The Benefits of Introducing Country Swing Dancing to your School Classroom

Country Swing Dancing is probably one of the most beneficial ways you can build character in your students.  It encompasses the creative aspect, with social skills, health benefits, cooperation, and at the same time has the added benefit of being fun.  Students who are young love Country Swing Dancing in general and can really learn a lot about life from it.  And so we are going to talk about some of the benefits and things Country Swing Dancing can do for your school when you introduce it to your students.

1. Friendship Building

One of the biggest things we want to point out is that Country Swing Dancing is a great way for your students to make friends.  We have seen time after time how guys not only meet girls by asking them to dance but guys make guy friends because they also work with each other in trying to learn new moves.  A lot of their skills to develop their dance skills comes from guys teaching other guys (Same with girls) on the dance floor how to do different dance moves to get better at dancing.  This sharing of knowledge really builds the friendships that happen through Country Swing Dancing.  Some of the ways Country Swing Dancing can improve friendships is it teaches people to be kinder by being more involved one on one, it teaches them to be more cooperative, and also has them strive for excellence.  So we believe that if you introduce Country Swing Dancing to your class that you will see an improvement of friendships among your students.

2. Character Building

We are going to focus on 4 character building aspects of Country Swing Dancing because there are a lot more, we could talk about, but we feel these are the main aspects that a teacher is looking for when trying to build up their students character.  They are:

Confidence

Country Swing Dancing can build confidence better and quicker than most other methods out there.  One of the best things that Country Swing Dancing teaches is confidence because students naturally have a fear of interacting with each other because they fear rejection from their peers.  The nice thing about Country Swing Dancing is not that it takes away rejection but, it teaches students to face possibility of rejection and cope with the fact that it exists and teaches them how to handle their emotions as well if they are rejected.  This happens more in a Dance setting where guys or girls ask someone to dance.  They fear that someone will turn them down when they ask someone to dance.  And so because they have little to no confidence they won’t go and take the risk.  But one thing that I’ve noticed is that if you give lots of time for guys and girls to build the confidence to go ask then eventually, they will get up off the seat and go take the risk.  Once they’ve done it a few times without getting rejected the confidence really starts to build in for them.  The nice thing about Country Dancing vs Night Club Dancing is that Country Dances give more opportunity for students to go and ask that guy or girl to dance.  This is because Night Club Dancing doesn’t really have “Dancer Etiquette” where a guy asks a girl to dance before they dance with them, or vice versa.  So, in general the Country Song includes partner dancing most of the time, meaning that people have plenty of opportunity to face their fears of going up to that person and asking them to dance and then build that confidence.

Kindness

One of the things about Country Swing Dancing is that it brings the character of kindness to the dance floor.  In general people learn kindness by demonstrating it when opportunity presents itself.  This happens when girls and guys ask a person to dance because when someone accepts a dance, they are showing their kindness and also if and when they smile at the person, they dance with they show kindness as well.  It’s also given in instances where people are showing each other their dance moves and also when giving someone a high five for doing it right.  So kindness is something that can be well developed in a Country Swing Dance setting.

Cooperation

One of the coolest things about Country Swing Dancing is that students cooperate so much better dancing with each other than compared to working on a school project.  And I’m not just saying that to be funny, it’s very true.  When you see the students interacting with each other they can see the final result before they’ve done it and so if something is not working right, they can already tell, and they start to implement the movements they need to do in order to get it done.  The nice thing is that as they learn more and more dance moves the dance just looks so much better.  I’ve seen students after one year of dancing go from a non-existent dancer to an all-star.   So if you are looking to see your students cooperate not only in a positive manner but want to see them strive for excellence then you want to introduce them to Country Swing Dancing.

Excellence

One of the interesting things that students can do with Country Dancing is not only learn to be good dancers, but they can go on to make it a career, they can take the social skills they learned from it to help them get jobs, do performances, and help them compete.  As mentioned above it doesn’t take long for a group of students to improve their Country Swing Dancing skills and when it happens you will see a dramatic improvement in all sorts of areas of your students’ character.  The focus of Country Dancing in general steers people in such a positive direction, people can’t really steer away from the goal of excellence.

3. Health Benefits

There are so many health benefits with learning Country Swing Dancing.  But I want to point out the 4 main things that people get from learning Country Swing Dancing which are:

Exercise

Country Swing Dancing compared to other partner dances can be more physically demanding than most other styles of dance because there is more focus on the dance moves like dips, lifts, leans, drops, aerials, etc. that give a more fuller core workout for student’s vs the other styles of dance.

