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Table of Contents
Introduction:......................................................................................4
Part 1................................................................................................ 7
What Core Values Are
And Why They Matter ......................................................................7
Definition 1: .....................................................................................7
Definition 2: .....................................................................................7
The other side of the coin: ................................................................8

SET Define your core values! .......................................................8

IMPLEMENT Show, don't tell.......................................................11
FILTER Don't be afraid to say No!...............................................14
Part 2 Concrete Cases ................................................................16
Classes and Workshops.................................................................16
SET:........................................................................................................16
IMPLEMENT:........................................................................................17
FILTER:..................................................................................................18
Core Value: Don't sacrifice on techniques......................................19
Core value: Higher Vision...............................................................20
SET:........................................................................................................20
IMPLEMENT:........................................................................................22
FILTER:..................................................................................................23
Core Value: Learning......................................................................24
SET:........................................................................................................24
IMPLEMENT:........................................................................................24
FILTER:..................................................................................................25
Your People....................................................................................25
How to FIND/ATTRACT great teachers and team members:........26
How to KEEP great teachers and team members:...........................27

Your Marketing: ..............................................................................30

Core value: Share to grow...............................................................30
SET:........................................................................................................31
IMPLEMENT:........................................................................................31
FILTER:..................................................................................................32
Summary.........................................................................................34
Step 1: SET - Discover your core values! ..............................................34
Step 2: IMPLEMENT - Show, don't tell.................................................34
Step 3: FILTER Don't be afraid to say No!.........................................35
Contributions:..................................................................................36
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF SOCIAL DANCE................36
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Contributor: Joo-Lee Stock.............................................................41

Last words:......................................................................................45
Free Prize inside:............................................................................46
A NOTE ABOUT COPYRIGHT.......................................................48
The big thank you:...........................................................................48

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Introduction:
It was best said by the Flight Of The Conchords: Cuz
everything is just right, conditions are perfect.
When the conditions are perfect, you find yourself being in
an ecstatic mood. You lose track of time and you feel
connected to your surrounding.
Have you ever felt such an excitement about a dance
camp from the first moment you attended it that you find
yourself telling all your friends and students to go there next
year? That's the feeling you get when the core values of the
other person or the event match your core values.
This happened to me when I first visited the Lindy Shock
dance camp in Budapest! Already from the first moment, it felt
like the camp was just made for me. My most important
personal core values are LEARNING and SHARING. Lindy
Shock was like getting a pure shot of my favourite drug
learning and sharing.
I

got

to

know

Lindy

Shock

from

three

different

perspectives: as a student, a teacher and a curious, scientific

mind. The level in the dance classes I attended at Lindy
Shock was the highest I ever experienced. I got to teach the
largest variety of students from all over the world. And finally, I
got to share thoughts and exchange ideas with the organizer,
Marcell. No surprise that I am looking forward to this event
throughout the entire year every year and going to Lindy
Shock has become a tradition for Katja and me.

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I believe what got me hooked on this camp is that Marcell

took the risk and put his values out there for everybody to see.
He was very clear with what he likes and doesn't like. His
focus is on energetic music, lots of high quality social dancing,
specifically selecting teachers who are known for their skills in
socially applicable lead and follow techniques.
The way Marcell designed Lindy Shock made it very easy
for me to figure out if we would connect or not. Today, Marcell
and I frequently E-mail and talk to exchange ideas.
What I learned from this experience is that being clear on
your core values helps you easily make decisions on:

What music to play at your event.

Which teachers to hire for your event.

Which dancers you want to attract to your event.

When you decide on these aspects based on your core

values, you will attract people who share your love for Lindy
Hop in the same way you feel about it.
Once you know your core values, you want to express
them in your own actions, through the people who work with
you, through the design of your event and through your
marketing.
For the past two years, Katja and I have been exploring our
core values and experimenting with how to implement them.
Within this period, we have gone from one couple who
teaches small local Lindy Hop classes as a hobby to teaching
weekend workshops around Europe and building a fantastic

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team of instructors running weekly classes locally and

workshops throughout Germany. We reached the economical
stability to quit our day-time jobs and are now fully focussing
on growing the swing dance community and our own dancing.
Our journey took us from a fun pastime to being main
instructors at amazing events like the Rock That Swing
Festival (Germany), Smokey Feet (Holland), Lindy Shock
(Budapest) and many more events around Europe.
If you are running a local dance scene, this book will help
you find new ways to attract people, both fellow doers to join
you in your endeavour of growing the scene, and students
who come to your classes year after year to learn from you.
If you are an event organizer, you will get ideas on how to
make your workshop that Lindy Hop heaven you dreamt of
when you first started it an event that teachers and
participants will gladly talk about to their friends and bring
them along next year.
If you are a travelling instructor, you will learn how to reach
and communicate with the right organizers and key scene
members (students who influence the organizers) to give you
the opportunity to teach more.
I will share with you how we use the Set, Implement and
Filter/method to establish our core values and how you can do
the same to grow your swing dance business or organization.

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Part 1
What Core Values Are
And Why They Matter
Core values are something that business and marketing
experts talk about they are used in positioning your
company, your product, and managing your customer
relationship.
In simple terms, core values are the things you like, the
things that are important to you. Studying core values, I found
2 major definitions of what core values are and how they
affect a group of people. Here's how this translates into the
swing dance world.

Definition 1:
A core value is a principle without which dancing is
not worth doing.
Now that sounds like a high bar and it is! Think about
what really drives you to go out for social dancing or classes.
Take that motivation away and the evening falls flat, the party
would be lifeless. And, some people would go as far as to say
dancing is not worth it anymore.

