Although I consider my technique far from perfect, I'd offer the following suggestions. (Disclaimer: This is not necessarily the correct way to dance, just my opinion of what I think "clean" swing dancing looks like from a lead's perspective.)

1) Don't be afraid to stand up straight. It's ok to get into the dance, and get down,low, but do it using your legs not by collapsing your shoulders. Collapsing also causes you to lean forward. Leaning is understandable at fast tempos, but for a slow song, you can relax and stand up. I know this is something I have to constantly remind myself.

2) Sticking with your follow and arm leading. (This is why you don't like your elbows.) There's some moments in the dance where your follow gets a little far away from you. Don't be afraid to get a little closer, or even move around the floor to compensate/correct this distance. I can also tell that you're leading the follow with your arms and not your body. When you rotate the follow to prep a turn, you should also rotate. When you and your partner stretch away from each other, you have to stretch with your body, not just your left foot. Imagine dancing with little T-Rex arms, or having your elbows attached to your sides (this technique does not apply to the stretch). It's a little extreme, but it will help you better understand moving your body to lead rather than using your arms.

3) Swing out in a line, don't round off your swing out. Around 0:24 in the video, the camera moves in line with your swing out, and you can see your self rock step out of your line, and then move from one side to the other side of your partner during the cut off part of your swing out. That's a huge movement. You don't need to do this. When you bring the follow in at the beginning of the swing out, don't get out of the way, rotate your shoulders sideways (she will rotate to match), and let her slip by you. When you send her out on 5, step forward in the direction you want to send her and let her slip by you again. You'll notice this will cut out a lot of time in your swing out, so you can now slow it down and relax more. (I hope that makes sense!)

4) Always try and step "forward" (this is an aside from #3). (This is just a general statement about thinking about your dancing that's really helped me.) When I teach east coast swing, I refuse to teach the basics as a "side, side, rock, step". The main reason is that stepping sideways isn't natural simply due to the way our legs work, and in my opinion, it develops bad technique down the road. Yes we can step sideways, but it looks more natural to step forward or backwards. In the process of cleaning up my lindy hop, I realize the same applies to lindy. You can do a swing out with out ever stepping sideways. What I mean, is that you can face your torso and your legs so that where ever you move, your legs are moving naturally (forward or backward). You'd be surprised how many awkward movements in your dancing can be removed simply by applying this idea.

Otherwise, you're looking good man. Keep up the hard work, and feel free to post some videos of you working on your shag! :-)

Very subtle, but I would say at 1:05 your right hand could have been smoother in getting the woman's left; it looked overly solicitious. It is sufficient to just extend your hand without making a grasping (open/close) motion and the lady will place her left hand in yours in due time, even if not as immediately as you would like.

I commend you for taking this step. Your personal improvement, however, is only part of my interest in responding; my hope is that this kind of video will spur a larger discussion of "best practices" in our community. We pride ourselves on our roots as a street dance. We don't codify how certain steps should be executed to the very granular level done in the ballroom world. Yet there is a major downside to this in that almost anything goes in how our dance is taught. Accordingly, there's lots of lousy instruction taking place in our community. Because many things are not in the strictest sense "wrong" does not mean they are optimal. Nick Williams hinted at this in a fairly recent blog post but there was no path forward after that. Perhaps your guts in posting this video might begin to generate such a discussion in a more focused manner.

Let me start with what I like about your dancing. You are a much better dancer than any of the other leaders in the video background. Your traveling triple steps are well-executed. You have some nice variety and playfulness in your dancing. Your overall body line looks just fine to me (slight bend in the upper body). Your hand-to-hand connection with the follower looks fine (no thumb contact, not too heavy) though admittedly this is hard to judge visually. And now here are potential improvement areas:

