Beginner-friendly swing dance music

About halfway through our eight-week beginner swing dance lessons, students usually start asking me for recommendations of practice music. You might think, like many people do in the beginning, that you can only swing dance to jazz standards like “Tuxedo Junction” or “Pennsylvania 6-5000.”

Although these are great swing dance songs, you don’t have to limit yourself to the top hits of the 1930s and '40s. As you begin to attend swing dances, you’ll start hearing songs that are a good tempo for you, or that make your feet start moving. These songs might come from every decade from 1920 to today. The best way to find what works is by going to dances and attempting to work with all the music.

Tempos

Once I became a fairly proficient swing dancer, all I wanted to do was dance at the speed of sound. I cared nothing for footwork; I just wanted to kick step and Charleston—basically throw myself into a centrifuge and hold on for dear life.

However, once I started going to more weekend workshops, traveling and teaching, I eventually began to appreciate the slower tempos. I realized that there was something so smooth and sexy about the relaxed, jazzy/bluesy tunes. You can do swivels at a slower speed. You can milk a swing-out for everything it’s worth. You can actually keep your arms attached to your shoulders. You can last an entire night without experiencing heart palpitations.

Your hair’s on fire

As a swing dance DJ, I have noticed that the songs that absolutely pack the floor are between 170 and 200 beats per minute. These are songs like “Americano,” “Jump, Jive and Wail,” “Flip, Flop and Fly” and “Rock Around the Clock.” I love these songs and dancing to them is often a pure expression of exuberance and love for the song, dance, and life in general.

However, I have also noticed that the technical quality my dancing deteriorates as the energy level of the music increases. Don’t get me wrong—I love the fast stuff—but I like it once every five or six songs. I don’t want to do it all night. For one thing, it would kill me. For another, I actually like doing the footwork.

A walk in the park

A good “cruising speed” for swing dance is around 140-160 beats per minute. In this range, you’ll find “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “All Shook Up,” and “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” These are nice, comfortable tempos with lots of popular songs that will not induce heart attacks.

Smooth, slow and easy

I like to keep our beginner class playlist around 100-140 beats per minute, and I mingle this tempo into the dance playlists. I sometimes hear some experienced dancers complain about these low tempos, because they are very comfortable at the “hold onto your hair” speed. I would encourage experienced high-speed dancers to take advantage of the slower tempos to catch their breath, to really execute their footwork, to connect with their partners, and to have some improvisational fun.

Some of my low-octane favorites

Following are the songs that I would recommend to beginners as they practice their new moves. I would also recommend them for experienced dancers who want to focus on footwork variations. Many of these songs have fun musical elements that make for great improvisation, but you’ll only catch them if you are familiar with the music, so listen to the songs when you aren’t dancing, like when you’re driving around town or singing in the shower. Just don’t start dancing in the shower. You could slip and fall and hurt yourself, and then you won’t be dancing at all.

• Gimme a Pigfoot, La Vern Baker, from LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gimme-a-pigfoot/id342386008?i=342386020
• My Baby Just Cares for Me,  Indigo Swing, from the album Indigo Swing https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/my-baby-just-cares-for-me/id264894648?i=264894823
• Why Don’t You Do Right, Peggy Lee, from the Best of Peggy Lee https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/why-dont-you-do-right/id16507118?i=16506961
• Ain’t That Love, Ray Charles, from Ray Charles https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/aint-that-love/id46592114?i=46592118
• Addicted to Love, Robert Palmer, from Hard Rock Café: Party Rock Classics https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/addicted-to-love/id375224175?i=375224325
• The Wanderer, Dion, from Runaround Sue https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-wanderer/id16559004?i=16558865 
• Knock Me a Kiss, Louis Jordan, from No Moe! Louis Jordan’s Greatest Hits https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/knock-me-a-kiss/id36277?i=36253
• Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby, Louis Jordan, from No Moe! Louis Jordan’s Greatest Hits https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/is-you-is-or-is-you-aint-my-baby/id36277?i=36243
• Mr. Five By Five, Freddie Slack and His Orchestra, from Great Songs of WWII https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/mr.-five-by-five/id473340799?i=473341125

There are countless more songs in the slow and sexy tempo range and I would love to hear your recommendations!

