Dancing With Declan

Here’s an easy line dance to suit slower songs. Usually danced to Ella Langley’s very catchy “ You look like you love me”. We learned this in about 10 mins so give it a go and we’ll be dancing it in all our classes from this week 😊

Here’s a great line dance to suit Quickstep & Jive music. Not the easiest but with a bit of practice you’ll be flying it on the dance floor.

We have some great new Jive moves here to add to your collection! A combination we did before but with a real nice addition! Have fun trying it out and happy dancing😊

I really like this technique where we lead the girls back using our right to their left. We don’t use this hold very much in Jiving so it’s great to have this option to vary our routines. I’ve also added a reverse shuffle off our left which requires the lads to speed up our turn to get around in time to pick up the girls hand. I’m saying double hands here all the time instead of crossed hands which Nuala is very politely trying to correct me 😆 But you get the jist😂

An overdue demo of “The Honky Tonk” line dance otherwise known as the “Cowboy Rhythm” Dances well to any lively music but not very fast music.

“Glass Of Wine” Line dance is a very easy dance that you can do to any music that’s not too fast! But it fits perfectly into Kilotile’s “Cry to Me”

Some very workable Jive moves that are usually not carried out in a workable way 😆

A line dance to suit very slow or very fast music with a couple of steps that are new to us like the skates and the pony step. Other than that it’s not too difficult with a bit of practice 😊

The famous Tush Push line dance. Few small changes but basically the same as the original. Heal, toe, heel heel on the right, same in the left, then right heel left heel and jump onto your left and forward stamp on your right. Time to test the hips then as you let your right hip forward twice and you left hip back twice (sounding a bit like the Hockey Pockey 😂) and you roll and roll, let your weight onto your left foot which should be back and free up the right for a forward shuffle step. Rock forward on the left and back with a shuffle step, rock back on the right and forward shuffle, step turn here to face behind you, shuffle forward again and this time step turn 3/4 around. It will be on your right foot and you’ll be turning anticlockwise and you should finish up at the wall to your right before you turn. Finish off with 2 stamps. Claps are optional but lots of fun 🤩 Make lots of mistakes learning because we sure did 😂 Happy Dancing, Declan 🙏

Starting off with a hand change from left to right while doing a figure of 8. Double turn for the girl then using the windmill technique. Double hand then and wrapping to the left, and holding on with your right wrap to the left, unwinding the girl and picking up her left hand, turn her clockwise, and returning her anticlockwise.

Nice Jive routine for any Jiver with a little bit of practice. Starts with roll in to the left, do as many as these as you like, flat hand push then picking up the girls right with your right in a R n R hold, into a back slide then using a swing out and return and pulling down firmly to send the girls into an extra spin. We call this technique a windmill turn. We pick up the girls right with our right and do a reverse right hand figure of 8 exiting in a shoulder slide. Hope you have fun trying this out and as I said this should work for anyone providing the girls keep their jive step going. Thank you for watching and happy dancing. Declan & Nuala 😊

I saw Damien West & Katie Fay of Jiving Country doing this and I really like it! It’s good for mid speed songs but also fast ones when you get the hang of it.