(1) You nailed the most obvious one - your elbow is flared out too far on inside underarm turns.
(2) I agree with Glen but would extend a bit. Try to present the hand smoothly as if it were part of a continuous flow seamlessly integrated with your other movements and not a discrete action. This ability IMO is one of the more underrated parts of quality dancing. Here's a simple pattern to practice this: lead a simple right side pass with LeftonRight hand connection and switch to to a RonL connection with the follower during the sequence. Videotape yourself to judge how smoothly the transition is executed.
(3) In Jive, the upper body is very upright contrasted with the other extreme being Frankie's body position for swingouts in Hellzapoppin'. Neither (or anything in between) is wrong or right but has anyone ever really tried to ascertain which looks the best to most people? Wouldn't it be nice to show videos of the same dancer demonstrating the alternatives and have people vote on which looks best to them to determine if there is any kind of consensus? A number of years ago when I was learning I tried this with 4 or 5 people viewing and they all preferred some bend in the upper body; none favored the upright position. The best way I've ever heard it explained to achieve the right kind of bend is to pretend you're squatting to take a crap; the key is your tush should push out a bit with the bend in the upper body.
(4) You do some nice things at times with your non-connection hand but other times you often exhibit the droopy arm syndrome (:47, 1:03, 1:47 are a few examples) where the arm looks sewn to your side. FWIW I too experimented with this (people viewing) and finally hit on 2 primary hand positions: The first is where the part of the arm from the elbow to the hand is roughly parallel to the ground and the hand is positioned like you're holding a styrofoam coffee cup (thumb very close or touching the index finger and minimal if any distance between fingers). The second position is where the arm is mostly straight at roughly 25-45 degrees from your side (you're a math major?). You can have various hand positions associated with this one.
(5) Your swingout IMHO on counts 5&6 looks wimpy. Here are 3 approaches on counts 5&6:
(a) Drop left hand and and keep it low through 5&6 - appearance is leader mostly just lets go of follower
(b) Left hand is not dropped - appearance is leader mostly just lets go of follower
(c) Same as (b) but appearance is of leader actually sending the follower out
I much prefer (c)............. I believe (b) and (c) are the most prevalent types in competition. You are doing (a). I never tested this with viewers because it seemed obvious to me. Also, early on, I was dropping my hand and an instructor who I highly respect to this very day told me not to drop the hand. I believe dropping the arm destroys the line and symmetry of the swingout; when the leader brings the follower in on 1,2, part of the left arm (from elbow through hand) is parallel to the floor and when he sends her out on 5,6 the left arm should remain roughly at the same level. Again it would be nice to have the same leader demonstrate the 3 types and have people (dancers and non-dancers!) vote on which they prefer.
(6) You are doing ALL rock steps on counts 1&2. I recommend you try to incorporate a bit more variety into this area of your dancing. Not so long ago I created a raucous arguing that rock steps should be replaced by ball changes as the primary step especially in competitions. I'm definitely not looking to reopen that discussion here. Related to the discussion at hand, however, I think lindy hoppers should incorporate variety into many aspects of their dancing because: more challenge, more visually appealing and helps ward off boredom. Lindy hop, after all, is maybe the most accommodating of all dances in this respect. And what is more monotonous to do and watch than the rock step? There's a reason followers prefer swivel walks. Nick Williams comes to mind as a leader who achieves this variety on counts 1&2. For example, in addition to ball changes, he does a really nice back tap sometimes on counts 1&2. One of the more bewildering aspects of lindy instruction to me is how ball changes are taught. Everyone knows kick ball changes but how many of you have ever been taught tap ball changes? I don't think I have ever seen anyone do a tap ball change on the social dance floor and the only time I've seen it in competition is a back tap ball change. It's bewildering because to me it's a simple and more versatile step than the kick ball change. Watch the leader in this video as he integrates both kick ball changes and tap ball changes into his dancing:

(7) Someone mentioned body leading but rather than speaking to your particular situation, I will talk about it in general. Proper "frame" is critical when the leader and follower are rotating over a common axis. Rotating over a common axis describes most smooth ballroom dances like waltz and foxtrot where dancers are in closed position. The body movement is what conveys the lead to the follower. Frame, however, is not that important in "rhythm" dances like Lindy Hop where dancers rarely rotate over a common axis (repeating lindy circle is an exception) and the emphasis shifts to the hand-to-hand connection. The lead primarily comes from this connection and is reinforced by body movement. You should be able to adequately lead a follower using nothing but "arm" leads. So why does that matter? Because sometimes a poor hand-to-hand connection can be masked by body movement. Also there are many patterns which are almost exclusively executed by the connection and arms. Note I am not saying that body movement as a part of leading should not be discussed or is not relevant (it is!), only that it is overemphasized IMO. That is why so many instructors have trouble explaining the concept and importance of "frame" for Lindy Hop.