Travel fit: Working out when you're traveling

When I travel, I usually have the option to choose my own hotel. One of the criteria I look for is a fitness center. Over the years, the quality of hotel fitness centers has improved greatly. Occasionally, I still come across the “fitness closet,” which is what I call a broom closet into which the hotel management has squeezed one floor-to-ceiling mirror, one discount-brand treadmill and one deflated stability ball. Invariably, these hotels will have some kind of Photoshopped creation on their website that makes the fitness closet look like an actual gym. (This is where travel sites with actual guest photos and user reviews come in handy—know before you go.)

If I have the option to choose my hotel, I like a fitness center that includes my preferred mode of cardio. Okay, that’s just a lie. My preferred mode of cardio is dancing, which I can’t actually do in a fitness closet. Instead, I pound away on a treadmill, which (little known fact) was intended to be the eighth level of Dante’s Inferno, but it was cut from the book by editors looking to save paper. Treadmills deserve a whole post of their own, so more on that later.

Several of the best fitness centers I have seen are in hotels in California—these can be like full-scale gyms with both free-weights and weight machines. The left coast knows how to do a fitness center right. They typically line up the machines so that you can actually watch something interesting while you work out, like the pool or the ocean, or the guys on the free-weights.

The benefit to the in-hotel fitness center is that you can work out at your convenience without having to worry about whether the neighborhood near the hotel is safe, or what the weather will bring. You can also exercise on your schedule. For example, when we go to Las Vegas, I like to run outside because it’s so flat there. However, I have to get up at the crack of dawn to beat the heat, the sun, and the tourists. Early morning Vegas also smells like recycled beer and stale cigarettes. If I used the hotel gym, I could work out in the middle of the day, which might be a better fit for the Vegas pattern of staying up late. On the other hand, committing to the early morning workout forces me to drink in moderation and go to bed at a decent hour. This keeps me from inflicting other unnecessary damage on my body.

Even though I like a hotel with a good fitness center, there are plenty of times I just don’t get one, or I never use it. Some hotels charge $10 or more per day to use their “fitness closet.” Sometimes the hotel gyms are full of people attending the same conference I am, and I just don’t want to see them and have to make small talk while I’m wearing a bra top and dripping sweat. Most of the time, I really prefer to get outside and make my workout a part of my work or vacation experience.

Working out on your own

If you choose not to use the hotel fitness center, there are still lots of ways you can get a great workout.

Cardio

The cardiovascular component of your workout is probably the easiest to take on the road. In most tourist-oriented locations, there are readily available walking/running routes.

If you are in an unfamiliar area, ask the hotel concierge for advice about safe routes. Go early in the day (but after dawn) to minimize road traffic. Always take your phone with you. If you run into trouble, you’ll be happy you have the phone handy. And you can also take pictures of local wildlife, like potato-sized cockroaches in Manhattan, or early-morning hangover victims in Vegas, and post them to Facebook while you run. I also like to use the Mapmyrun app on my iPhone, because it shows a map of where I am and counts my distance and time for me.

Always carry a water bottle and tuck a few bucks, photo ID and a credit card into your pocket. Why the credit card? Because it was my mother’s great fear that we should ever be in desperate need of something and have no money. I have never yet actually used my credit card on a run, but I always feel better knowing that I have it.

In many tourist-oriented areas, you can also rent bicycles for a few hours or for the day. If biking is your thing, this can be a great way to get a workout and see some sights.

Strength training

Everyone should be doing some form of strength training. If you aren’t, you should start. Right now. Go ahead. I will wait.

Since you won’t be lugging your leg press machine on the plane with you, this is a good opportunity to use the hotel fitness center. If you choose not to, you can still get a good strength workout in your room, using just your own body weight. Squats, lunges, burpees, pushups, planks and pikes all require only what your mamma gave you. If you feel like you just can’t keep up your awesome physique with these simple movements, try doing your pushups under the hotel bed, lifting its weight on each upward phase. Or, you could just use the fitness center.

The next installment of this blog is about travel fitness equipment—especially the TRX and resistabands. Are you psyched? I am!

How not to be a wallflower

When I first started dancing, I used to spend a lot of time holding up the wall around the edge of the dance. This was partly my own choice: I was intimidated by the repertoire of the other dancers, and I was scared that I would not be able to keep up. The part that was outside my own choice was that I was a “new person,” with an unfamiliar face: an unknown quantity.