Definition 2:
A core value is a principle without which the top
people in your scene will leave.

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This is fundamental! Your community is made up by your

people. If your top dancers the ones who inspire and push
you to become better would leave the community, your
scene would lose its shine and be far less exciting.

The other side of the coin:

A core value is a principle that will cause you pain, but
if you dont implement it, you have no integrity.
Notice the beginning of it: cause you pain. Core values
has such a positive ring to it, that we might think of them as a
happy land where bunnies hold hands with wolves, singing
we are the world. Core values actually are double-edged
swords. They let you do great things, but if you are trying to
do something that is inconsistent with the values of other
people in the scene, the scene will reject it. If you start to
create a scene with clear core values, you know you have
their support as long as you operate within the boundaries of
these core values. However, step outside and you lose your
integrity and the support of your people.
Putting your core values out there for everyone to see,
letting people know what it is that you like and find important,
will open up the opportunity to have a deeper relationship with
the people around you and new people you meet.

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SET

Define

your

core

values!
I explained what perfect-conditions could do for you. But
what about ALMOST perfect conditions? It's in the difference
between feeling indifferent or feeling truly annoyed where you
will find your core values!
If a condition is truly important to you it will be hard to let
go and have fun. That's why, to SET your core values, you
want to pay attention to the moments where you are having a
fantastic time, and the moments where you should have a
fantastic time but you dont.
A moment of revelation to me was at the Total Swing
Experience with Dax and Sarah in Tampere (Finland). The
idea behind this camp was that everybody came to learn one
specific philosophy of how to swing dance. The critical
conditions that I believe made this event special were:

Everybody could dance to any tempo, from beginners to

advanced dancers.

Even the beginner/Intermediate dancers had very good lead

and follow technique.

Nobody was fixated on 6-count or 8-count moves or any other

kind of pattern

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This experience gave me a deeper understanding for what

the conditions that makes me happy. I had a feeling that this
is what was missing for my own scene.
When I reflect back to what motivated me to start teaching
in the first place was to recreate a little bit of the life style I had
while living in Paris. Katja and I could go out for social dancing
almost every evening. We got together with our friends to
practice and discuss dancing. We could challenge eachother
with complicated social moves and fast dancing.
When we started to teach our first classes in 2005, each
course was showing the student the classical 6- and 8-count
moves of Lindy hop and Charleston. To me, it is important to
dance at the level of my partner. So whenever I danced with
my students I tried to keep to the basic 6- and 8-count moves
that we've been showing them. Usually to slow or mid tempo
songs as anything faster was too challenging. You see, this
limitation did not thrill me that much. Where was the challenge
and inspiration?
After the Tampere experience I started to get a much
better understanding to what I really want. I was getting
increasingly impatient with social dance nights with only slow
to medium music and dancing that was restricted to 6- and 8count patterns.
This is when we started to experiment with introducing
what we learned in Tampere and figuring out what worked for
us. We tested if we could teach our beginners the
movements instead of moves. This would break us free
from fixed patterns. We also experimented with teaching the
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beginners to use exactly the same techniques as we use

without any simplifications that would make it easier.
Today, we have a complete syllabus that takes a student
from zero to hero with these core values as our guide lines:

Teach movements (not moves)

Never sacrifice on technique

Today, I can challenge my students beginner to

advanced with all sorts of variations and combinations. We

can put on songs above 200 bpm and even the beginners
stand up and dance. Now, I don't have to wait 3 years before
having a nice, fun social dance with decent connection to an
energetic song, it's more like 3 weeks.
Please note that these core values are just my core values.
I'm just sharing my values to help you find yours by using the
SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER-method.
Now back to you: can you think of some moments or
places where you felt all excited about the dance? Try to
describe the conditions of this event as detailed as you can,
so instead of great music, try to define what the music was
like fast, very rhythmic, soft, or melodic?
Now, which conditions, if left out would make you feel
indifferent, sad or truly irritated when not there? If you felt
almost indifferent, it's not a value, but a good to have
condition. If you felt slight irritation but you can still have fun,
it's a value, but perhaps not a core value. If you felt annoyed
and thrown of your mojo, then that's probably one of your
core values.
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IMPLEMENT Show, don't

tell
I first read about the importance of core values in a book
called Delivering Happiness by Tony Shey (I highly
recommend it!). Inspired by the book, I drew up my first list of
core values, staying quite close to the author's ideas and
words. To make them easy to remember, I put them into a
cool acronym:
L Learn and Grow
I Inspire and Wow
N No Sacrifice on technique
D Drive Change and reduce friction
Y Young at heart

H Higher Vision
O Open and honest / authentic
P Passionate about the swing dance culture
I felt very professional for having set up my core values
according to things that are very important to me. And that I
managed to put it in a memorable acronym: LINDY HOP. Yay
me... or so I thought. :/

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Time passed and I saw no change in my business and the

people around me. What did I do wrong?
My biggest mistake when setting up these core values was
that I stopped there. No matter how cool your core values
sound, they won't make a bit of difference in your community
or business unless they are reflected in the processes you set
up and in your actions.
It was not until I started to IMPLEMENT the core values
into my processes and actions that I started to see actual
results.
Once you know which values motivate you and make you
happy, it is important that you find ways to implement them in
all aspects of your organization.
When I figured out that I really want my students to dance
with movements instead of moves from their very first steps
on, I had to rethink how we teach our classes. It's been almost
two years of experimenting and modifying, but now we are
proud to have a complete syllabus that follows our teaching
core values:

Teach movements (not moves)

Never sacrifice on technique

The biggest challenge we faced was implementing the

never sacrifice on technique-idea.

