Why Country Swing Dances are the best dances for Middle Schools and High Schools

Are you curious to know what are the benefits of putting Country Swing Dancing in your school? Well in this article we are going to identify some of the key objectives of school dances and then compare and contrast the differences of the typical school dance compared to a typical country dance at middle schools and high schools and then show how Country Swing Dances meet the objectives much better than the typical night club style dances in schools today.

Let’s start by identifying some of the key objectives the school dance is trying to achieve:

Class, Integrity, Reputation

Creativity among student’s ability to dance

Cooperation with one another in dancing

Increased social interaction in our electronic age

Character Building – Confidence, Kindness, Cooperation, Excellence

Health Benefits – Exercise, Mental acuity, Stress Relief, Mental Health

Friendship Building

I think that since we’ve listed the key objectives let’s take a look at the Typical School Dance and analyze how it tries to implement these objectives.

Typical School dances are very similar to night club scenes.  The lighting of the dance area is usually dark and has many different colours of projector lights lighting the dance floor area but the whole area is generally very dark.  Students who are at these dances who get on the dance floor usually end up dancing in a solo fashion and just moving to music in whatever fashion they choose, most people would probably call this night club dancing.  Generally though if they are dancing in pairs here’s a common perspective, I want to point out that I’ve seen in these kinds of dances:  Usually the guy will see a girl he likes on the dance floor and when he gets enough confidence, he will go up to her and just grab her to grind on the girl to dance with her.  If she doesn’t like it then she will move and get away or she might be afraid and not do anything, this kind of incident happens quite a bit and in general it’s because “Dancer Etiquette” doesn’t exist in Night Club Dancing.  When you look at the guy though, he’s trying to get to know the girl, and he thinks this is the only way for him to get to know her at this event, and so that’s their natural way of interacting.  This scene is very common and I’m sure it’s a bit of a concern for the teachers and administrators of these events.  Another scene that is common at this event is those who are just standing there and dancing in a group, they will just get the average nod of approval by their friends when dancing with them nothing to special and not a lot of interaction.  Others will sit on the sidelines of the dance floor and observe, and others may break out into break dancing.  There is also the slow dance where guys can naturally ask a girl to dance and then there are others who interact on the sidelines just talking to each other.  This is the typical scene you see at the typical school dance.

Now I want to point out the scenes of the typical Country Dance.  In Country Dancing generally the dance floors are lit up with White lights that make the floor really stand out.  It’s not supposed to be dark.  If any places are dark, it’s the edges of the floors where people don’t dance.  There’s a really good reason as to why you want to have a lit dance floor and that’s because you don’t want people who are dancing around the dance floor to run into each other.  The songs are generally pretty easy to dance to. You also have a typical scene where a guy who sees a girl he wants to dance with and when he sees her, he goes up to her and this time instead of grab her, like in night club dancing, to grind on her, he will politely ask her to dance.  And if she say’s yes then they will go out together onto the dance floor and start dancing.  The dancing looks very much like old fashioned swing dancing with dips, turns, leans, lifts, and all sorts of tricks.  About 99% of all Country Songs can be danced with a partner.  There is lots of cooperation among the guys and girls and lots of interaction.  Guys on the sidelines will be admiring the good dancers and will also have the ability to keep an eye on any girls they wish to dance with.  Because “Dancer Etiquette” exists asking girls to dance in Country Dancing is second nature.  There is also Line Dancing that happens at these dances as well and so you have a mixture of partner and individual dancing and you also have lots more people dancing in time to the music learning the counts and following the beat of the music, and learning new dance moves.  So, if you are wondering whether they are having lots of fun then watch the video at the top on “What is Country Swing Dancing?”

Now let’s take a look at the objective differences between the two types of Dances in Schools today:

Class, Integrity, and Reputation

Typical School Dances

Typical school dances have lots of dance mix music which basically encourages lots of night club dancing at school dances.  Young men who try to dance with girls usually end up not asking girls to dance before they dance with them and type of dancing encourages a very aggressive method of getting someone to dance with them which can be uncomfortable for both if the dance was uninvited and both guys and girls, class, integrity, and reputation could being judged by the way they interact with each other when doing this type of Dancing.

Typical Country Swing Dances

Typical Country Swing Dances have lots of Country Music and it encourages “Dancer Etiquette.” What is “Dancer Etiquette”? Dancer Etiquette is when a guy asks a girl to dance before dancing with her, and if she say’s yes then they may dance together.  “Dancer Etiquette” meets the objectives of improving Class, Integrity, and Reputation within the community.  And in all of Country Dancing there is “Dancer Etiquette.”

Creativity among student’s ability to Dance

Typical School Dances

Typical school dances don’t have that much creativity.  Most students who do have creativity are in that top 5% category who like to try to break dance.  Other students will just stand in a spot and bob their heads, sway their arms and shoulders and move their feet slightly to music.

Typical Country Swing Dances

Typical Country Swing Dances will have more than 70% of the students doing all sorts of creative movements with each other.  You don’t have to be in the top 5% of dancers to be able to do good Country Dance moves and you also have students studying how to do the movements in a cooperative fashion.  This studying is their own creativity! Even if the movements have been done before they are self-creating them!

