Moving up to improvers line dance class

When is the right time to move up to an improvers line dance class?  As with every dance style, it depends.

With Ceroc it was easy to move up fast, especially for followers. Classes are easy to follow and every move is broken down, and repeated over and over again over the various classes/years.  The hardest parts with Ceroc or modern jive are:

• Leaders remembering moves
• Being able to lead and follow
• Having the confidence to try putting different moves you’ve learnt together in a freestyle setting.

But with line dancing it’s a lot harder to work it out.  The beginner class I started at, has such a large number of new beginners coming in each 12 weeks, it means within that 12 week period they go through dances slowly to build them up, then over the weeks whizz through them faster.  

If you then stay and watch the improvers class after ours, they seem to go straight into a dance. As a beginner moving up, you probably haven’t ever learnt that dance, so you’ll not feel welcome at all at first.

With line dancing, you also need to remember the dances, the names, and if going to socials, then you need to know the dance that goes with which song’s being played. I have no issue remembering dances in class. But if a dance name is thrown at me, they blend together and I’d need a quick run through of the moves to check I knew which it was.

A new line dancing class

After a 12 week stint in beginners, I knew I was going to miss week 1 of the new set. I didn’t want to miss a week and potentially 4 new dances, so I decided to try one of the teacher’s other venues which isn’t much further to travel from home.

It turned out to be a great idea, as they do the same dances in all venues each week (at least for the beginners classes), so I get double the learning and repeating the dances. Hopefully they’ll sink in faster that way.

The new village hall venue I tried is a much smaller class of about 15 people (vs 45-50 in the other one). Everyone was so friendly. I think all but 4 people came and introduced themselves or chatted to me. One person even comes round selling eggs – village living!

Moving up to improvers

I decided to try the beginners/improver class as well as the absolute beginners.  My usual class is beginners, with the next class up being improvers. But I don’t know if there is actually a difference in the dances being taught.  The improvers class I tried only cost an extra £1, so it was a bargain £7 for 2 hours of lessons.

Having not done my normal Tuesday class first, it was a lot of dances to learn in one night. 5 dances in beginners, although one was just quick so I didn’t manage to catch the name to remember it.  And 2 in improvers. In future it’ll be easier, because I’ll be repeating beginner dances for the second time at least.  Then I just need to focus on the improvers dances.

How was my first improvers line dance class?

I mostly coped ok.  But now I understand why so many people have been in my normal beginners class for well over a year. If you’re not used to learning dances and know the steps from other dance styles, it would be so difficult to learn. 

We learnt 2 improvers dances. These are a big step up from beginners. They quite often have restarts and tags to allow for changes in the songs, so not only are you learning the steps for each wall, you’re also learning where in the music the extra bits come in.  Generally because of my music background, I can hear where the music is changing. But that doesn’t help if you can’t remember the different part of the tag moves to fit in there.

I also learnt quite a few new moves that we’d not covered in beginners classes. Having danced so much in the past, I know the move, if not the line dance version name of it. So I can work out the move I need to do. The teacher tends to assume you know the move, so whizzes through moves faster rather than breaking down as slowly as she would in beginners.

The dances are more fun though, because there’s more steps, more turning (although I’m very out of practice and I really need to get some dance shoes rather than trainers to aid my turns). The floor in the new venue is wooden and much better than in my main class I go to. But I could still do with being able to turn more easily on certain moves when the music is fast.

I’m enjoying being challenged as well

The downside in improvers

The improvers class is definitely harder than I expected. Because I’m the only new person in the class, it means I’m just having to keep up.  They’ve all been dancing for years (one girl just since January, but she’s done line dancing before, and has been doing this class for longer), and seem to remember most of the dances from doing them previously. 

Once it gets to the last 15 minutes of the class, then that’s where I miss out.  The teacher has to start packing up so puts on a few songs that people know the dances to, and they just dance straight out to them.  All well and good, but as I don’t know them I have to sit out. (In week 2 of me going to that class I wasn’t the only person sitting out, although I did have a go at following one of them, but it turned out to have a lot more turning and direction than I had noticed the week before).

I always write down the dance name and steps if I can remember them. I try and go back home and practice the dances to help them go into my brain and feet. But the improver dances aren’t so easy to remember the direction changes. 

Even watching demos of the dances I’ve not been taught on Youtube, along with the step sheets, changing directions does make it hard.  Really I want to see the demo person always being at the same angle as me when I’m dancing holding my phone, but that is obviously impossible. So I’ll keep practicing and hopefully I’ll pick it up enough to be able to dance in amongst the others in the class without crashing and making a mess of the lines!

I’m not sure I want to also do the Tuesday improvers class, but maybe I’ll ask a couple of people there, whether they do the same dances as my new Thursday class. If they do, then I should go along to help repeat the dances more.

It’s great to be back dancing more frequently. And nice to meet a whole new set of people. Including seeing a man doing the class, because my other class is all women.

How did you get on moving up to improvers in your line dancing classes? Have you got any tips?