- or - Safety on the Social Dance Floor.

Recently here at Shag Towers, we've overheard dancers saying four delightful words: 'Shag's taking over London!' Since we exist to spread the love of Shag, we're chuffed to bits to hear this, and even more thrilled to see it at nights across town.

With Shag becoming a fixture on social dance floors, we should all be promoting a culture of behaving responsibly towards ourselves, our partners, fellow dancers, and bystanders. This begins with floorcraft!

What is floorcraft? A mixture of instinct, common sense, and learned skills.

Floorcraft involves spatial awareness, visual awareness, and proprioception - 'the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement'. It's the same trick that enables you to negotiate a crowded bar of bodies without spilling a drop of your cocktail of choice.



Truly great dancers have great floorcraft, but the ninja nature of the skill means that it is necessarily very hard for others to see when it is being employed. Many dancers who want to raise their level therefore focus on learning the more visible expressions of greatness such as moves and styling; however, if you can improve your floor craft, you'll become a better, more popular, and above all safer dancer.



In order to promote good floorcraft, we've compiled this list of common sense tips and techniques. The principles of each point apply across many social dance forms, but we'll add in a few shag-centric comments. So - let's begin!

1. Style it small

Performance dancing and social dancing are very different animals.

Many favourite dance videos are culled from contests, where superstar couples are given a wide stage on which to let rip with huge kicks and expansive hand gestures. By comparison, we spend most of our time dancing on the social floor, where space is limited, and big moves can be risky.



Selected dances including Balboa and Shag are more obviously 'small', than others, but the potential for a prang remains. In Shag, for example, 'Arthur Murray' styling is often danced with heels are lifted high behind us. This is obviously dangerous on a crowded floor, so it is sensible to use alternative footwork, such as the 'curtsey', where one foot is tucked behind the other.



A great example of small shag can be seen in one of our favourite social dance clips, from the film 'Marihuana - the Devil's Weed' - check it out below.

In Lindy Hop, swing outs can be enormous, but they can equally be kept neat and precise. If the floor is crowded, reduce the length of those swing outs or stick to close hold. Think about what your limbs are doing. Backward donkey kicks might feel good on your end, but not on someone else's. Similarly, you might have seen a favourite dancer flourish their arm in a rainbow sweep with oh-so-much grace - try it on the social floor and you're likely to slap someone in the kisser.



Of course, if there is absolutely no space to dance, see if you can find another spot, rearrange the furniture, or consider sitting it out until the next song.

Remember: Good tunes are like trains - there'll be another along in 3 minutes.