I know I've gone on but your video touched a nerve. I remember being very confused and frustrated the first year I was learning lindy hop. Instructors would often give conflicting advice. Yes I get that this is a necessary evil of adopting a pure street dance mentality (no teacher licensing, no codified manuals, etc). What I don't get is why more of an effort has not been made in the era of youtube, online polls, etc. to try to determine if there is some consensus on certain things (e.g., swingout technique on 5&6). It would be nice to know where there are divides and where there is consensus. That's not likely to happen so my recommendation to Apache and others is to videotape themselves (or real time) doing the alternatives in a very controlled fashion and ask friends (especially non-dancers!!) to comment on which they like best.

BTW I sorta don't agree with 3 of the 4 items you identified at the end that you need to work on. In fact, I believe a couple of them could be considered strengths! Oh well...

You're dancing is great! Keep up the good work with the solid rhythm and pulse. In the video, at 0:19-0:22 you do some side-by-side Charleston-ish stuff with triple steps. You travel really well through this. I think applying that movement throughout your dancing will help out a lot, especially in triple steps in swing outs/tuck turns/side passes/etc. That travelling is wonderful body leading. Your own momentum and movement can create the connection, not the other way around (personal opinion).

A bit of an aside here--If the "introduction to a concept" you're talking about was Kevin and Jo's class, I super highly recommend Rocktober in Columbus. It was the same things that we did in Kevin and Jo's class, but for two days of progressive classes. I went to it last year, and it was absolutely fantastic and improved my dancing so much.

SparX was the first workshop I was able to go to since Rocktober, and also my first time making it into the upper level track, so there might be a correlation there. :D

There's been a bunch of great comments already all hovering around the same issue, manifesting as arm leads, ugly elbows, forward lean, lack of body lead, etc. All good observations, but I'm going to suggest they are perhaps more symptoms then cause. There's also a lot of focus here on the top half of the body (arms, torso, etc).

I'm going to suggest putting that all aside for a moment and examine it from the bottom up, starting with your feet.

With most every rock step and a fair number of other steps you are stepping out from under yourself. This is an unnatural motion (compared to normal walking) and IMHO, is the root cause of much of what's going on above the hips.

An exercise: Walk across a room normally and watch your feet; You should notice that your feet are always stepping underneath your body, not in front of you. It's weird huh? It's not what we might think we're doing when we walk, but it's how we humans actually do it. Walking is almost a continuous fall we're just barely avoiding by stepping down right under ourselves at the last moment. Our feet don't end up out from under us until we're about to pick them up again. The only time we step in front of ourselves is when we're running very, very fast. -Even when jogging we still step under our self, not in front.

So why do sometimes do it when we dance? Mostly because we over think it; We're thinking about where our foot should be stepping because we "know" where our foot should be going and that's all we can think about. We forgot how to walk.

And once our feet are out from under us all kinds of problems happen...

• We lean forward to counter balance the weight of our out-stretched leg.
• We arm lead because our body isn't stable since our weight isn't over our feet.
• We don't body lead because we're only thinking about where our feet should go...not where we should go...and thus we don't move at all...only our foot does...
• Our elbows look all funky because we're arm leading and leaning over, trying to not fall after we've kicked our own feet out from under ourselves. ;-)

So my suggestion is to put aside all those other things for a moment and just be sure to keep your feet under you. Just walk normally. Think only about where you want to go...worry less about which foot you'll use how to get there. A lot of the issues mentioned can't help but fix themselves automatically after that.

Remember...we're just walking when we dance. You've been doing it most all your life just fine. Lindy didn't reinvent walking, it just put it to music.

Week 2: (Feb 2, 2012)

I'm the guy in the blue stripped shirt.

If you are pressed for time here is one short video.

However if you are looking to kill time here is a second longer one.

Commentary on Goals:

I think the main things that I worked on the most was having a straight back, taking the Yehoodi talk show's suggestion of more basics, and taking Morgan's suggestion of stepping into swingouts. While I tried to work on the other things as well, these were the two that were at the forefront of my mind.

On an unrelated note it is slightly disheartening I have been working on things and at least in my mind there is little visible improvement, I do realize Rome was not built in a day.