For regular dancers, the simplest course of action is to look for familiar faces and locate people you recognize and have danced with before. When you are a new face, the regulars in that scene may skip right over you in preference of someone they recognize. This is just simple human nature. People are scared of what’s new. They are scared of being turned down. They are scared that you will expose them to injury, and they are scared that you might be a better dancer than they are. Most of all, they are terrified because you are a total smokin’ hottie.

Okay, I don’t actually know if you’re a smokin’ hottie, because I can’t see you. But I have seen lots of highly attractive humans at dances get passed over in favor of more average-looking people. Therefore, I believe that it is more intimidating to ask insanely attractive people to dance. So I would like you to substitute any negative self-talk you may have with “I am so hot that I am scaring people off.” In this way, we can work toward making you more approachable.

This post is intended to help you be approachable and keep your dance card full in an unfamiliar scene. If you have been dancing in the same place regularly for more than three months and people still aren’t dancing with you, there are two possibilities. Either the people in your scene are total butt-heads, or you are doing something to put people off. If I were you, I would ask your local dance host or hostess for guidance. It could be that, without your knowledge or permission, your face contorts into a “scary guy at the grocery store” grimace when you are dancing. And you can fix that.

Assuming the people in your dance scene are not butt-heads, you just need to overcome the initial hurdle of being new. Here are some tips I have learned. They can be easily broken into what I call the three A’s: Appearance, Actions, and Attitude.

Appearance

Although we like to think our natural awesomeness shines straight through our skin to the outside, sometimes people need a little help seeing it. This is the whole reason the field of marketing exists: it’s all about taking a product and getting people to buy it. We are trying to sell you as a dancer. Following are some superficial marketing tips I have learned over time, with hard experience.

The first set of appearance rules should go without saying. But they don’t. Take a shower before you go out. If that’s not possible, at least by God, put on a clean shirt and some deodorant. Brush your teeth and your hair. Make an effort. You are naturally gorgeous; you just have to stop distracting people from that fact. Remember that others will be in direct contact with you; so bring extra clean shirts along with you, and a towel so that you can mop up if you are a heavy sweater.

Many dances have theme nights. Find out if the one you are attending will have one. This is pretty simple to do: if you saw an ad in the paper or online, there is probably some method of contact, like a phone number or email address. Contact the host. Ask about themes or what people wear. This will not only get you in the loop, but you will also be able to talk to at least one person who will be there. If there is a theme, do it. Dressing to the theme shows that you are willing to take a risk to help contribute to the general success of an event. It says you don’t take yourself too seriously. It also takes some guts.

The first time I went to a swing dance, it was an after-Christmas pajama dance. I went by myself. At the time, I only knew a little ballroom swing, which is like high school football compared to the NFL. I knew no one at the dance, which had about 180 attendees. I showed up all alone, wearing pajamas. This tactic worked out for me. I met the man who would become my husband. Results may vary. I cannot guarantee that you will meet your future life partner if you wear pajamas to a dance with 180 strangers.

If there is no theme, you can never go wrong with vintage wear at a swing dance. It makes you look like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. It’s excellent packaging.

Lastly, and this feeds into my next section: smile. Think about your body language. If I am scanning a room, looking for someone to ask to dance, I am going to ask the person who is right near the edge of the dance floor, watching everyone, looking happy and enthusiastic, and preferably dancing in place.

Attitude

The unfamiliar dancers I most love are the people who totally surprise me—these amazing dancers who quietly participate in the beginner lesson, politely listen to everything I have to say, and then when we start dancing, they bust out kick-ass, super-smooth Lindy Hop moves.

Why do I love these folks? Because they don’t come at me with “I am a professional competitive dancer. I have danced all over the world!” They let me discover that.

I also like brand-new beginners who tell me they are beginners right off the bat. I told people that I was a beginner for the first six months I was dancing. I figured that way, I was lowering their expectations to the least possible point, and anything good I could do would be a pleasant surprise. Most experienced dancers will encourage newbies and offer tons of praise and positive reinforcement, but if you try to shove your awesomeness at them, they can turn on you quickly, becoming judgmental and critical instead.

The moral of the story? Be humble. Be nice. Don’t act like you own the dance floor. Oh yeah, and smile. A lot. Tell everyone you are having a good time, and what a nice dance it is. Everyone likes to hear good things about their community.