Cooperation with one another in dancing

Typical School Dance

Typical school dances have little cooperation happening.  The students that dance in pairs don’t generally have any form of cooperation to do any creative movement patterns.  It’s actually very rare to see even break dancers work in pairs to do movements together and that’s in a very small segment of those that are at these dances.  Even the typical slow dance doesn’t have a lot creative movement to invite more cooperation.

Typical Country Swing Dance

In Country Dancing there is tons of cooperation.  People are dancing in pairs everywhere on the dance floor.  Not only are they dancing with each other but there’s also a lot of talking and discussion about how to do different dance moves.  Guys will learn moves from other guys and same with girls learning from other girls and it’s just a great scene to look at when you see that the students are helping one another learn how to do different dance moves!

Increased Social Interaction in an Electronic Age

Typical School Dance

A lot of the social interaction happens off the dance floor at school dances.  Very little social interaction is happening on the dance floor because people who are night club dancing are just there to do typical night club dancing.  No one has a strong interest in getting better at their night club dancing and so people will just stand and dance in their groups and just talk typical small talk at these dances.

Typical Country Swing Dance

At the typical Country Swing dance you will see lots of talking on the dance floor among your students.  They will be talking about how to do moves with one another.  Another could be teaching, another could be doing the typical small talk and others on the sidelines will be observing and talking about different things going on, on the dance floor.  The point is that there will be lots of social interaction at a Country Dance.

Character Building – Confidence, Kindness, Cooperation, Excellence

Typical School Dances

At the typical school dance you will find that men and women generally build their confidence when they can overcome their fears.  I would say at dances the number one biggest fear a guy and girl has is to get rejected by the person they ask to dance with when he or she asks them to dance.  Now when we are talking about overcoming this fear, one of things to note is how much opportunity does a person have to ask another to dance at a typical school dance? I would say very little opportunity is presented in the night to ask someone to dance.  And it’s because of the lack of “Dancer Etiquette” at these types of dances.  Confidence, kindness, cooperation, and excellence is not Given a great opportunity to grow in typical school dances because dancers don’t have a lot of interaction with one another.  And so the only time you will really see character building is when you can see them working together at these types of dances and the best time at a typical school dance of where character building can happen is when a slow dance comes on and the guys have the opportunity to ask the girls to dance.

1. Typical Country Swing Dance

At the typical country swing dances guys and girls alike are constantly facing their fears of rejection all the time when they are asking people to dance.  And since almost every song you can dance with someone, it presents lots of opportunity to build character and confidence.  Not only does the person have the ability to build confidence but the person who accepts the invitation to dance is also showing kindness to those who take risk to ask.  And in the dance, they cooperate throughout the whole dance and strive for excellence.  Typical Country Dances present lots of opportunity to build character in comparison to the Typical School Dance.

Health Benefits – Exercise, Mental acuity, Stress Relief, Mental Health

Typical School Dance

Students at these kinds of dances spend hours standing and moving around the dance floor and they expend lots of energy dancing like this.  The Mental acuity though isn’t needed as strongly because most of the dancing doesn’t require lots of concentration unless you are doing something like break dancing.  The stress relief factor for these students is generally good but there could be that need to interact with someone, and this type of dance might not give the interaction that they are looking for.  Regarding mental health overall, I think typical dances do a good job and that’s their focus is to provide positive mental health to the community of students.

Typical Country Swing Dance

Now when you compare the physical exercise of Country Swing Dancing to Night Club Dancing, I would have to say that there is way more exercise going on in the swing dancing scene.  Muscles are being used in places not normally used and the Country Swing Dancing in general is a lot like a whole-body workout.  The mental acuity to do these moves can be very demanding and overtime really develops the student’s ability to think, concentrate under pressure, and create.  The stress relief factor I think happens a lot more in Country Dancing because guys and girls in general are interacting with one another more often and their goals of dancing with each other are met more often as well resulting in lower stress.  The mental health of the whole community is in general a lot better because of the interactions that are going on.

Friendship building

Typical School Dance

At the typical school dance you see that friendships that are being built are happening when people are interacting with strangers they’ve never met before.  And at the typical school dance you don’t see a lot of that interaction happening because of the night club dancing that is going on, on the dance floor, it’s not that inviting to make friends.   People who are making friends don’t seem to go out of their way to make them and these typical school dances provide little opportunity for people to go and talk to some stranger which results in less friendship building

Typical Country Swing Dance

Now at the typical Country Swing Dance you will see a lot of opportunity for people to make friends because the dancing promotes lots of interaction among the people.  They will ask to dance and learn how to dance and even ask to see if they can hang out again to learn some dance moves some other time.  And so this is why Country Dancing is a great form of dance to have in Schools because it builds friendships!

So in conclusion Country Swing Dances really help to meet the objectives of the School dance a lot better than the typical school dance.  I believe that you will see a more productive and positive community if you introduce it in your community.

I appreciate the administrative staff that put on these dances, when I was in school, I loved dances, and when I was finally able to learn about Country Swing Dancing and all the positive things it provides, I could never let it go.  And so I hope you consider hosting Country Dances at your schools seriously and hope you have fun when you get the chance to GO COUNTRY DANCING!!!

Thanks,
Corey