Notes:

• Side passes still have odd lines as well as inside turns in swingouts.
• Swingouts have a stop start look to them and feet are oddly close
• Arm motion on the rock step looks artificial.

Wow, there's a lot of progress between the first and second week. Kudos! I do, however, see some things that stuck around and that I don't think anyone mentioned, so here I go. I'll try to keep them short and include any exercises I think of to help.

1. Even when you're not arm leading you conduct a bit with your arms (that is, you move your arms like a conductor of an orchestra). This is particularly apparent during the swingout, when your left arm drops as the tension builds in your right arm. It's good that there's no tension in your left arm, but there should still be tone. I consider tone to be use of the muscles necessary to maintain the structure of my frame and nothing more. I can't think of exercises for this other than trying to keep your arm still when you aren't using it, and not letting it move, vertically or horizontally, unless there's a purpose. So much for keeping it short.
2. Don't get ahead of the music. Really try to hit the down part of your pulse when the beat hits, and this will help regulate your tempo.
3. I really agree with Zenin: You do a lot of micro-musical things, which are cool and look like a lot of fun, but you're forgetting something that's in the title of your blog. It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. Micro musicality is what you do. Macro musicality is the way that you do it.
4. Posture again - Your posture is much improved and I think makes you look a lot more confident, but it all goes to hell is closed position. I don't know if it's subconscious fear of junk-ular proximity or if it's a conscious development of counterbalance, but it's not necessary in either case. If it's fear, I guess the only advice is get over it, but I think it's more of a counterbalance thing, in which case I have much better advice. You don't need that much counterbalance. In the swingouts in the most recent video you're asking for about a 3 from your follow when you lead in, but you're counterbalancing like she gave you a 7. Try to be a little more consistent in terms of what you ask for with your lead and what you prepare for. If you ask for a three, prepare for a three. If you want a seven, make sure you're asking for it.

Some exercises: For 2 and 3, there's an exercise that may help. Stand in front of a mirror and put on a song, or a few songs, of medium tempo. Do basic footwork mostly in place, with a bit of sideways motion on the triple steps. So you'll rock slightly toward the right side with your left foot, triple step to the left, rock slightly to the left with your right foot, triple step to the right, and repeat. Do this for the entire song, making sure that you have a steady, consistent pulse with the center of your body (the "core") shooting down with each beat. This will help your rhythm and consistency. As far as macro musicality, try to reflect the feeling of the music in the character of your pulse. If it's a chill song, keep your pulse really smooth. If it's really hard, pulse harder, with more of a snap. If an odd beat is accented in the rhythm, maybe add an up component of your pulse to match that. Basically play around. One note though: A good goal for this kind of exercise is the inability to tell what footwork you're doing from only looking at your upper body. So your pulse shouldn't change regardless of whether you're rock stepping or triple stepping. Sorry I'm so long winded. But there's more.

Exercise for 4: Get your partner, put on a medium tempo song, and just do swingouts. On the 3 and 4, try to stand as straight as possible and offer as little counterbalance as possible. Generally use the minimum necessary. Once you feel comfortable with that, start playing. Ask for more intensity (without increasing tempo) and counter that. Ask for less, etc.

Also, I think this is a tremendously good idea and I think I'm going to do this as well. Thank you for inspiring me. Sorry I am so damn wordy.

Alex

I think you've made a lot of improvement. Here are my tips for this week.

1) Pulse. In the second video you start off dancing in Charleston and have a nice pulse, but then you start doing swing outs and lose it. Pulse is what I felt was off in the first video.

2) Extension on 1. This is what causes you to look like you're a head of the beat, instead of behind the beat. If you watch you're swing out, you'll see you get to full extension by count 6. What you need to do is consciously save some of your extension for 1. Slow down your 5&6, and keep your arm next to your side during 7&8 so that you have some arm you can extend on 1 with your rock step. To do this you shouldn't automatically square your shoulders with your follow on 5&6, but you should keep your torso turned toward your left arm, then open up with you arm bent 7&8, and then extend on 1, with a Charleston type rock step. Does that make sense?