Actions

Ask people to dance. Whether you are a girl or guy makes no difference. In the beginning of my dancing days, I was too shy and also scared of people to ask guys to dance very often. With time, my dancing got better and my confidence grew. Now, I would say that I ask guys to dance about four out of five dances. The other one dance, the guy asks me.

Taking the first step works because everyone in the room is also shy and somewhat scared. As the asker, you have the opportunity to pick and choose someone you want to dance with. Instead of picking the “best looking guy in the room,” I suggest that ladies watch the other ladies dancing. Check out the one girl in the room who, in that one dance, looks totally awesome. As soon as the song is done, go ask her partner for a dance. You may have to stalk him, sneaking up near him as you hear the song getting ready to end.

Guys can select an excellent partner by checking out the faces of the leads on the dance floor. If you see a guy who is dancing well, looks very relaxed and has a pleasant expression on his face (he might even be smiling and making conversation), make sure you ask his current partner to dance. If the guy has his face wound up in an expression of extreme concentration or pain, well, his shoes might be too tight, or maybe he ate an entire meatball sub right before the dance and is in a lot of intestinal pain.

Since I eavesdrop on a lot of other people, I often hear that this or that scene is very cliquey, and when you go there, no one will dance with you. I would ask those same people how often they take the first step and ask others to dance.

I have noticed in many clubs that you need to get out on the floor so that people standing around see you dancing and not killing anyone. Since another human has agreed to dance with you, and their face is not screwed up in a horrible grimace of pain (unless it always looks that way), soon other folks will decide to do the same.

Once you actually start dancing, the onus is on you to help that person enjoy the 3.5 minutes they spend with you. Smile. A lot. Keep your hands relaxed. Ask their name. Use a simple association to try to remember that name. Ask where they learned to dance. Tell them nice things like, “Wow, you have a really nice swingout,” or whatever is both positive and true. Watch their face (without being creepy about it) and make sure they appear to be relaxed and comfortable. Thank them at the end of the dance, and use their name that you so effectively remembered.

Oh yeah, did I say smile? 

I'd love to hear from you...what other tips have you found to help improve your dancing marketability?

Gluten-free on the go

In case you’ve been asleep for the past year, or you have a highly paid assistant named Hobbes who does your grocery shopping for you, you have probably noticed that “Gluten Free” is a big buzzword in food right now.

Gluten is a type of protein usually found in wheat, but it’s also in barley, spelt, rye and some oat products. Many people have a hard time tolerating wheat and gluten. Some folks have an allergy to it; others have a condition called Celiac disease, which can cause very serious health effects.

In my personal opinion (not supported by any scientific evidence whatsoever), I think the popularity of the gluten-free fad has been spreading because someone who is affected by the protein goes gluten free, experiences awesome results, and then blabs about it all over Facebook, prompting other people to try the diet change. In some cases, these other folks also experience awesome results, and they go blabbing, too.

In my case, omitting wheat and gluten from my diet led to a much happier digestive system. The chronic aches and pains in my hands and hip that I thought were the beginning of rheumatoid arthritis are now gone. My cycles went from totally whacked to pretty much normal for a 41-year-old woman. I sleep better. I lost a little weight (only about 10 lbs, but I was not overweight). My respiratory allergies are almost gone. My nails are stronger, my hair grows faster. I have a lot more energy, and I don’t get sick as often.

I am not trying to convert you to gluten-free living: some people are gluten sensitive, and others are not. If you do live gluten-free, however, I wanted so share some of my experience about traveling and eating with this restriction.

Airplanes.

Airplanes are probably the worst place for a gluen-free person to be trapped for an entire day. The top tip I can give you is to pack a cooler on the plane. You’ll be going through TSA screening, so take a small, soft-sided, lunch-sized cooler. If you use the gel freezer packs, TSA may confiscate them. You can pack a baggie of ice cubes in the cooler, and then throw it out in the security line. I normally pack my lunch bag the night before, put the whole thing in the fridge, and take it all out in the morning. It usually stays cool all day without ice or gel packs.