We achieved this by following the concept of flow that
was developed by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
He realized that it is possible to design experiences that bring

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you into that special mental zone where you find yourself
completely immersed in the activity you are doing and forget
about time and place. If you played Sim City or Civilization on
the computer when you were younger you know what I mean.
The approach is simple, the level of challenge has to be
just above the current level of your ability. Aim too high and
your students get frustrated, aim too low, and they'll get bored.
As an example, you can download our free instructional
DVDs that demonstrate a variation of our beginner classes in
Charleston and Lindy Hop at: www.swingstep.tv.
If you watch the DVDs, I want you to notice how we give a
short bit of information that allows people to dance to the
music with only that in mind. Then, we add another bit of
information that allows them to explore new movements. Most
importantly, we teach the same technique that Katja and I use
in our own dancing. As Katja and I lead and follow the
differences between steps and triple steps and everything
else, our students will learn from the start how to lead and
follow the difference between steps and triple steps.
What about your core values? To make sure you are
implementing your core values in all aspects of your
community/business list all your values in a list form to the left
of a piece of paper. Then on the top, you write down the
different types of activities you do e.g.: courses, workshops,
taster classes, parties, online videos, flyers, business cards
and your homepage. Then, whenever you felt that you have
been implementing a core value to an activity just check mark

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on your table. Now you can keep track on where else you
need to implement your activities.

FILTER Don't be afraid to

say No!
Filtering your core values is emotionally the hardest step.
This is where fear can paralyse your decision-making. To filter
your core values means to filter your actions, decisions, and
the people around you and see, whether or not they match
your core values.
Imagine telling your students that you had a total
makeover and that almost everything you thought before will
be re-described in this new light. Imagine telling them that you
made a change, and it's important that your students do the
same change.
That's exactly what we did.
Naturally, new dancers, who had no previous experience
took up this new approach lightning fast. Today, when I dance
with my beginners I am so excited and happy for the quality of
movements they have. I can lead the followers anything I want
within the technical framework that they learned, and most
often even more. The leaders can lead any follower any
combination of moves based on the techniques they learned,
and often even invent their own variation already after one or
two classes.
Amongst the more established dancers of the scene we
had slightly different results: Some got very fascinated while
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others stopped coming to our classes. But this is what it

means to filter. Filtering, by definition means that you get a
selection of people out of many. What's counter-intuitive is
that our classes are much better attended now since we
started to filter harder.

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Part 2 Concrete Cases

In this section I want to take you through how we applied
the SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER-method to our classes,
people, and marketing. Also, I will share with you how you can
do the same!
Here I will share with you my core values. I'm not trying to
convince you to adopt the same core values... I'd love it if you
do, but that's not the point. I'm hoping, sharing mine will help
you find yours. This way, you get to grow a dance community
that you love!

Classes and Workshops

Here are a couple of core values that we are operating on
when we make decisions for what we teach and how we deal
with our students.
Core Value: Excellence

SET:
As a teacher I get great pleasure from seeing that
everybody in my classes gets it. I used to say: Leave no
man behind. As soon as someone was struggling I took the
time I could to help that dancer. Sometimes, I even took small
breaks to get that person up to speed with the rest of the
group. However, I noticed that my favourite dancers, left the
classes. Some even stopped dancing all together. I don't
know about you, but I really get excited and get energized
whenever I see a great student.

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There is a great book named First, Break All The Rules

by Marcus Buckingham. One of the points he makes in that
book is that we should spend most of our time on our top
performers.
This was a very radical idea to me but I gave it a try! I
started to observe and give more feed-back and bonus
material to our top-performers. The result was immediate!
Now, most people were laughing in the classes feeling the
success, I started to challenge my top performers with higher
expectations and intricate movements.
It was such a joy!
This is when I realized that I am Excellence Driven. I love
to reach excellence in what I do, and I LOVE helping people
reach excellence.

IMPLEMENT:
Today, our classes are structured on the layer concept.
This means that I give everybody the basic concepts (the first
layer), but then as some people start to get comfortable with
that material I ad more layers on top as bonuses. Now,
dancers who need more time to get comfortable with the
movements can focus on the fundamental layer while faster
learners can start playing with the bonus materials. This way
each person can learn at their own tempo. Always keeping
people in their personal state of flow.

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FILTER:
Many times, filtering is hard and painful. But it's always
important. I have asked students to step down to the lower
level. I explained that they need some more time to work on
their body awareness and the group is progressing very fast
so if they stay with this group they will find themselves very
frustrated and de-motivated.
Once I remember, I had a student who struggled a lot with
the material. In the class, I gave her some pointers and, after
a couple of lessons, we spoke about the importance of
practice and repetition.
Unfortunatelly, she did not find the time to practice on her
own, so naturally, she could not catch up to the rest of the
group. After her third re-take of our beginner course, she gave
me the ultimatum: Put me in the higher class or I'll stop
dancing! Economically,

I would have appreciated her

business, but that would go against my core value of

Excellence Driven.
I told her that it's sad that she will stop dancing entirely just
because we're not a good fit for each-other. I explained that
other dance schools take different approaches, perhaps their
methods suits her better. However, as long as you are
struggling with our basics, you won't be able to get to the
higher levels I told her.
This was the hardest example of filtering I ever had to do.
Sometimes you have to see if a person is a good fit for you
and your community. And yes, every once in a while you'll
have to fire someone.
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My belief is, however, that the clearer and earlier you

communicate your core values the fewer people will you need
to fire.

