Lindy Hop Class: I am surprised!

Tonight I went to a Lindy Hop class. The class was held in an old building and the teachers have been teaching there for ten years. In fact I learned swing before (about 15 years ago in New York), but never learned Lindy Hop. After coming to LA, I decided to pick up all different types of dances I learned before.

Tonight, surprising me was the size of the class. After Salsa became popular everywhere I thought the old Swing might slowly fade out. But tonight I found there are still many people falling in love with Swing and Lindy Hop.

The classes ran from 7 till 10PM in three different levels: advanced, intermediate and beginner classes. Each class was packed with people. I made a count. All three classes had almost same amount of people. Each one had about 70-80 people. The class was held in a small auditorium which is in the second floor of this building, and the first floor is a Lindy Hop club. So total was about 240 people came to the class. You have to remember: tonight was Monday night and it was not a workshop. If it is a workshop I am not surprised.

Another thing I noticed is the people who came to the class.  Most people were white middle class. This is very similar like what I saw in New York. People came from different part of the world (since some of them have accent). There was no black, and almost no Latinos. There were few Asian look people (I am one of them). The age was from 20s to 60s.

The next thing I like to point out is the differences between the classes I went to in Shanghai and the classes here:

1)      Every registered student will receive a name tag which you put on your chest so that the people who dance with you know your name.

2)      Before the class began, the teacher asked each student walked around and shook hands and say hello to EACH OTHER (among 60 people). When the first round finished, the teacher asked each one did again. But this time we had to say hello and say the other person’s name while she or he covered the name tag.

3)      Once all of these done. He told us there were two rules in his class:

Rule number one: dance on the beat.

Rule number two: having fun.

Then he told us that sometimes the second rule is more important than the first one.

After the class I went downstairs to the club. There were even more people. Music was so good that you couldn’t help but to dance.