I usually pack my travel cooler with dried fruit, nuts, celery and carrot sticks, gluten-free pretzels, a fresh apple, orange, banana, and mini baby-bell cheeses. Sometimes I might throw in some beef jerky, but that stuff does tend to be a little stinky. You can even freeze and take the yogurt tubes marketed toward little-kid lunchboxes. I don’t buy the yogurt tubes very often because they are full of sugar and food dyes, but this is a special occasion.  For travel, I also pack the tiny cups of individually packed peanut butter like (Jif “To-Go”). These too are a little more sugar/corn-syrupy and hydrogenated than I would normally like, but we’re trying to get through a full day of unpredictable food supply here.

If you can find single-serving-sized hummus packs, those are nice, too. TSA won’t let you take a full-sized tub of hummus on the plane.

You know how hard it is to find any edible food on an airplane--it is too much to expect them to have gluten-free food. If you ask about gluten-free options (even in First Class) be prepared for the flight attendant to look at you like you are that creepy little monster John Lithgow saw sitting on the airplane wing in the old “Twilight Zone” movie.

Hotel snacks.

My husband and I always stow a stash of hotel snacks in our checked bags. We have really big bags, by the way. I like to take protein bars (I particularly like Kind bars and Nature Valley Protein bars—make sure you read the ingredient list) and more representatives of the gluten free snacks packed for the plane. I don’t pack fresh fruit or veggies in the checked bags, because they tend to rot pretty fast in transit and no one wants bananas getting all mashed up into their pajamas.

Whatever you do, do not pack Glutino’s fudge-coated gluten-free pretzels. Those things kick the butt of all other gluten-free foods, and I can almost guarantee you will binge-eat an entire five-serving bag in five minutes, especially if you have been surviving on dried apples and old cheese for three days.

Restaurants.

If you have tried to live more than a week seriously gluten-free, then you know what a pain and gluten derailer restaurant eating can be. At home, I try to minimize eating out as much as possible, but it does get boring eating camp food three meals a day for days on end while on the road.  Although it’s splendid if you are able to get a hotel with kitchenette or even a microwave, that doesn’t always work out. Even if it does, you are likely to eventually crave human company strongly enough that you will leave your hotel cave and search for nourishment and comraderie in a restaurant.

Many large chain restaurants have official gluten-free menus. I don’t always trust them, because when I was in high school, I went out with a couple of restaurant cooks, and this is who I imagine is making my food. I also visualize this person spilling flour all across the top of my gluten-free entrée. 

Some of the gluten-free menus are intensely boring. Apparently at the Olive Garden, for example, gluten-free seems to them to mean “totally bland and appropriate for people offended by flavor.”

So sometimes I have to make my own suggestions and improvements, and I always ask a lot of questions.

French fries are usually a no-go, because they are often coated in flour, and if not, they are almost always fried in a deep fryer with other wheaty things, which contaminates them.

In general, no bread (unless, like Legal Sea Foods, they actually have gluten-free rolls on request) no soups and no Cajun food (unless the meal is specifically prepared for gluten sensitivity, Cajun food normally starts with a roux—a mix of flour and butter). No gravy.  No creamy sauces. No chinese food unless, like PF Chang’s, the restaurant has a gluten-free menu and gluten-free soy sauce. No desserts, unless they happen to have a chocolate mousse or ice cream.

So, what can you eat at a restaurant? Salads are usually safe, but not only do I have to specify “no croutons,” I have to ask if there ever were croutons on the salad (yes, some servers would just pick the croutons off instead of making a whole new salad).  Chances are you are hungry, so you probably want some kind of protein on this salad—make sure it’s not breaded, deep-fried, or dredged. This may completely stymie an inexperienced chef—but they can still put salt, pepper and lemon juice on it and flame-broil it. And the salad dressings, too, can be a gluten hideaway. Ask, and if the server doesn’t know, just use a squeeze of lemon.

Many times, steaks are gluten-free. This is very exciting for me, because I don’t get to eat a lot of beef.  For a more casual meal when I feel like pretending I’m a junk-food eater, I get a hamburger with no bun and a side salad (no croutons, no dressing. Squeeze of lemon. Living on the edge).

I always ask, but barbeque is often gluten-friendly. Naked BBQ—I’m talking about the smoked meat alone, is a pretty safe bet, but you have to ask about any sauce that might be added.

You may now see why I lost 10 lbs since going gluten-free. I am just thankful I can still have wine and pure chocolate. Going gluten-free is certainly not for everyone. It is kind of a pain in the butt. However, the dietary change has so drastically improved my day-to-day life that keeping it up is well worth the trouble.