Core Value: Don't sacrifice on

techniques
Have you ever experienced a class outside your own
community, perhaps at a smaller workshop in another city,
where you found yourself surrounded by people who always
shout: moves, moves, we want moves, while you are the
techniques driven dancer?
When we started to travel more and more for teaching,
before we knew how to project our core values, we found
ourselves in such an environment. Both the organizer and the
students wanted the workshop to be like candy and not an
opportunity for transformation and change. I hated it! In fact,
at first, we tried to hide the technique inside the moves.
Today, two things have happened: We put our technique on
the front page, meaning that's why they come to our class.
The counter-intuitive result is that with this approach the
students actually learned more moves.
Today, I can't recall when we last got asked to teach
candy-classes, either by organizers or students. Those
organizers stopped asking us to teach, and those students
stopped joining our classes. The more interesting result is that
we are getting hired more and more, and at more prestigious
workshops. I like to think it's because the ones who do

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resonate with us have an easier time making the decision of

hiring us.
Pst. This was a SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER in disguise
But I'm sure you noticed. ;)

Core value: Higher Vision

Have a higher vision for your customer than what they
have for themselves. - Eben Pagan
The lofty idea behind this is that I want my dancers to be
the best they can be. I believe, the most important quality you
should have as a teacher is to have a higher vision for your
students than what they have for themselves. Thats how you
ensure to always deliver more value than what they are
paying for.
My high vision for my students is that I want my students to
become excellent swing dancers. To me, that means that they
learn how to dance with anyone around the world with perfect
clarity in their movements AND get their partner to smile,
laugh and really enjoy the dance.

SET:
There are two important elements that I need to see in a
class to stimulate this core value:
1. Good technique
2. People laughing
And importantly, both happening in each class. It's very
hard for me to leave any of these two elements out of the

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equation. I cringe every time someone says: In the beginning,

I just want our students to have fun thats why we dont
focus on technique. Gosh!
I always compare that to climbing up the ladder to get to
your roof. If you put the ladder on the wrong wall you'll never
get where you want, once you noticed that you have to climb
all the way down and start climbing up a new wall again. I
can't tell you how many times Katja and I completely climbed
up and down until we are where we are now.
More importantly, what's very interesting to me, is that
since we combined good technique with people laughing
we've had much improved business. The right mix of fun and
challenge keeps the students coming back to the classes.
Let me explain.
Personally, I love stand-up comedy. Whenever I watch a
good show I laugh my pants off. However, I still don't think
about watching a show every day. On the other hand, I also
love reading non-fiction books. Everyday that goes by and I
did not get a chance to read for at least one hour, I get a bit
antsy and I feel like something is missing. That's because I
feel growth and expansion whenever I am challenged with a
new idea. The point I want to take home is that some activities
make us laugh while others make us interested or challenged,
but only one of them makes us want to work harder and
spend more time around it.
What I love about swing dancing is the marriage between
these two. The result that we have in our classes, is that
people stay and keep taking classes for a much longer period
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of time and they laugh together. In our local scenes we have

an inverse pyramid. Our intermediate and advanced classes
are often larger than our beginner classes. This is because,
while new people join the community, few dancers drop out of
our classes.

IMPLEMENT:
In every single class, we have the two elements built into
the syllabus:
Element 1: The right amount of challenge! We reinvented our course syllabus so that at each moment, we
share one, and only one, new piece of information, then let
them dance it. For our absolute beginners, we start with
walking, then adding the bounce to it, then adding the
direction changes and then increasingly more complicated
forms of direction changes. At this point, we have no triple
steps yet or half turns into face to face positions. We are
staying away from tuck turns and underarm turns for a couple
of classes. Instead, they can do mean-ass rock steps in any
combination of patterns: 4-, 6-, 8-, 10-count... whatever they
feel like doing. If you download our free beginners Lindy Hop
DVD you can see what I mean. Just go to www.swingstep.tv,
download the file, and see how we structured the material.
Element 2: The right amount of empathy! In the second
half of the class, we ask people to play with mirroring and
energy level. That's when the laughter starts. People start
pecking, dancing in slow-motion, doing high-fives and all sorts
of crazy stuff that you love to see on the Lindy Hop dance
floor.
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FILTER:
If you thought our classes were just another opportunity for
you to touch people from the opposite sex... well, think
again. We want people who get hooked by the exciting
possibilities of moving together with another person in perfect
harmony with each other and the music, expressing
themselves in both physical and emotional dimensions,
responding to changes in the music, directions and goofy
expressions.
This is why we need to be clear from that first 10-30 min
taster class before the big party throughout the beginner,
intermediate and advanced classes that this is how we do it.
It would be unfair to give a taster class that has no
technical elements in it, but then bombard them with
technique later on.
People want what they expect!
I believe the mistake with giving taster classes and
beginner classes that are just for fun is that you set that
expectation. Then suddenly that student gets confused and
slightly irritated when the invited workshop teacher starts
talking about the importance of connection. That was not what
he/she subscribed for.
Let ALL your interactions with potential dancers be a true
reflection of what's important to you! The five minute quick
demonstration at the party, to the 30 minute taster all the way
throughout all your courses and workshops.

