long run, but getting instruction on how to properly know when you duck under the leader's arm or do a neck roll was awesome! Some workshops focused on styling while others tried to get us out of our heads and realize ways to use our bodies to move differently. One class by Josh and Lindsay taught us to look for ways 'out' of a specific position that we may never have noticed before; they called this finding the windows and it really was informative to play around with different slots and openings that could be used to change the look of a movement.
Overall, Sea to Sky was a great event. I enjoyed the casual atmosphere for the showcase that allowed the pros to show off their talent, and I was happy to be a part of the weekend. However, going to these sorts of events is not as much fun when you're there alone; I didn't even socially dance much, mainly, I presume, because it seemed like most people knew each other. Plus, I do find I'm not asked to dance often when people aren't sure who I am. Once they dance with me and know me, though, things improve but I wasn't there in Seattle long enough to really show the leaders that I did somewhat know what I was doing.
If I ever get a chance to go to another west coast swing event again, I would love to as long as I know people who are going to be there. Maybe one day I'll find someone or a group to go on the fabulous sounding west coast swing dance cruise!
The format of the event was very similar to that of the Dance Stampede so it was super easy for me to figure out which workshops I wanted to attend and determine how to schedule my days. Since Bryan had come with me (and he doesn't dance) and I had never been to Seattle, I wanted to ensure some of my time was spent exploring with him while also getting my money's worth from the dance event.
My overall impression of this event was that it was pretty well organized but of a much smaller scale than Dance Stampede. It fell on par with Extreme Swing but seemingly with more instructors and perhaps more of a showcase. I was fortunate to experience workshops with some pros that I have never even heard of, my favorites being Nick and Tara by far. They both have such a great sense of humor and make their classes interactive; their teaching style was simple to follow yet very effective. I would love to take more classes with them again.
I especially appreciated that all the workshops I took focused on technique rather than patterns. As someone who was there alone, learning new patterns may not have really benefited me much in the long run, but getting instruction on how to properly know when you duck under the leader's arm or do a neck roll was awesome! Some workshops focused on styling while others tried to get us out of our heads and realize ways to use our bodies to move differently. One class by Josh and Lindsay taught us to look for ways 'out' of a specific position that we may never have noticed before; they called this finding the windows and it really was informative to play around with different slots and openings that could be used to change the look of a movement.
Overall, Sea to Sky was a great event. I enjoyed the casual atmosphere for the showcase that allowed the pros to show off their talent, and I was happy to be a part of the weekend. However, going to these sorts of events is not as much fun when you're there alone; I didn't even socially dance much, mainly, I presume, because it seemed like most people knew each other. Plus, I do find I'm not asked to dance often when people aren't sure who I am. Once they dance with me and know me, though, things improve but I wasn't there in Seattle long enough to really show the leaders that I did somewhat know what I was doing.
If I ever get a chance to go to another west coast swing event again, I would love to as long as I know people who are going to be there. Maybe one day I'll find someone or a group to go on the fabulous sounding west coast swing dance cruise!
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