I took enough lessons to learn my basics. I have fun social dancing, that’s all that matters, right? Why do I need more lessons?

You may have fun social dancing, but are you sure your partners are enjoying their dance with you? Maybe they smile, but don’t be too quick to assume their smile means approval. Your partners might be smiling because they are just nervous, or because they farted.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you don’t need to learn any more because you always have people asking you to dance.
Due to the common imbalanced ratio of followers to leaders, followers don’t always get to be choosy. They’re not necessarily dancing with you by choice – it might just be the only option other than sitting down.
Leaders may just be to shy or to insecure to ask ‘strangers’ and stick to ask the people they already know eventhough they
We can almost guarantee that every dancer would rejoice if you decided to work on improving your social dancing.

The point is, social dancing is a shared experience, meaning that your enjoyment is NOT all that matters – you also have a impact on your partner’s enjoyment and safety. This should motivate you to take lessons – to learn how to be a better, safer, more desirable partner. Improving your skills will also enable you to confidently keep up with higher level dancers and elevate lower level dancers to give them the best dance of their night.

Another great reason is because West Coast Swing evolves. If you haven’t taken lessons in the last 5 or 10 years, you’ve missed some opportunities to upgrade your technology and style – you’re still using your flip-phone while everyone else has upgraded to smartphones. It matters because it’s harder to communicate with technologies that aren’t in sync. The number of dancers still able to speak your language is dwindling. Evolve or die!   

(source: www.canadianswingchampions.com )