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Core Value: Learning

Dont sell out on learning be wrong, get over it, get
better! - me ;)
The most secure quality that a person can develop to
ensure life long success is their ability to learn. Learning is my
highest core value. Thats why its also embedded in anything
I do.
I explain to my students, partners and team members that
this tribe values learning.
To become a life long learner, it is important to set an
atmosphere of trust and humbleness. We need to establish
trust and humbleness because learning comes only from a
behaviour change. Without a change in your behaviour you
have not learned anything. During a change in behaviour you
are momentarily vulnerable. You have to break down some of
your previous boundaries and filters to make room for a new
construction. If trust is not there, if sign of humbleness are not
there, people can not let down their old boundaries and filter.
Thus no learning takes place.

SET:
As the leader of my class, I have to go first. I have to
show my students the humbleness that it takes to be a
Learner first then they can follow.

IMPLEMENT:
In many of our classes, Katja and I share with our students
how we transformed our dancing because of a new insight.

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One of the biggest recent insights that completely changed

how we dance was when I thought of the Lindy hop stretch
from a molecular perspective. (Yes, I was a chemist before
becoming a full-time Lindy Hopper.) Ever since, our style of
dancing changed, and naturally exercises and explanations
changed to involve the same change.
We share with our students how we went back and filtered
all aspects of our dancing to implement these new ideas.

FILTER:
Every time you introduce something new, you might get
resistance from a few students. Their frustration might come
from the feeling of I just started to understand that other
thing, or fear of not being able to change, or simply not
wanting to dance like us.
Changing a style is probably the biggest challenge you will
go through, both for your own dancing and for the students in
your classes.
You need to teach what's important to you and let people
decide if they like your style and technique instead of looking
at what they like and change your ideas to fit theirs.

Your People
Are you doing all the work by yourself? Do you find it hard
to find teachers to help you? Is it hard to build a team that you
can trust or frankly afford supporting?
The biggest question I always get is: How do you find and
keep great team members? Most dance scenes today have a
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hard time finding and keeping great teachers. The two biggest
hurdles that I encounter for building a team is lack of money
or motivated people.
These are both huge challenges, but both possible to
overcome. As you read on, please don't think I believe it's all a
dance on roses. It does take hard work, but it is possible. This
is how we got it to work for us:

How to FIND/ATTRACT great teachers

and team members:
I define a great partner or team member as a person who
unconditionally supports your values, goals and objectives.
This great person does what it takes to get the job done
despite how much other stuff is on his/her plate. This is a
proactive person, a driver who sometimes rather needs to be
slowed down than pushed forward.
That's a great place to be, but how do we get there you
might say?
If your core values match and are clearly visible in
everything you do, you will escape the banking-system. If
your core values match, nor you or your teacher care about
compensation for the work. Instead you will focus on working
as a team to grow something that brings joy to many people.
Concrete example: My core value of learning, growing and
improving, are expressed by exposing myself to a lot of
situations where I can learn from other dancers, practice with
other dancers or talk to other dancers about learning. As I'm
clear about the fact that I love to think and talk about the
Page: 27

dance, it's a very open door for others with the same passion
to enter this world and engage with me. If our communication
results in finding out that we have even more values in
common, we really hit it off to have a much deeper interaction.
Because we really enjoyed it, we start thinking about how we
can create more opportunities for us to get together to
practice or exchange ideas. Often, I invite people to come and
stay with us for some days or even weeks for play time.
During this period, we might discover that we have even more
core values that we share, leading to an even deeper
relationship. At some point we might talk about how we can
have yet more play time to help one another to grow as
dancers. I met all my team members exactly this way.
Because we enjoyed our trainings so much, and because we
connected at many levels, we all wanted to do whatever it
took to make that a bigger part of our lives. Both financially
and emotionally, we support each other to grow something
that allows us to do this for the rest of our lives.
In my case, the support started with Katja and I using all
our financial gains from teaching workshops around Europe to
finance the team, so that we can focus on growing the
company as a full-time occupation for all of us.

How to KEEP great teachers and team

members:
A core value is a principle without which the stars in your
tribe would leave.
The more core values that you have in common, the longer
the relationship lasts!
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I'll repeat one of my important core values: Special care

for special people.
Here are 10 questions you can ask yourself to see if you
are taking care of your teachers and your team.
All these questions are re-formulations of questions
presented in Markus Buckinghams book First, Break All the
Rules.
Questions to ask your team:
1. Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best
everyday?
2. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or
praise for doing good teaching/dancing?
3. Does your team or community seem to care about you as a
person?
4. Is there someone in the community who encourages your
development?
5. During meetings, do your opinions seem to count?
6. Does the mission/purpose of your team make you feel that
your contribution is important?
7. Is your teaching material giving people the opportunity to
dance the way you like to dance?
8. Do you have a best friend, someone to bounce ideas
against in the team?
9. In the last six months, has someone from the team talked to
you about your progress?
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10.This last year, has your organization given you the

opportunity to learn and grow as a swing dancer and a
teacher?
If the answer to most of these questions are a big YES!
not only will your teachers stay, they will also attract even
more great dancers and teachers to the team.

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Your Marketing:
The SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER Method for marketing:
To market yourself, your business or your swing dance
community, create products or events that clearly showcases
your core values.
Imagine you get a taster sample of a shampoo, or a new
type of beverage. It would be very strange to get something
that is more hyped than the real product. Although, I don't
think hyping up a taster class is the same calibre of
dishonesty, but it still does not allow people to connect to
your core values.

