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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