Crossing over at Swingtime

Last weekend Scott, Vanessa, Laura and I all went to Swingtime in the Rockies in Denver, Colorado. SwingTime has been a West Coast Swing, aka WCS, event for years, but this year they decided to add Lindy Hop to the mix. There aren't too many Crossover Events, so when I found out about it, I was really excited. Overall we had a great time, though there was a bit of disorganization due to all the new Lindy stuff they added.

Laura and I got to teach a few classes and Scott did a whole bunch of Soul/Lindy DJing, more than he expected actually :). He even ran the competition music for several divisions.

WCS events have a lot of competitions, and with the addition of Lindy, there were way more this year. All 4 of us competed, and did pretty well!


Scott and Vanessa placed 2nd in the Advanced/All-Star Strictly Lindy! (Strictly means you choose your partner and dance to a random song). As Teachers, Laura and I got to do the Invitational Strictly Lindy together and the Invitational Jack and Jill (JnJ = random partner random song). Laura placed 2nd in the JnJ with Dax Hock, a real badass! We got 4th place in the Strictly somehow, and as a result we had to do the Crossover Jack and Jill.

So what's a Crossover JnJ you ask? Take the top five couples from the Pro Strictly WCS and Lindy divisions and throw them into a Jack and Jill where Lindy leads have to dance with WCS follows and vice versa. You get one WCS song and one Lindy song. Crossover JnJ's are the BEST! Everyone usually hams it up really hard. Needless to say, Swingtime was no Exception.

Laura and I were quite stressed about having to dance WCS so we got Scott (who's done a ton of it in the past) to give us some pointers. I saw Jordan Frisbee (yes this Jordan) practicing some Lindy with Jessica Cox, so I shouted some moves he should do. Instead he and Jessica came over and we started trading moves and styling for WCS and Lindy. Eventually Max Pitruzella came over to show Jordan some of his ninja moves. It was an amazing experience getting to really work on stuff with such amazing dancers.


When it came time to compete/perform several really cool things happened. First we all decided to trade clothes. WCS dancers dressed up like Lindy Hoppers. Yup I wore rhinestones and Laura wore sequins. The best part was that I drew Jessica and Laura drew Jordan in the JnJ! Getting them made everything way less stressful. When videos popup, I'll be sure to post them.

We competed in heats of 2 couples and Laura's Heat consisted of her and Jordan and Max and Jennifer Deluca. Since Max and Jordan worked out those sweet moves, they did them in sync. I wish there was video already, cause it was sooo sweet. In the end Laura took 1st place with Jordan. Jessica and I got 4th. It was awesome.

Other highlights of the weekend: A hilarious Truckin' contest and a super fun strictly blues contest. Words wouldn't do them justice, they need videos. I'll post 'em when I see 'em.