Core value: Share to grow

Share to grow has been the number one core value of
mine... did I say that before? Often people tell me that I'm
creating my own competition by sharing everything I've
learned. So far, I have just seen a lot of growth both for my
personal and business life. As a chemist I was told to lock up
my lab-journal and not to talk to anyone about my results until
they were published. I believe that is one of the reasons I did
not feel the same growth as I do now. I'm a dancer now and I
will grow my business my way! Yeah!
As a swing dance evangelist I've shared my ideas,
thoughts and knowledge through my websites and blogs:

www.TippingSwingDancing.com: A place for swing dance

teachers and organizers to meet and discuss teaching and

Page: 31

organization techniques. This blog is mostly active on it's

face-book group.

www.LindyHopMoves.com: This website is 99% created

by my team members Eiki and Claudio. Eiki searches the
web and filters all the good free instruction videos from the
not so good once and posts them in a specific order on
LHM. Many people don't know what teachers to look for,
and what key-words to type into youtube or other sources
for free videos.

www.SwingStep.Tv: This is where I let people download

two complete swing dance DVDs for free.

SET:
If we would charge money for our free DVDs, they would
probably cost somewhere around 15-30.
But instead of selling them, we put them on the internet for
you to download for free. Also, instead of hyping them, or
making the DVDs attention grabbing taster classes, we used a
version of our beginner Charleston and Lindy Hop syllabuses.
If you are captivated by what we present in these videos you
will love our courses. There won't be any surprises or
confusion over who we are, what we care for AND what you'll
pay for.

IMPLEMENT:
Today, most of our promotional flyers, posters and online
marketing focuses on promoting these DVDs. My current
challenge and efforts are to let every person in the cities we

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teach in know that they have the opportunity to see these

DVDs.
The more people who have seen the DVDs the more
people might get hooked on the dance and our services.

FILTER:
In Seth Goodin's book All Marketers are Liars, he
explains why it is important that you fully believe and live your
own story. Everything from how you dress, to what music you
play at any given time and what places you choose to hold
your classes need to be consistent with what you want to
promote.
With this in mind, what do you do when you've organized a
big event with live music at a fantastic venue? There will be
many non-dancers, so you want to hold a taster class so that
they, too, get to enjoy the night, and hopefully get so hooked
that they start join your classes and become addicted swing
dancers. You have to decide on: What music will you play?
What material will you teach? How will you engage your
audience?
The answer is (drum roll, please): Whatever best allows
your audience to get a clear view into what your core values
are all about.
Our taster classes and mini-beginner workshops are
designed to present our core values. Like all my other
examples, these are just our way of doing things. If you have
different core values it should reflect in how you do things.
However, if you do share some of our core values, let me

Page: 33

know if you need a partner to implement the changes. I invite

you to copy the SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER-method to
create your own classes, dance community and workshops
that you feel truly passionate about.

Page: 34

Summary
As a summary, I just want to give you a step by step list of
what you need to SET, IMPLEMENT and FILTER to grow
your community, improve your classes and have the time of
your life with swing dancing.

Step 1: SET - Discover your core values!

Through self reflection and experimentation you'll develop
a deeper understanding about what keeps you working so
hard on developing your community. Find out what conditions
make you trully happy and which conditions can take your
happines away.
Understanding your core values will help you with:

Decision-making on what kind of music, classes parties

you like to promote.

Attracting the kind of people who energizes you and keeps

you wanting to do this more.

Step 2: IMPLEMENT - Show, don't tell

Find every opportunity you can to show who you are and
what you care for. If you passionate about competitions, you
should organize some competitions for your students. If you
think aerials is the most amazing aspect of the dance, you
should teach aerials as soon as possible, if not even at your
taster classes. When you are clear about who you are, you
will naturally surround yourself with people who not only
accepts that, but cherish that about you and your cause.

Page: 35

Step 3: FILTER Don't be afraid to say No!

There are two parts to filtration:
Part 1: Present yourself and your cause in in the clearest
light possible. Let people clearly see into your store before
they even enter. This way the once who like what they see
enter, and the others simply never bothers you. Invite as
many people as possible to walk by and look into your
window.
Part 2: Be ready to say No! Say no to partnerships with
organizations and people who do not share your core values.
Be ready to say no to people who accidentally walked into
your store without looking in first. In the long run you will build
a much stronger, more profitable and more ENJOYABLE
community if you filter.

Page: 36

Contributions:
I asked the readers of TippingSwingDancing to share with
me some of their core values. I want to share with you the
replies I got.

Contributor: Nikolas Lloyd.

The first text was send to me by my friend Nikolas Lloyd.
He is a dancer, teacher and a true swing dance evangelist.
You might know him from his discovery-channel like
documentaries

about

www.lloydianaspects.co.uk.

Herrang

or

his

blog

Here

his

core

values

are

presented as the 10 commandments of social dance.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF SOCIAL

DANCE
I was challenged to come up with 'ten commandments' of
social dance. Don't be put off by the term 'commandments' they are opinions and recommendations, which I call
'commandments' so that I don't have to think of more than ten
of them.
1. THOU SHALT DANCE FOR YOUR PARTNER, AND
NO ONE ELSE
This is the Golden Rule. If you follow this one to the limit
then you will automatically be following all the other rules,
since they all serve this one rule.
Dancers who dance for themselves are self-obsessed, and
will miss out on what their partners could offer them. Their