3) Triple steps. The triple steps done on 7&8 of your swing out look like the are being pushed into the ground because of the pike back in your body. It's important that you keep your feet underneath of you and pick up your feet so they don't drag. I recommend doing triple steps every day for a week for 15 minutes. Play a variety of tempos, just triple step, don't worry about rock steps. Practice triples steps that are "cross-over in front, ball, change" and "cross behind, ball, change" so you get used to stepping around your feel. You'll be amazed at how this will make your footwork have higher energy.

Keep up the hard work!

@Apache: Good job, definite improvement.

@alexcloutier: In post 16, I'd disagree with your first point. Tone in the left arm at that point should not be necessary. I'm sure other teachers will have varying opinions and the utility will probably vary depending on the specifics of the swing-out. In general I'd lean toward getting used to no tone at that point in a "basic" swing-out.

@Capt Morgan: While it came off as abstract at first your description for the extension on 1 reminds me very much of the Dean & Jewel class I took from Jeremy Otth and Laura Keat two years back at Camp Hollywood. I'm willing to give it a shot though. After reviewing the videos though I think the pulse is definitely a thing to add to the list this week and perhaps Dax's triple step exercise:

@alexcloutier: Thanks for the clarification, I think I will give that type of swingout this week. However at some people I would like to be able to lead a good swingout that I square up on 4 as well.

@ToonTownDave: I agree with your sentiment on the left arm simply because I have learned three different things to do from all national instructors. For me it comes off as a stylistic preference, however I am always willing to entertain the idea of trying something new.

@Zenin: Wow, that was a detailed breakdown and helped put into greater detail some of the things Capt Morgan recommended. There is a lot of good recommendations in there but I think I am going to start this week with the recommendation of not moving the arm at all.

@Everybody: Again thanks for all the recommendations, this week in particular it was hard choosing only four out of the various suggestions. However as I have learned the hard way in the past, if I have too many things on the docket I just get overloaded with information.

The four things I have picked for this week to work on are:

1. Maintaining a constant pulse & adjusting pulse to music.
2. Practice dancing with different levels of counter-balance.
3. NOT moving my left hand at all on the beginning of a swingout (unless if it occurs naturally).
4. Do Dax's triple step exercise on a daily basis.

Jumping into the little back and forth between Alex and Dave for a sec... ;-)

Left arm tension through 3, 4: I'm in the little to none camp, and actually I'll intentionally drop the hand entirely pretty often. Leading through the middle of the swingout with just the right arm connection is a great way to keep both me and my follow honest. If I don't feel the momentum or connection through 3,4, or I feel her holding tension on my left arm, I'll immediately start dropping the hand just after she starts coming forward and not pick it up again until nearly 6. It's pretty amazing how quickly this tightens up our connection and rapport across the board without having to say a word or make anyone feel like I'm trying to correct them on the floor (yuck!). It comes off as a styling choice rather then a correction.

Squaring up on 4 or being 45 (or even 90) degrees off: I wouldn't harp on this either way, it's a styling choice. That said there are two basic categories of mechanics for getting through the 3, 4, both valid just different (and a little contextual):

Circular Momentum or "Orbital": The lead's catching the follow and redirecting the energy into a tight circle, then releasing and she just moves out again. In the purest form the follow's speed never changes, only her velocity, making this a very energy efficient motion. The only energy used is to hold on (again, in the purest form).

Linear Stretch: The follow's path is entirely linear. Instead of redirecting her momentum along a circular path, her momentum is absorbed into a "stretch" of the lead's right arm and body, which the lead then uses to send her out again. I put stretch in quotes because like all "stretches" in dance lingo it's conceptional, not a real stretch. There is no energy conserved by a "stretch" as dancers define it. This motion in its purist form is 200% energy inefficient, as it requires 100% of the follow's momentum to be absorbed by force (muscle) and then 100% of the momentum to be recreated by muscle force. While it doesn't perhaps look like she ever stops moving, the reality is the follow is coming to a complete and total stop before starting out again.

In practice most dancers (of all skill levels) do a mix of both forms, resulting in the follow's path being a bit elliptical rather then perfectly circular or perfectly linear. Part of the reason is that getting a perfectly circular form takes extreme precision, any "slop" is compensated for by using the linear stretching form, resulting in an ellipse. But the larger reason is just a style choice; Typical conditions being what they are the efficiency is not a requirement, leaving the choice more of aesthetics then of necessity.

