Myles & Tessa WCS Training

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Myles & Tessa WCS Training Canadian West Coast Swing Champions, globally ranked dancers, choreographers, and master teachers

Be honest... which one are you? 👀The wet noodle 🍜, the brick wall 🧱, the disappearing act, or the one everyone wants to ...
10/10/2026

Be honest... which one are you? 👀

The wet noodle 🍜, the brick wall 🧱, the disappearing act, or the one everyone wants to dance with? ✨

Good news: connection isn’t a personality trait. It’s a skill, and skills can be trained. 💪
Tag your dance partner and tell us which one they are.

💾 Save this for your next practice session.

10/07/2026

“Connection has to be learned in-person.”

We hear this all the time. And we get it. Connection is something you FEEL with a partner, so it seems like a screen can’t teach it. 🫠

I used to agree, because as a student, all the video instruction I saw seemed to only be focused on patterns & styling. IF connection was mentioned, it was abstract, confusing, or not detailed enough to make a difference.

But there is a better way that gives you the connection details you’ve been craving without needing us to train you in-person. And we got really good at it. 🙃

Tens of thousands of dancers in dozens of countries have trained with us online. The feedback we hear most is:
“my partners noticed before I said anything. They gave me a huge smile and said ‘What have you been doing? Your connection feels so much better!’”

But here’s what actually builds connection:

1. Your own body comes first. Good connection starts with your posture, your balance and how you transfer weight. All of that can be trained solo, from your living room.

2. You can’t fix what you can’t feel. We use progressive drills that isolate and slow things down so you notice what’s happening in your hands, back, feet, and tell you exactly what to feel for, in concrete language.

3. Repetition beats one-off workshops. A great weekend workshop is fun and can create epiphanies, but actually getting new skills into your body takes consistent practice, so we designed a complete practice blueprint (solo and partnered) to get a better ROI.

10/06/2026

Most WCS teachers learned to teach the same way: watching teachers they admired, assisting in classes and figuring out the rest through trial and error.

That kind of experience is valuable. It just isn’t supposed to be the only training you get.

Without formal training, teaching can feel isolating, overwhelming and eventually draining. It might be working out “fine.” But are your students learning better than you did?

Formal teacher training gives you:
✔️ Confidence in your decisions
✔️ An approach you can adapt to any class
✔️ Verified, appropriate technique
✔️ A framework for getting creative in your craft
✔️ More respect from students, other teachers and events

It doesn’t need to be a 4-year degree. But it does need to be more than a 4-hour intensive over a weekend.

That’s why we built the Swing Literacy Teacher Development Program: a 100% online, 50-hour, self-led course grounded in kinesiology, skill acquisition and pedagogy.

This isn’t a curriculum where we hand you our lesson plans. You keep your own style and your own voice. We train the skills your students need from you:

→ How to sequence skills
→ How to recognize prerequisites
→ How to make technique interesting
→ How to give better feedback
→ How to make learning stick
→ How to make better decisions on the fly

Then you can apply all of it to anything you want to teach, so you build stronger dancers and grow your community.

Ready to teach smarter? Link in bio, or DM us “TEACHER” and we’ll point you in the right direction.

10/03/2026

I learned to follow before I learned a single dance step. 👀
Before I became a dancer, my dad took ballroom classes at Arthur Murray. Every so often, I tagged along to his dance parties as a guest. 🪩
From the side of the floor he’d say, “Okay, this song is a cha-cha,” and count it out for me: “Two, three, four and one...” 🎶

I was a musician, so I got it right away.
Then he’d put my arms up in frame and tell me to “tone up.”

I didn’t really know what that meant, but he liked what I did. 😅
“Okay, that’s all you need. Now go follow a leader.”

And off I went. 💃
Nothing about it was good teaching, but it turned out to be an accidental gift. 🎁

I learned connection implicitly, not explicitly. It only worked because I happened to be a musician with an athlete’s body awareness.
For most dancers, connection isn’t that intuitive. 🧠

It takes a specific kind of body awareness and coordination that most people never get a chance to build before they start partner dancing.
I don’t want to scare you, but connection is a complex skill. It takes years to build and fine-tune. ⏳
That’s also one of the best parts of West Coast Swing. ✨

The more you train it, the better you understand your connection tools, and the more fun you can create with them.
So whenever you get a chance to learn more about connection, take it.

It’s your golden ticket. 🎟️
👇 What do you remember about the first time you learned anything about connection in WCS? Tell me below!

10/02/2026

“I’ve heard this already.” 🙄

Sound familiar? Maybe it feels like you’re not making progress. Or you sit in class bored because you already know what the teacher is covering.