Page: 37

partners are just inconveniences. Followers dancing for

themselves disrupt the lead, which breaks up the unity of the
partnership. You shouldnt be partner dancing if you dance
this way you should be in a room lined with mirrors, alone.
Imagine how you might feel if you realised that the moves
danced by your partner were not for your benefit, but
designed to impress or attract future dance partners. The best
move to select is the one which fits both music and partner
thats the partner that you have now.
2. Thou shalt ask for dances politely, and accept them
politely
If some people are happy to ask, and others not so
confident, then those that lose out will be the shy. Ask. To
make it easier for people who are uneasy about asking, those
asked should always appear to be glad to be asked. If you
must refuse, make it clear that your refusal was not decided
by the identity of the asker. Im sorry, Im waiting for someone
better than you, is a meaning people will be ready to infer
from many lines of refusal. Be aware how evil you will appear
if you plead tiredness, only to be seen dancing with someone
more skilled and beautiful than the refusee only seconds later.
A promise of a dance later is good, but only if you are as good
as your word.
I think people should be happy to dance with anyone once
in an evening. Are we not here to share the fun? Dont hog the
good dancers, and dont keep pestering them either. See how
many different people you can dance with in the limited time
available to everyone.
Page: 38

3. Thou shalt grip your partner only as much as is

necessary
A certain amount of force is required to stop one losing
contact with a partner, but no one wants to dance with a
lobster. Convince your partner that you have hands, not
pincers. A leader needs to be able to let go of a partner
without notice. He cannot do this if you are hanging on for
grim death. Turns will come to a painful wrist-twisting halt.
Panic can cause people to grip on tightly, so my advice is to
not panic.
4. The follower shall follow the leader
Let the leader enjoy doing his stuff. Pay attention to the
gems hes giving you, lest you miss out. For three minutes he
is your king and you are his dancing girl. If he gives you the
room, be as flamboyant as he might wish, but when he leads
a move which requires you to follow closely, then since you
dont know what hes planning next, follow closely. With a bit
of skill and experience, you can be a creative contributor
without mucking up what your leader is doing.
5. The leader shall follow the follower
For the length of one song, the follower is the leaders
queen, and he her faithful servant attending to her wishes.
The moves the leader selects, the pace and energy with
which he leads them, and the rhythm he uses, should be
selected in the light of the closely-monitored responses from
the follower. Make her feel special by tailoring the dance to
her. A creative follower will be offering you opportunities for

Page: 39

certain leads. Take those opportunities and shell be delighted

to be your dancing girl again (see no. 4, above).
6. Thou shalt honour the music
Almost daily I am astonished by how much this
commandment is flouted. I see people dancing as if the music
were nothing more than a metronome, supplying tempo. Hit
the breaks! Rise with the crescendos! Half the fun from
dancing comes from the music. If a dance fits a song
perfectly, then it will be like no other dance, and all the better
for this. People who dance the same routine despite the music
may find themselves having a warmer afterlife than they
would have chosen.
7. Thou shalt not be malodorous
Dress appropriately. Large rings are uncomfortable for
gripper and grippee alike. Very long hair, necklaces, and big
baggy clothes can all get in the way. A shirt which doesnt
smell too bad when it is first put on may smell quite a lot
worse when the person in it has warmed up a lot from
dancing. Dancers will tolerate some sweating, but make sure
that the sweat is todays. If you want to spend a while in a
close hold with your partners, then bear in mind that they may
not all have gas masks handy.
Personally I prefer the smell of a woman who has been
dancing for a while, and has broken sweat, to the smell of a
woman who, embarrassed that she might smell of anything so
animal, has masked the smell entirely by applying a nearchoking amount of perfume. Some of my partners have smelt
like serious fire-hazards.
Page: 40

8. The lady shall choose the distance

It seems that it is often the woman who favours the greater
torso-to-torso distance, and the man who would prefer, and
occasionally insist on, the closer. In recognition of this sexual
bias, the general rule is that the woman gets her way. There
are ways in which she can signal that she would prefer him to
keep his distance, just as there are ways in which he can
signal that she should come in closer. Gallantry requires the
man to honour her wishes over his. He can come in closer to
find her preferred distance, and the lady should not be afraid
to make her preferences on this matter clear. If he comes in
and she advances to meet him, giving no clue that shed
rather he retreat, then she cant later complain that he danced
too closely.
9.Thou shalt say sorry, especially if thou art a chap
A floor packed with Lindy hoppers is a fabulous illustration
of the power of peripheral vision and sub-conscious motiontracking. Crashes are bizarrely rare. If you do bump into
someone on the dance floor, say sorry. You dont necessarily
know whose fault it was. People will only think more of you if
you apologise for something which wasnt your fault. If the
follower crashes into someone, then the leader should bear in
mind that he was steering the partnership at the time, and so
the crash was probably his fault. Dont be the guy whose
partner

has

to

apologise

for

him.

Be

the

splendid

magnanimous chap who says sorry without reluctance.

Similarly, a quick friendly sorry can work wonders if you
have just danced a bit vigorously and jarred your partners
Page: 41

shoulder a bit. At least you have shown that you are aware of
what happened, and so your partner might feel more secure
dancing with you.
The word sorry can be over-used by the follower who
feels a bit lost. A follower might sometimes apologise if she
knows beyond doubt that she has mucked up some big
moment, or brought the dance to a crunching halt, but
otherwise the best thing she can do is keep smiling and keep
dancing.
10. Thou shalt look as though thou art having a great
time
There is nothing more dampening to the spirit of fun than a
glum-looking partner. If you are happy enough, show it, and if
you are not, then buck up, nail on a happy face, and do your
bit to cheer up your partner and yourself.