Mental acuity

Country Swing Dancing helps to develop a persons memory because in order to get better at dancing it’s a lot like playing chess where you have to think 3 or 4 moves ahead to keep yourself moving with the music and also it really tests your memory trying to hit certain beats of the song with your dance moves.  These skills are developed while under the pressure and stress of physically demanding moves and timing them to the music.

Stress Relief

Many people who love dancing feel the need to go every week or even multiple times a week to relieve stress.  Dancing relieves stress and this type of dance is a great way anyone can destress and not have to think about or worry about the problems of life.

Mental Health benefits

One the best things this type of Dancing does is lift people out of depression quicker.  When someone is rejected for whatever reason they can always come back to find someone to dance with that lift themselves out of the negativity they are feeling.  Their friends are also there for them at these events as well and it’s just a great way to distract oneself from feeling down all the time.

4. Increased Social Interaction

With Country Swing Dancing there is an increase in social interaction among your students.  Because now they are dealing with each other directly.  This interaction lets them learn how to talk to each person they deal with more independently and it also gives each person a chance to get to experience some form of direct social interaction with each individual they come in contact with.  The nice thing when doing a class of Country Swing Dancing is that everybody rotates through their partners so that everyone can have a chance to learn something different about how their dance partner moves feels.  And so in Country Swing Dancing, when dancers exchange partners, they get to interact with a new person directly and it really gives everybody a chance to get to know each other better.

5. Creativity

In Country Swing Dancing just like any other dance there is lots of room for creativity.  The one thing that stands out at Country Swing Dances apart from the typical School Dance is that there is a lot more creativity going on in the Country Swing Dance.  Young people as you can see in some of the videos up on our website are seen not only dancing but they are working together to learn and do new moves all the time while on the dance floor.  This is in contrast to what you see at a “Night Club” type of dance at schools today where you see people doing any kind of dance movements with no real structure or goal to improve dance techniques.

6. Class, Integrity, and Reputation

One of the things that I’ve noticed at the typical school dance is that many people have a stigma against such things because of the level of class and reputation a style of dance has.  I’m sure we’ve all seen things on TV where people are doing obscene things in public and it just doesn’t really help the reputation of places that hold such events.   But if I can state one thing that holds true is that Country Swing Dances seem to have a better reputation then the Typical School Dances.  The reason being is because there is a lot less grinding and twerking and grabbing of the guy or girl at these events then what you see in a Country Dance.  You also don’t see a lot of “Dancer Etiquette” at a typical school dance, where the guy asks the girl to dance or vice versa.  And when “Dancer Etiquette” is missing you end up seeing scenes where guys just go up on the dance floor and grab a girl to grind on her without her permission.  This typical “Night Club” type scene I’m sure is troubling to many who run these events.  So, if you introduce Country Swing Dancing to your school dance, I’m quite certain you will improve the Class, Integrity, and Reputation of your school dances.

Here some other things that come of out Country Swing Dancing that you can see happening in your schools:

1. Country Swing Dance Teams

Country Swing Dance Teams exist all over the Country.  They perform at special events, half time shows at Basket Ball Games and other sports, and many other types of events.  Country Swing Dance teams promote the school and they can also be used for competition for skill development.  These students who are a part of these teams end up being the leaders and also help the school to achieve its goals.  There are many different ways Country Swing Dance Teams can promote different things and they are probably one of the best ways guys and girls can work together in a team environment.

2. Competition Circuits

Now another thing that’s really neat is that competitions for Country Dancing go on all over the Country and it would be really neat to see in public schools.  I think that with some time soon it would be the coolest thing to see in schools is teenagers working together in a show type format in front of 100’s or 1000’s of people showing their awesome dance skills!

3. Country Swing Dances

Country Swing Dances as you can see in the videos posted up on GoCountryDancing.com show tons of videos of teenagers dancing at typical Country Swing Dances.  These kids love these dances and I know that if your school hasn’t had a Country Swing Dance then you should take it up and do one for those kids, so they get the chance to experience what a Country Swing Dance looks like.

This is all I have to say about Country Swing Dancing right now about how Country Swing will really benefit your school and I hope that you introduce Country Swing Dancing to your school.

Thanks and Take Care,

Corey