Trying out beginners line dancing classes
Trying out new dance classes is always hard, however much you’ve danced before. I’ve had another long break from Ceroc having not returned post Covid times, and there’s not many ‘localish’ places around anymore. But there’s a local line dancing teacher who’s in our town, and the classes have been popping up on Facebook. So I’ve finally got round to making it to the first session in the block of beginners line dancing classes near me.
I’ve probably danced for nearly ¾ of my life, but I’ve not done much line dancing before. Just a couple of classes when my mum dragged me along to her classes during my holidays from uni (we’re talking 25+ years ago!). And I seem to recall doing an ice breaker line dance during a west coast swing freestyle night.
In comparison to all the other dancing I’ve tried, line dancing has got to be the easiest:
- No partner involved.
- You just need to know directions, and your left and right.
- There’s lots of repetition.
- It’s a lot of walking and if you’ve done an aerobics class you know how to grapevine.
- Stand in the middle and you can copy all the others around you when you’re facing the different walls.
- You’re unlikely to get sweaty from one class
The class I went to was all women unsurprisingly, but more diverse age range than I expected. All shapes and sizes. And all levels of fitness.

Line dancing footwear
My biggest worry beforehand was what shoes to wear. Obviously I needed smooth soles, but I’d only just thrown out my old boots as they’d died, and my replacement ones have chunky soles. Slip on loafers wouldn’t do, and dance sandals weren’t really the right thing to wear. So I dug out my older adidas gazelles that were a bit worn down. The floor was slippy, so they worked out just right for the time being.
Other people were mostly wearing trainers, a few in normal day boots, one in very fancy knee high, high-heeled cowboy style boots. A few people were wearing dance socks over their trainers – those hoops of fabric you wear around the front of your shoes to reduce the friction.
The beginner line dancing class
In the hour we learnt 4 dances. I’ve got no idea what the song names were, but luckily could remember 3 out of 4 of them by the time I got home. So I managed to write down all the steps for a memory boost. For me, writing down what I’ve learnt helps me remember especially if I want to practice.
We also learnt specific steps within those dances. Amusingly I found it easier to remember the equivalent ceroc or jive names like rockstep or mambo, than the names they used for line dancing.
I asked someone who’d been before whether the next class up you needed to know lots of dances or steps, or whether they’d talk through the steps just faster. She insinuated you needed to be really proficient before moving up, but I’d like to have a nosy, because obviously everyone is at different standards however long they’ve been learning. I can imagine if we’re going over these same dances for weeks I might get a bit bored.
But I’m not sure how it works – whether you just build up the knowledge of all these specific dances for social dances. Or whether they call the moves out similarly to a ceilidh so it doesn’t really matter as long as you can pick up the steps fast.
It was really busy so quite cramped when turning to the different walls unless you were aware enough around you of the people next to you and adjusted your step size. The benefit I have of plenty of social dancing frequently is spatial awareness. But being in lines in theory should help with that compared with modern jive where everyone is going in different directions.
The teacher was enthusiastic without being too over the top. Instructions were clear to understand. And she made it easy to ask to go over a step another time, even encouraging people to ask on behalf of other people they’ve seen who might not want to speak up.
I really enjoyed the class. It was good fun. We got a lot done in what felt like a fast hour. And the people I introduced myself to were lovely. Hopefully I’ll meet some more dancing friends. That’s one of the best things I’ve found about dancing in the past, is the community feel.
I’m looking forward to next week’s class, although I don’t know if I’ll be up for socials quite yet as I don’t know if they run them calling out the moves or not. I’ll need to make some friends to head to those with I think. It’s not like ceroc where you can rely on dancing with a partner and bodging your way through a song as a beginner. I’d be mortified at being the one person in a line who had no idea what they were doing.
Anyway, I may continue to share my journey on here. Maybe it’ll give me a boost to get round to writing all my other posts on modern jive I’ve had planned for a couple of years and not got round to writing. You never know, I may end up heading to line dancing with an old ceroc friend of mine who went back to line dancing the same night I did elsewhere. Although she’s an old pro at it, as her parents used to teach.

Finding local beginners line dancing classes
It wasn’t that easy to find line dancing classes near me. Obviously a google will do a good try – for most dance styles there’s usually a central listing of classes by area, and for line dancing there was. But finding the local one that was on in the evenings wasn’t that easy. Most don’t have websites, some don’t even have facebook pages. And some only do daytime classes.
But it’s always worth asking around on your local Facebook community page as someone might know of classes nearby.
I used this line dancing website Everything Line Dance.
Let me know if you’re a line dancer, and any tips you’ve got, or experience to share on the social side, and what happens at those.