Swing Dance Lessons

I’ve wanted to get dance lessons for quite some time now, but committing to the time and money has always meant I’ve put it off. Thank goodness then for Groupon, whose amazing offer popped into my inbox at the perfect time (payday). 10 Swing Dance lessons for £26? Yes please!

Along with my colleague Rachael, I headed to my first lesson in Soho last night. Rachael had done some swing dance previously, whereas I am an absolute beginner! Unless hitting the dancefloor after one too many wines on a Saturday night counts as experience? We arrived pretty early, and quickly reverted to schoolgirl behaviour as we waited for the class to start – giggling at the side of the room, panicking that we hadn’t worn the right shoes (Trainers? Heels? Ballet pumps?) and generally staring at everyone else to see if they looked like they could dance.

I was surprised at the amount of people that turned up (must be the power of Groupon) and the number of boys! Ok, so the ladies still outnumbered them, but not by much. Our friendly instructors introduced themselves, and then split us into men and women to do the warm up. This consisted of a few ‘simple’ swing steps, set to a slow jazzy beat.

Once we were sufficiently warmed up, we then had to pair up. Eek. As friendly as everyone was, I couldn’t exactly spot my future husband on the other side of the room. Luckily, there weren’t quite enough men to match up with the women, so I nominated myself to be a ‘lead’ for the evening, meaning I wouldn’t have any embarrassing sweaty hand moments with the assortment of average Joes currently limbering up.

We then formed a circle around the room with the ‘men’ rotating each time. I started off with Rachael but was quickly whisked off to dance with 25 strangers as the night went on. The instructors were less concerned with technique and more with everyone having fun and learning a short routine. This contributed to a really fun evening, with everyone getting involved and not being too worried about getting it wrong.

Rachael and I surprised ourselves with how well we picked it up and we had the routine down by the end of the hour - I’m not saying it looked any good, but we could do it! We’d managed to learn the Charleston step, hand to hand and some other kick type things which I don’t know the name of yet… all in all, we had a great time and I can’t wait for class number two. Obviously I’m already imagining evenings spent at 50’s style dances with men swinging me over their heads. Well, maybe by lesson 5.

Swing Dance lessons, www.swingpatrol.co.uk

Groupon vouchers, www.groupon.co.uk