Name: Part 1 - Jazz & Lindy Hop Training - General Overview and structure
Uploaded: 2025-03-11T07:42:56.000Z
Duration: 6 min 17 s
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And here I'm really just going to go over the big picture of things and then go more into detail.

So, in essence, we have trainings that started early on every Friday night.

It happened between 7 and 9 p.m. and later on got extended from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

We thought two hours was essentially a bit too short, especially when you're starting to see that you have more and more material to practice.

The way that it's structured would be about, let's say, 45% or half of the training would be dedicated to jazz.

And then the other half is, of course, Lindy Hop.

And we will also reserve some time, maybe about 30-20 minutes for a session, a jam session where just people freestyle all together, brings people together, and it's a very nice way to train.

And that also, I'll explain why in detail.

So, first of all, why is it so important that you focus on jazz at trainings?

Well, first of all, it's extremely inclusive.

You don't need a partner to be able to start dancing.

And second, it's going to drastically improve everybody's level when it comes to even Lindy Hop dancing, even couple dancing.

It's going to improve your rhythms, it's going to improve your flow, your style, it's going to improve your understanding of the dance, your history, everything, everything.

The first thing that we really, truly work on is our classic routines.

And in that case, the first trainings that we did, we would dedicate them to essentially classic routines.

And classic routines could be like the Shim Sham, the Tap Shim Sham, the Alan Leon Shim Sham, the Tranky Do, the Big Apple, the Hand Clappin' by Mama Lou Parks, all these classic choreographies, you can learn these all together.

And we would sort of set ourselves a goal in time.

We've noticed that when you set a goal, for example, a performance, or a video, or something that you can all do together, it kind of puts this positive pressure on everybody to deliver on time and to kind of work on it.

So a performance can very well be just a very small little performance for a social dance.

The first trainings that we had, we were dedicated to everybody knowing the classic routines.

And this is the difference between a class and training.

A class, you would break down things for everybody.

You would have somebody leading everybody, the whole group all the time.

When it came to trainings, I would break down a little bit, the Big Apple, but you would do it for what?

And then everybody else just learns by themselves.

This is a very, very important factor when it comes to training, is being able to teach yourself, to learn by yourself.

This is a very different setting than a class setting.

A class setting is I learn from someone, and this is I learn by myself, or we learn together, if you wish.

Now, the other reason why you want everybody to do jazz all together at the same time, and then only then afterwards do Lindy Hop, it allows for the fact that there's not this kind of mess where some people are doing airsteps in the corner, and then it becomes dangerous for those that aren't paying attention to those airsteps and might be walking by.

And when you start going into jazz, you can teach everybody the same kind of steps or people get inspired by what you're working on, whereas it's less transferable to when somebody's now working on a California in some corner, and you might not have a partner that day, you might not be able to join in.

So it brings a certain cohesiveness to the group, it allows people to feel more included because they might not have a partner for that part of the training, and it allows for some sort of form of safety and sharing of knowledge relating to what you're doing.

So when you go into Lindy Hop, now that everybody's kind of working on Lindy Hop and doing their airsteps, for example, now people can spot each other and work on the same airstep.

So the transfer of knowledge is much easier, and the working together part is much easier as well.

And this is something that we've kept through the years.

It was established from kind of day one, and it's something that keeps on working even today.

Then when it comes to the jam sessions at the end, or you could call it just a session if you want, if you're scared of the word jamming, but it's essentially just go into a circle and let one by one go in.

Now, when we do it here in Brussels, we like to stay for long, right inside the jam.

The whole point is that you're able to get into your zone, get into your pocket, start to feel.

It's also you're training your mentality relating to the dance, okay?

And I'll go into a more detailed chapter about getting into that space and how to enable that space for others as well.

But being able to, say, dance for a minute, a minute and a half, even maybe two minutes, even, who knows, even the whole entire song, why not?

By yourself and having others watch, people can really get inspired by you.

You kind of get lost in that moment, start tapping into your creativity, start killing your ego and stop judging yourself or thinking that others are judging you and these kind of things.

It's going to really nourish other people's ideas and other people's flows and get them trained to look at stylistic choices and flavor and flow and all these kind of concepts that are sometimes hard to put a definition on.

That's mainly how we structure our trainings overall.

And now I'm going to go more into detail.