A Guide To West Coast Swing Solo Practice by Riley Anderson

A Guide To West Coast Swing Solo Practice
The exact strategies I used to get from Novice to Advanced in 29 months

Riley Anderson dancing West Coast Swing

​Overview
Why solo practicing is important?
Who’s this guide for:
✅ West coast swing dancers that are looking for more efficient and effective ways to practice 
✅ Passionate social dancers
✅ Aspiring competitors

​If you have ambitions to be good at a particular activity whether it’s: dancing WCS, playing guitar, playing tennis, etc., consistent practice is absolutely crucial to your growth.  Not just any kind of practice…a deliberate and mindful approach that is focused, goal oriented, and progress driven.  

​Whether it’s footwork, connection, musicality, understanding how phrasing works, etc., these are skills that simply cannot be relied on solely with a partner, so it’s important that we work on these skills individually.  
Don’t get me wrong, while having a regular practice partner is a plus and can be a useful part to one’s growth, you can absolutely make plenty of progress on virtually every skill of WCS even without a partner.  It’s a myth that you need a partner to get better as a west coast swing dancer. 

True story, I took a connection bootcamp back in spring of 2024.  During that time my partners were not as available as I would have liked, and so I wasn’t able to do the partner drills of the Bootcamp so I stuck with all the solo drills which involved using Therabands, and other tools to simulate the feeling of connection.  By the end, just about every follower I danced with felt a huge difference in my connection and some were especially amazed how much my connection improved with 99% being from solo practice.  

While this is my own personal experience, every great dancer I know has experienced similar breakthroughs in their dancing from solo practice.  

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What does it mean to practice?
When we practice, we want to be in a conscious state at all times, and be aware of what it is we are trying to achieve.  For example, if working on foot rolling technique, you will want to slow down and break the movements into smaller chunks “toe, ball, arch, heel, knee, straight” while thinking to yourself “I need to think about gradually moving my foot down to avoid my foot flopping to the floor too quickly.”  

By being this aware when practicing, overtime it will start to automate into your body which will slowly start to show up in your social dancing more easily because you’ll no longer have to consciously think about it.  
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Pro Tip: if you’re having to consciously think about certain concepts in your social dancing whether that’s timing, footwork, etc. you haven’t spent enough time on that area yet, and it requires more practice. 

Practice makes progress
As artists, we tend to have this motive to be “perfect” at what we do.  However, perfection is simply unattainable, and can often leave us feeling discouraged, like failures, and ultimately never feel satisfied.   
Instead, I like to educate students on practicing mindfully, meaning: to practice deliberately with focus, intensity, and total concentration, with the goal of making progress and growth each time they practice vs trying to master the skill in that moment.  
I found this to be a much healthier perspective on improving not only as a WCS dancer, but with anything we do. 

FAQ’s
“I’m worried about practicing something wrong, Should I still do drills on my own?”
Great question and very understandable concern!  The answer is ABSOLUTELY YES and here’s why:
If you have access to a mirror, that’s amazing because you can watch what you’re doing and compare yourself to the video you’re watching, and make the necessary changes on the spot. 

Even if you don’t have a mirror, we are in this day and age where we have cell phones with cameras so we can record ourselves with ease.  Additionally, there are apps where we can have side by side videos to compare and contrast.  
Let’s say you’re working on a drill you got from a digital course.  Record yourself doing the given drill, and watch back comparing to the video you were watching and take note.  This is training you to analyze yourself more thoroughly, see more details and nuances, develop more awareness of your movements, thus becoming your own teacher.  
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I cannot stress, recording is an AMAZING and invaluable tool that EVERY dedicated WCS dancer should use.  It can be reassuring and give us moments of “oh I’m doing that a lot better than I thought” but equally (haha) can give us brutally honest feedback and make us cringe and go “oh I thought I was doing something cool but that looks so awkward.”  I recommend recording yourself at least 2-3 times a week so you can start to analyze and take note of your dancing. 
Remember, practicing is a skill just as much as learning to dance WCS.  The only way to get good at practicing, is to continually learn and train yourself to practice.  At first you will make mistakes just like learning any skill, this is totally normal.  Overtime, you will become a much better teacher for yourself!

“Where can I find solo drills to work on?”
There are several pros that have online WCS programs, memberships, and courses that include solo drills for different areas.  A quick youtube search can lead to some free drills, and of course your own local teachers can provide drills. 
Additionally, virtually anything can be l broken down into a drill providing it’s mindful, deliberate, and is designed to achieve a certain goal. 

Pre Practice
Here’s a quick step by step process to plan your practice sessions for optimal progress. 

1. Establish Your Goals
2. Assess Where You’re At In Your Journey 
3. Find Solo Drills That Address Your Given Weaknesses, And Have Goals For Each Of The Drills
4. Establish How Much Time You’re Gonna Dedicate To Practicing.  (I recommend 10-15 minutes at a time, or even 2 minutes here 2 minutes there.  Start low before you go high so you can build new habits and not overwhelm yourself and burn out too quickly) 

Note: A local teacher can help you with some of this as well

The Burst Method
-For improving any physical, technical and agility skills
Steps:

1. 2 minutes on a given drill, set a timer 
2. Start the timer and practice deliberately at a speed which allows you to be fully aware and conscious of your movements, as well as keeping the quality in check “am I rolling through my whole foot, toe ball arch heel knee straight” “am I maintaining my pitch” “am I pushing through the floor as I collect my foot” etc 
3. Timer goes off, you can move onto another drill repeating step 2. OR in a later practice session do the same drill again. 

Tip: You can also do 1 minute intervals instead of 2, and do this continuous with a few different drills over 5-15 minutes for a more “workout” type practice that promotes repetition
 
Musicality/Creativity Practice Method
-For practicing musicality and creativity skills that involve exploration, discovery, study, etc. 
Steps:

1. Spend 2-5 minutes on given musicality/creative drill allowing more time for exploration and discovery.  Example: you want to work on using your shoulders in expressive ways, and so you play a song and explore the different ways of using your shoulders to the music, not worrying about perfection or looking refined, instead embracing the awkwardness and moving out of your comfort zone. 
2. Timer goes off, take a break or move on to the next set of drills 

Note: Between both drills, the reason for shorter durations is because I want you to think of it like a sprint.  It’s easier to practice intensely for a short time before you move on to the next thing. 

Practice Routine Example
This is just an example, not an end all be all.  You can modify to what fits better for you

Goal of improving foot rolling
2 min: Foot Rolling Exercise straight timing
2 min: Foot Rolling in various directions straight timing
2 min: Foot Rolling in various directions using triple timing
2 min: Foot Rolling in variation directions using triple timing to slow music
2 min: Foot Rolling in variation directions using triple timing to fast music
*In total a 10 minute practice session

OR More broken up version

-First thing in the morning-
2 min: Foot Rolling Exercise straight timing

-While waiting for morning coffee-
2 min: Foot Rolling in various directions straight timing

-During lunch break-
2 min: Foot Rolling in various directions using triple timing

-After work-
2 min: Foot Rolling in variation directions using triple timing to slow music

-While dinner is being made-
2 min: Foot Rolling in variation directions using triple timing to fast music

Thank you for reading!  I hope you found this free guide helpful in your solo practice sessions.  
If you would like some additional help or clarification, you can reach me at [email protected]

​​ Download the guide below right here, and happy practicing dancers!
https://docs.google.com/.../1-qDmjjHyc9BCb2lu4bX.../edit