u/Brilliant-Union-5854

Hey Westies, I've been making West Coast Swing content for around 2 years casually. At first, it started with biographical videos like "Why I started dancing?" and then moved on to include me and my friends journeys with West Coast Swing. And this year I moved on to cover a few events around London and the community behind them. Most of it is Jack & Jill dances mixed with me and my friends goofing around, just random shenanigans. But events are few and far between (and are expensive) where I live so it's tough to make regular content.

However, I've been talking with a few of the West Coast Swing organisers here and I've been tasked with growing the community to keep bringing more people into this dance. I know pro Jack & Jill dances are what currently gets people to try this dance, but I think these dances can also be intimidating, because the only ones that go viral are the all-star/champ dances and the skill gap between them and a newbie is huge. My ideal goal would be a "Dancing with the stars" or "So you think you can dance" style reality show only focused on west coast swing, but that's just a pipe dream.

So I'm wondering what sort of West Coast Swing content would you like to watch, especially on a cozy Saturday night? What content would get someone who's never stepped onto a dance floor to give it a shot?

I've been doing this for 3 years and I just can't make it out of Novice J&J no matter what I do. I feel like tearing my hair out. I've had over 12 privates with different teachers who vary from all star to literal champion level dancers. I practice almost 6 days a week (with that extra 1 day being a solo dance class). I've had to do all this, sacrificing my lifestyle, meanwhile being beaten by my friends who train 2-3x a week at max and do just 1-2 privates a year. We're all doing the same classes for years, I don't miss classes so I know. I'm the literal loser of my friend group, they've all surpassed me and don't train as much as I do anymore.

It's not like this is the first physical activity I've ever taken either, I came from a kickboxing background in my 20s. I really am at my wits end, i feel like I'm being gaslit whenever anyone compliments my dance. Honestly at this point I cringe when anyone compliments my dance, because it feels insincere. It would kill me to just give up on this, not because of the sunk cost fallacy, but because of the feeling of being an utter loser. Comps mean so much to me, so I'm not looking for advice saying "step back and don't compete".

Could any kind soul tell me how I can navigate this? Like I know one thing I could do is watch more pro dances, but half that stuff is a risk to pull off in Novice. (I'd like to send a video of mine, but this sub is lurked by my friends and I don't want them to feel bad for feeling this way). Thanks for your time.

Edit: I'm a primarily lead, though I picked up following on occasions just to understand the role

Edit 2: at the risk of being identified 🤷‍♂️ (here's my dance on YouTube. This was last month

I have one dance from yesterday, which I'll post after getting permission from the follow)

Edit 3: thanks for all the feedback everyone, gonna take down the video and post the results here of all the feedback. Again appreciate all the help