Contributor: Joo-Lee Stock

Organiser of DJam, Swing Dance Festival in Durham, UK
T +44 (0) 191 383 9544
M +44 (0) 7719174544
Email: info@lindy-jazz.co.uk
Website: www.lindy-jazz.co.uk, www.dance-at-djam.co.uk

Page: 42

Email: info@lindy-jazz.co.uk
Website: www.lindy-jazz.co.uk
SET:
My core value: DANCE WITH CONFIDENCE, PURPOSE
AND MEANING
Longer description: Encourage our dance community to
understand why they are dancing and how they can improve
their dance confidence.
I want my dancers to be as connected as they can be to
themselves, to their dance partners, to the wider dance
community and of course to the music and to the floor. I
believe that dancers who dance and connect meaningfully to
their dancing are more relaxed and have more enjoyment.
IMPLEMENT:
I want my students to become confident swing dancers. To
me, a confident swing dancer can dance with anyone around
the world with a quiet self-assurance, without having to
compare themselves to others or perceive others to be better
or worse than themselves. I call them Authentic Dancers.
They are true to themselves and want to enjoy dancing for its
own sake and to help their partners enjoy the dance.
This is one of our core values as I know that everyone
wants to feel accepted and every dancer wants their partner
to enjoy that dance with them.
What is CONFIDENCE?

Page: 43

Confidence can be interpreted in so many ways and it

means different things to different people. Confidence is not
arrogance.
1. Confident dancers are less self-focused. Arrogant
dancers are self-focused.
2. Confident dancers have a positive energy and are more
attractive to others.
3. Confident dancers learn new things without fear, they
want to exploit their strengths.
4. Confident dancers are at ease with themselves so they
are not mentally, emotionally or physically tense (I want to
write a lot more about tension in dancing. So much physical
tension in dancing is a result of mental and emotional
tension).
5. Confident dancers are motivated to improve themselves.
6. I could go on forever... to summarise confident dancers
have more fun and are more fun to dance with.
FILTER:
We encourage our dancers in their first class to feel
confident by putting them at ease. We always make sure
there are one or two team members are who are on duty to
speak to newcomers. We introduce the foundations of good
technique with very simple moves from the very first beginner
class. This enables everyone to feel more connected to their
partner, the music and the floor from the beginning. We also
encourage everyone to be relaxed about mistakes as part of
their learning.

We believe mistakes should be viewed as

Page: 44

discoveries and lessons from which we draw ideas for

improvement.
To have information about what is happening in the
evening and to be introduced to people, to feel accepted
quickly into a new group are wonderful ways to feel
welcomed, relaxed and ultimately, confident.
Once, the dancers feel at ease, they can approach the
classes with a relaxed mind and enjoy the lessons much
more. We call this the Lindy Jazz Experience.
RESULTS:
Our classes are known to have a friendly atmosphere
where no one feels competitive, afraid, inferior or superior.
Our members are encouraged to have fun by helping others
to feel at ease. Share your confidence to feel more confident.
Focus on others more than yourself. This, we believe is part
of developing dance confidence.

Special note:
I can still update this section with your contribution. Feel
free to email me with your experience of SET, IMPLEMENT
and FILTER-Story.

Page: 45

Last words:
It takes a lifetime to get to know yourself. It takes a lifetime
to get to know your business. That's why you should start with
experimenting. Set up the core values that immediately pop
up in your mind. Or, start by borrowing a couple from here.
Then apply them. Do you feel good about the results? If yes,
keep these and figure out where else you can implement
those core values. Then, move on to adding another core
value. If the test did not result in the actual changes you like to
see, make a new experiment in a small scale with perhaps
other core values in mind. Repeat. You don't have to officially
announce your core values to everybody by putting it on your
homepage.
To begin with, talk about them with your partners and team
members. Discuss them, experiment with them and filter your
decisions with them.
I hope the information in this e-book, will take you closer to
your goals of having an amazing dance scene, teach fantastic
classes and building a wonderful team.
I hope this is just the beginning of us working together.

Page: 46

Free Prize inside:

Finally, I want to give you one more thing! I'd love to learn
more about you and your goals. If you have any questions
and ideas that you would like to discuss with me, contact me
so that we can arrange a 30-60 min Skype conversation.
During this conversation I can help you use the SET,
IMPLEMENT and FILTER-method for your specific cases.

Share to grow,
Ali

My personal contact info:

E-Mail: aliandkatja@gmail.com
Phone: +49 (0) 179 506 12 56
Website: www.aliandkatja.com
Skype username: aliandkatja
Our SwingStep Crew contact info (When we are abroad
you might get a quicker answer this way):
E-mail: dance@swingstep.de
Phone: +49 (0) 176 327 88 659
websites:
www.swingstep.tv
www.swingstep.de
Page: 47

www.tippingswingdancing.com
Face-book: TippingSwingDancing - group

Page: 48

A NOTE ABOUT COPYRIGHT

I'd like to use the same copyright notes as the author:
Giovanni Fusetti:
You can use any text from this e-book, without previous
authorization from my part. I believe in the free circulation of
knowledge, and in the collective search for truth. Truth has no
owners, but only keepers. But I believe in the practice of
acknowledging and honouring our teachers and sources
Therefore, if you intend to quote any part of these texts, I ask
you to mention the author Ali Taghavi.

The big thank you:

Finally, I'd like to give a special thanks to my wife and
friends who helped me write this e-book. Katja I love you!
Aleksis Nokso-Koivisto, Patrick Szmidt, Ron Dobrovinsky,
Nikolas Lloyd, Mikael Antic and Kris Blindert l L... just kidding,
thank you so much for proof-reading and commenting on this
e-book. If there are any typos and weird parts in the e-book,
it's because I could not stop making changes even after their
help and corrections.

Page: 49