u/steplabs5678

Difficulty ratings are popping up all over social media again, and I wonder if we've overcomplicated them: Absolute Beginner, Beginner, Improver, Easy Intermediate, Intermediate, High Intermediate, Intermediate/Advanced, and even Advanced Beginner.

At some point, those labels stop being helpful. What's the practical difference between an Advanced Beginner and an Easy Intermediate? Ask ten instructors/dancers, and you'll probably get ten different answers.

At Step Labs, we decided to simplify things into just four levels:
1. Beginner dances are typically 32 counts or fewer with straightforward steps, staying mostly on the beat and introducing basic wall changes.
2. