I was part of the Traffic Jam! Swing performance team which competed at the 2025 Dayton Swing Smackdown. 13 teams competed. It is a fantastic event, fueled by an outpouring of supportive Midwest energy.

Saturday was filled with non-stop dancing. A great group of dance in structors led us through a series of hour-long lessons. The teachers have unique perspectives on the dance, so each of the classes was very different. Because of this variety, my takeaways often surprised me.

Class 1: Doug Bae & Val Kutchko

The first lesson for my track was taught by Doug Bae & Val Kutchko. They taught a sequence that started with an offhand tuck-turn. This led the follow into a disconnected free turn. The lead then tracked around the follow, changing the second triple step of the six count into a step-step. Doing so allowed the partnership to change into a pattern that felt like a face-to-face mambo step.

As Doug was teaching, I noticed a few things about his dance. He has unique posture. His upper torso is very calm, but he is still able to be expressive. It seems like he has very good economy of movement. He also is able to generate more than enough force and tension without big gestures.

Class 2: Ana Lisa Sutherland & Jon Tigert

Jon Tigert and Ana Lisa Sutherland taught our second class. They focused on sugar pushes. I have been trying to make sugar pushes feel right for a while now. Jon had the leads stand stationary with the right foot back. I have been doing sugar pushes with my left foot back, since that matched the weight distribution of the basic six count pattern: the first triple step for the lead ends with weight on the left foot, which is positioned behind the right. I discussed this with my classmates afterwards. They offered that the weight is best distributed evenly across the feet. They also offered that staggering with the left foot back may not be entirely wrong, and could be used stylistically. Nevertheless, I will still shift my default sugar push to right foot back, and hopefully that will make it feel smoother.

Ana Lisa and Jon added a few more sugar push tips. They emphasized that the sugar push was a follower driven move, and the lead’s role is to absorb the force and allow the follow to spring off of them. They then showed good hand position, with the lead’s hands coming up from under, and the follow pushing down. They lastly talked about angle variations and chest pushes, which are best employed when the partners know each other well.

Classes 3 and 4: Irina Amzashvili & Rafal Pustelny

Rafal Pustelny and Irina Amzashvili started their class with a warmup to pop music. I immediately loved Rafal’s movement. He got down to the music. He is one of my favorite dancers I have come into contact with so far. In a later class, Irina emphasized the importance of party dancing, an idea which Jo Hoffberg has articulated as well. Party dancing, she said, allows a dancer to learn how they enjoy moving to the music without inhibition. This is especially important to swing because it is an improvisational dance which responds fluidly to the musical queues. As one grows as a Lindy Hopper, one learns how to turn the body into conductor of the sounds and rhythms of jazz.

Rafal and Irina then led us through a series of exercises which explored various levels of tension between lead and follow. We linked hands, and rocked back and forth. We paid attention to the endpoints, which are the points where the partners stop moving away from each other. Irina said clear endpoints are one of the most important things she looks for in a leader’s style.

We then applied the end-point exercise to swingouts. Rafal and Irina instructed us to first perform long swingouts, where the partnership stretched out the extreme, before closing back in. We contrasted that with short swingouts, where the lead purposefully signaled the endpoint at an earlier moment. The instructors pointed out that this shortening did not mean increased tension in the hands and forearms. The communication of the end point was performed subtly, through an barely visible signal coming from the lower to mid back.

After we practiced communicating different endpoints, we translated the short endpoint to a drop-out move. The lead communicated that the endpoint would be short, then dropped out all tension around the 6. This signaled that something other than a swingout would follow. We practiced adding in Tacky Annies.

Lastly, we added a side stepping move off the 6 of the swingout. The lead directed upward diagonal force coming out of the faceoff, then gently pushed the follow away and into a stretch. I have seen variations of this move in various places, included some beautiful balboa versions. I hope to incorporate it more often while social dancing.