The curriculum
Three kingdoms, nine pillars, five levels. Every move you'll ever study, placed exactly where it belongs in the language of West Coast Swing.
Tap a pillar to jump to it
The map
Every drill, glossary term and pathway lives somewhere on the wheel. When something feels stuck on the floor, the wheel tells you where to look.
Individual Body Mechanics: what your body has to know how to do, with or without a partner. The grammar of every step and every measure.
Partnership Communication Responsibilities: the dialogue between two dancers. How you listen, how you reply, and how you keep the conversation alive.
Elements of Swing: the shapes the floor remembers. How the dance assembles itself from raw motion into patterns into phrases.
Anatomy of a pattern
Traveling direction is the noun. The objective is the verb. The anchor is the punctuation. Once you can read it, you can build any pattern you want.
Set the direction. Let's go.
Do something. Here's the point.
Stay in place. A period, a comma, a question, or an exclamation.
The four anchors
Every pattern ends with an anchor, and the kind of anchor is the punctuation that tells your partner what's coming next.
Stop to stay. A full period: the sentence is over.
Placement · 5 + 6Stop to go. A comma: there's more coming.
Placement · 5 + 2Stopping eventually. A question mark: drift, unresolved.
Placement · 5 + 6Go to stop. An exclamation point: abrupt and decisive.
Placement · 3 + 4 +Glossary preview · 282 terms
Every term is tagged with its kingdom and pillar, searchable in the app, and linked to the drills and pathways that use it.
Triple step taken in place on counts 5 and 6. The conversational period at the end of every pattern.
Any point of physical contact between lead and follow that conveys information through tension.
The controlled dissipation of momentum into the anchor. Catches the moving partner gently.
The structure of your upper body (arms, shoulders, ribcage) that holds connection without rigidity.
Connection that uses opposing pull. Distinct from compression, which pushes; the two feel different to the lead.
A momentum pass where the lead's energy stays neutral on 1 and 2: calm before the active objective.
An optional connection point on count 4 inside a sugar push or sugar tuck. Defines the variation.
The invisible line of travel for the follow. The whole dance arranges itself around this corridor.
An 8-count pattern with two travel and anchor cycles. The biggest, most theatrical pattern in the vocabulary.
Five levels · the language learning model
Every student's progress maps onto the same arc you used to learn your first language, so you always know which stage you're in.
Footwork without rhythm. Frame without intent. You're trying everything for the first time.
Named moves start to land. You can recognize and execute single patterns reliably.
Patterns connect. You start improvising small phrases instead of memorizing routines.
Whole songs feel like conversation. Anchors land on purpose. Musicality opens up.
You're not thinking in counts anymore. You're improvising stories with your body.