Anchoring Your West Coast Swing

It is the first “figure” in the Roundalab west coast swing manual, but technically the anchor is only the end of most real figures. Hard to believe it is considered one of the most difficult of west coast swing steps.

The anchor is basically three steps in two beats of music, counted as 1&2. Its name is descriptive of what it does—anchoring the end of one figure to re-establish connection between partners for the next figure.

It can be done like any triple step in dance, but it should have its own look, distinctive to west coast swing, says Buddy Schwimmer, owner of The Dance Center in Redlands, CA, who is known as the “king of swing” and was named to the World Dance Council Hall of Fame. Teachers make a mistake showing the similarities between rhythms, when demonstrating a new figure, instead of teaching what makes it different from the others, he wrote in his book Swing: Learn to Dance The Easy Way. “Then they wonder why all their students’ dancing looks alike.”

In teaching west coast swing, he says, it is important to explain why a man leads in a certain way, as well as when. That lead is part of why west coast swing has a “smooth and sophisticated” look that he sees as closer to the ballroom rhythms than to swing.

His basic rules for partnering in west coast swing:

1. Lady does not move until the Man moves her. He does this by moving his body, not pulling with his arm. His first step is in the direction he wants her to go—if he is facing her, his first step is back so that she moves forward. This is different from east coast swing/jive, where the partners dance mirror opposites—both rock back to start.

2. Once she is in motion, she continues until she is stopped by her partner. If she is going forward, she continues moving. If she is turning, she continues to turn. She does not change directions or stop on her own.

Assuming the partners have tone in their arms, the lead occurs when Man steps back, keeping his arm in the same relationship to his body, Buddy says. He doesn’t let his arm lengthen out. Lady on the other hand allows her arm to extend before she moves in response to his lead. No moving at the same time or “cloning” what he does.

Getting that tone in the arms comes from a good anchor step. For starters, the anchor does not move. Think “anchoring” a boat at sea.

Standing on Man’s left foot, Lady’s right, place your free foot in what is called “third position” with the instep next to the heel of standing foot (count 1). Call it the anchor foot. Recover to the non-anchor foot (on the “&” count), and back to the anchor foot (count 2).

Even though you are transferring weight on each step, concentrate on keeping the anchor foot in third position.

The idea is that Lady is settling her weight on the third step. Her next step will be forward. The Man also settles on the third step but his next step is back in the same direction as he took the third step so that his weight is already traveling in that direction. This sets up the bungee-cord effect of west coast lead and follow.

The action of the anchor is called “posting.” Try it by standing in front of your refrigerator, holding the handle. Shift your body weight slightly back toward the heels. If you shifted so much that you opened the door, you moved too much. Now anchor. The door should still stay closed. This means you would not have disturbed the connection with your partner.

As explained in the RAL manual, the anchor “moves very little, but the center point of balance, and thus the body, moves back, the hips swing slightly forward, and back with the weight firmly settled over the rear foot at the end and with some tension in the handhold to facilitate leading the next figure.”

As you become more comfortable with connection, think about a slight variation in timing. Instead of splitting beat 1 into two halves to get the 1&, play with “rolling count” to make your dancing more musical. This concept recognizes nuances in music, such that the count “1&2” can actually be “&a1&a2&a.”

A note of music is a span of time, not just a noise. It is said to have an attack (the initial noise), a duration and a release. Beginners generally don’t have the ear or the body control to use all of the beat, and as a result, they step with the attack and wait for the next attack. This results in choppy movement.

Rolling count is the secret to upper level dance performance, according to Skippy Blair, another World Swing Hall of Famer. To her, that “&a” is as important in west coast as the full beats. It creates three separate mini-counts from one beat to allow dancing through the beat, to create body flight when not taking a step.

We can dance our anchor with “straight count,” which means the second step on the “&” occurs halfway between beats 1 and 2. Rolling count splits a beat unevenly so that the “&” is closer to the downbeat and the “a” is later. Applied to our anchor, it would be: Step back on “1”, let the body roll on “&”, recover on “a”, and settle back on “2”.

I can see your eyes rolling, but try it. You might even be doing it naturally because blues music used for west coast swing is played that way. It's new way of looking at an old standard.

From a club newsletter December 2019, and reprinted in the Dixie Round Dance Council (DRDC) Newsletter, September 2024. Find a DRDC Finch archive here.