First line dance weekend experience

I’ve been on a lot of dance weekenders in my time through Ceroc and modern jive. But this time was my first line dance weekend. It was a last minute booking as I already had the Friday off work. But I do tend to get FOMO with people talking about these events, so I was lucky there was a space available.

It was a small line dance weekend, rather than one of the centralised run events. This one was run by my main line dance teacher, and her niece and partner who run their lessons in the north of England. They do one northern weekend and one southern between them. Perfect size for a first time attendee.

In the old Ceroc weekender days the accommodation was always Pontins before they closed, and I’ve also been to one in Blackpool where it was find your own accommodation, and another at Butlins. Nowadays they’re based in large hotels. The line dance weekend was in the Royal Hotel, Scarborough with breakfast and dinner included. 

Hotel and accommodation

The hotel was ok – I was lucky that my room was clean, but lots weren’t and the corridors were filthy. Others said that the previous year the hotel had been fine, so it was disappointing things had changed. Despite the downside of parking being offsite which I would usually avoid, the location was central and overlooking South Bay beach and the harbour.

The dinner buffets were good and worked well, and the breakfast was handy to have a good choice. It was nice to not have to worry about how or where to get food like we’ve had to at other weekenders previously. And it was a chance to get to know people better outside of just dancing. We had free afternoons between the morning workshops and evening socials, so could go out and get lunch, or explore the local area.

 But we were there to dance.  And there was a ballroom calling our names.

The schedule

The set up for the dancing was very different to what I was previously used to at weekenders which were hour long classes in multiple rooms from early morning to dinner time, then social dancing all night. This weekend worked much better for me now I’m older, less fit, and have an occasional aching knee and tendonitis in my ankle.

• Friday evening – social dancing until midnight.  
• Saturday morning – 3 hours of teaching and social dancing inbetween
• Saturday evening after dinner – social dancing til midnight
• Sunday morning – 3 hours of teaching/social dancing.

The Saturday evening theme was animal print, so a nice easy theme to dress up in. Even I, who hate fancy dress, could cope with this theme.

Dances taught

In the workshop sessions, they covered 6 dances, both new and older dances.

• ‘Til You Can’t – Gary O’Reilly
• Breaking Bottles – Michelle Risley & Rob Holley
• Joe’s Cotton Eyes – Maggie Gallagher & Colin Ghys
• Raised like that – Darren Bailey
• Galway Girls – Chris Hodgson
• Something in the Water – Niels Poulsen

After going to a couple of the Oxford line dance workshops and being surprised at how it was more a social with 3-4 teaches thrown in, rather than purely workshop time, I’m used to how line dance workshops now work. It’s so different to Ceroc or West Coast Swing. If book a workshop there, it’s all teaching, no social dancing. 

I wasn’t a fan of Joe’s Cotton Eyes, and Galway Girls wasn’t one I’m likely to get up and dance by choice. But I really liked the others, and hopefully we’ll keep going over those after the weekend’s passed.

There were also a few teaches thrown in during the social to encourage more people up to dance. Although it doesn’t seem like a lot of teaching for a whole weekend, I think it was enough. It’s hard enough just remembering a couple of new dances from week to week.

Dance requests

We could put in our dance requests before the weekend to give them time to prep playlists.  I always find requests hard because I don’t want to be the only person up dancing if no-one else knows the dance I request. So I mainly stuck with those I’d learnt with this teacher, and hoped others I knew and liked would be requested by the people who dance up north.  

Most of my requests were played the first night, and there were quite a few repeats over the weekend. Given I’ve only been line dancing for just over a year, doing this weekender with my teacher was good because I knew a lot of the dances. There were a few that were random dances only known by a couple of people who were both teachers elsewhere. There were also others from my other class I’m trying to get round to learning.

I now have a large list of a lot more new dances to go over again, or learn. The list is growing much faster than I can keep up with unfortunately.

Social dancing

There was plenty of social dancing over the weekend. Thankfully the ballroom had air conditioning so while I was warm I wasn’t overheating like at some venues.

I got in lots of dancing, but still struggled with some dances I love that I just can’t quite get on the social dance floor – missing the restarts. I was set for the second restart in I Just Might. Then everyone else missed it, then stopped, so I wasn’t sure if I was right or not. So it was yet again a social dance fail. One day we will get it right.

As for my request for Diamonds in the Rough, which I love. We so rarely dance it even in socials (mainly because I think the teacher knows so few people remember it).  I knew one person would from our class, but once we got on the dancefloor and were the only 2 up, she forgot it. I didn’t want to dance through 3 minutes of song by myself. We need to get practising our dances we’ve been taught, otherwise people never remember them.

There were a few dances I’d learnt in my other line dance class that I’d not danced socially yet, but they went quite well. So that was a boost. There was another I also got up to try. But I’ve not practiced it for a long time, so couldn’t remember enough of it to push through. 

This is the struggle I find with line dancing. I don’t know how people who’ve been dancing for 10+ years remember all the dances they do. I’m reasonable at picking up dances in class and remembering them from week to week. But a few months down the line, that’s it gone unless we continue to dance them regularly. 

By the end of the weekend my legs were definitely aching. I need to get back to wearing my dance sandals (or invest in some boots), then I’ll have more variety of shoes to wear. Different heel heights helps with different muscles in my legs, much as I love wearing my Fuego dance trainers.

Overall, it was a great dance weekend. It was a good introduction to what I think is likely to be a busier one in the autumn that I’m booked on.

If you’ve never done a line dance weekend, then do try one. Start with your own teacher if they run one. Otherwise look up the large ones run by Everything Line Dance. But they do book up fast especially if you don’t want to share a room with someone.

What’s been your experience of a line dance weekend so far? Any tips or recommendations?