Note that neither form imply a "circular swingout" or "linear swingout" as we're only talking about the 3 and 4. It's entirely possible to do a "circular swingout" using a fully linear/stretch 3,4 and it is entirely possible to do a "linear swingout" with a pure circular orbit 3,4.

In Apache's videos I see some swingouts that lean more to the circular form, some that lean more linear. Nearly all are a blend, and that's just fine.

Back to the squaring up or 45: Either is usable in either form, although the 45 (or even 90) degree form can help more if you're going for a more circular 3,4. In the video example posted the lead is using about an even blend of both circular and linear stretch. It visually looks very circular, but the reality is using a lot of stretch.

Personally my favorite swingout is a very circular swingout with a circular 3,4. In other words both the follow and myself are moving very deliberately to our respective left all the time. When she's coming in, when she's coming around me on 3,4, she she's moving out, and when we're doing our triple steps on 7,8 it's all with a constant leftward motion. It means we're both always traveling in arcs, never straight. It requires a heck of a lot of dance floor, it severely limits styling choices, and it only works with a follow that isn't hell bent on traveling in/out in a straight line (which is a lot of follows...because of how most are taught), but that said to me it both feels and looks better then any linear swingout. Yah, I know, I'm in a tiny minority (possibly a minority of one ;-)

Fair enough. I don't mind if we have different opinions, as long as we understand each other. I definitely agree that there is nothing going on at that point and so it's not necessary to keep it level, I just like it better. I also asked my girlfriend for some input, because she's the greatest dancer in the world (though I'm biased), and she brought up the incredible point that one of the reasons she doesn't like it when a lead drops the hand is that it brings the hands closer to his junk. Food for thought.

Look forward to the next video Apache :) I hope to make one of my own tonight.

@NoNameJiver: As long as criticism is done in a constructive manner, I have no issue with honesty and am happy to receive the feedback.

Something that may give some insight to the situation you described in your first comment is the video from week 1 that is myself simply social dancing and not thinking about anything besides ensuring my dance partner had a good time. In the videos from week 2 while I was dancing in both films I was actively focusing on demonstrating the skills I attempted to learn in the goals I set from week 1 and that may be a contributing factor of why things look more "connecting the dots".

The reason why I resolved to try to stand straight is one of my main issues when I dance (multiple follows have commented on this) is I let my shoulders collapse forward and this causes problems. Standing up straight while a rudimentary approach to fix the problem, allows it to be one less variable I have to worry about while addressing other issues.

Personally I prefer dancing with a slight bend in my back and I agree with your views that it does have historical roots in our dance. However one of my personal dance philosophies is even if I don't necessarily agree with the look of something, I like to have the ability to do it because the more options I have the better I am able to adjust to what the music calls for and what my dance partner calls for. In result I am willing to try to dance with a straight back for a short while just to have the ability to do it, even if in the future it will possibly not be part of my standard modus operandi.

Regarding straight backs, it should be realized that the bend is more a side-effect of bending our knees (ditto weight on the balls of our feet) then it is an isolated aspect, wanted or unwanted.

When you deliberately bend forward in isolation all kinds of unwanted effects happen. Your entire body pitches forward, making you unstable and gangly looking. Your balance gets thrown off, which gets compensated by trying to counter-balance with outstretched legs and generally not stepping beneath yourself. And your weight ends up shifting very far forward, destroying connection. It looks bad, it feels bad, and it doesn't work well at all.

Yes, Dean Collins did have a very significant bend forward...at the hips. He sat very back very pronouncedly, bending greatly at the knees, his body as a whole was either straight or pitched back since he used a lot of counter-balance to get those fantastic pikes (even though his upper body was angled forward). Franky pitched much farther forward then Dean, but again he also dropped very low to the ground bending his knees...his body didn't pitch forward, his weight didn't pitch forward.

The first video appeared to have forward pitching for the sake of pitching forward, resulting in a lot of other issues. It's easier to first dance straighter at first, eliminating many of those issues automatically, and then work on dropping your height (by bending your knees)...which will cause you to pitch forward and dance more on the balls of your feet naturally...but without the unwanted issues.

That's a much easier method then trying to work backwards from an unstable forward pitch, correcting for all the side effects that caused.