Brooklyn Swings

I have taken many one-​time ballroom classes here and there, but had not been to a regular class since the brief swing revival of the late 90s. With the resurgence of hot jazz over the last few years, the hubs and I began to feel our skills wanting on the dance floor. A recent trip to New Orleans cemented our resolve to do the thing properly, so off we went to Brooklyn Swings to learn the 30’s Charleston.
We left the last class feeling proud of our accomplishments. We had about 5 good moves and we even managed transition between them a few times. The most valuable thing I learned in four weeks was how to take direction as a follow. Learning to wait for signals that may or may not come was initially very frustrating for me, but by the end of the class, I felt like most of my leads were communicating with me.
The class structure is pretty casual and much more conducive to social dancing. There are no mirrors at the Gowanus location. After a brief warm up, our instructors taught us new a new step, and then had us pair up to try it out. There were a few more leads than follows in the class, so we rotated every few minutes to allow everyone a relatively equal amount of partnered dancing. I actually found it helpful to dance with all of the leads in the class because I had the opportunity to see what kind of direction was working for me. I think it made Mr. H a better dancer because I wasn’t there to boss him around the whole time. After the class, there is some open dance time if you want to work on your skills. We were able to get some very helpful pointers from our wonderful instructors after class. Each series is four weeks long, which is just enough of a commitment for me. We’re definitely going back.