Don’t be fooled. That’s an illusion. 👀

Learning isn’t a bridge you cross once and never look back at.

It’s a staircase. 🪜
Each step builds on the one before it, and you need all the steps behind you to keep climbing.

And it isn’t a straight staircase.
It’s a spiral. 🌀

The first time you hear something, your brain is still processing it and your body is still getting used to it.
That’s orientation, not learning.

The second time, you already have a framework for it.
Now you can play with it, get feedback, make adjustments, and build consistency.
That’s where the progress happens. 📈

And every time you come back to it, you go deeper.

So next time you catch yourself thinking “I’ve heard this already,” change the question:

💭 What more can I learn this time?
💭 What did I miss the first time?
💭 What details am I finally ready to notice?

There’s always another layer. The depth you can discover is limitless. 💫

Keep learning, and celebrate your growth spiral. 🌀💛

👇 What’s one thing you’ve “learned” more than once that keeps showing you something new? Tell us in the comments!

DanceProgress

09/28/2026

You’ve taken the workshops. You’ve watched the videos. You’ve done the privates. So why does it still feel like your dancing isn’t changing as fast as it should?

Usually it isn’t that you need more content. It’s that you need a system for what you already have.

That’s why we built the Dancer Development Program (DDP). It’s not a library of random topics. It’s a structured program of study that shows you:

✔️ The essential skills every West Coast Swing dancer needs
✔️ The most efficient order to train them in
✔️ How to practice so those skills actually show up on the social floor

The DDP has six multimedia modules built on progressive skill development, a science-based way of learning.

It doesn’t replace your teachers, and it isn’t a new style of dance. It changes how you learn, so every lesson, workshop, and video you take after this sticks faster and goes deeper. That’s what makes it a force multiplier for everything else you invest in your dancing.

It works at any level, from newer dancers to All-Stars.

Tap the link in our bio to learn more about the DDP!

“I’m not advanced level yet, but there’s no one else in my town who can teach.”OR“There are already higher level teacher...
09/26/2026

“I’m not advanced level yet, but there’s no one else in my town who can teach.”
OR
“There are already higher level teachers who are teaching in my area. I don’t think I’m good enough to teach yet”

We hear this all the time from dancers thinking about teaching.

Here’s the truth: teaching is its own skillset, separate from dancing. Being good at WCS doesn’t automatically make you good at teaching it.

What actually makes someone a great WCS teacher?

1️⃣ Sense of responsibility: you’re shaping people’s experience of this dance and this community.
2️⃣ Real training: not just a weekend workshop, a full foundation.
3️⃣ Growth mindset: modeled for your students, not just talked about.
4️⃣ Empathy: anticipating what your students need before they ask.
5️⃣ Performance: the confidence to hold a room, because teaching is also selling the joy of moving.

Curious about teaching West Coast Swing? Swipe through.Short answer: you don’t need to be a competitor, and you don’t ne...
09/22/2026

Curious about teaching West Coast Swing? Swipe through.

Short answer: you don’t need to be a competitor, and you don’t need to be perfect. You do need experience, self-awareness, and respect for the craft.

We break down what qualifies you, what “ready” actually looks like, and the real difference between informal and formal training. If you’re serious about it, the Swing Literacy Teacher Development Program has been developing WCS teachers online since 2009.

Check out this article (Link in bio):
https://www.swingliteracy.com/becoming-a-wcs-teacher/

09/19/2026

As a West Coast Swing judge, these are some small things that get me every time.

💃 Confidently hitting the first musical accent with your partner, before you even start your first pattern
💃 Footwork so articulate and agile that the fabric of your pants “dances” too
💃 Grooving appropriately to the bumper music
💃 Acting the emotion of the song with your face and body *without miming*
💃 One well-timed throwback move that shows you respect the history (especially if it's one of mine 😅)

None of these are enough to override my fundamental criteria, but they help!

09/16/2026

Jazz is a different vibe, different phrasing, with different kind of techniques than what most West Coast Swing training tends to prep you for.

Sure, you could start with your Blues skills - swung rhythm, shorter slots, etc.
Then as you improve and automate your skills, you will add more patience, over-rotation, hover moments, jazz footwork like Eric and I leaned into to create the classic character and classy vibe of this big band jazz standard song.

And that’s the real test of musicality: can you dance the same WCS you always dance, but let the song actually change how it looks and feels?

The best dancers are chameleons - adaptable to any genre.
Something we always emphasize in Swing Literacy.
Of course this is just scratching the surface.
We go into this deep, in Module 4 of the DDP and the Blues Breakthroughs mini-course.

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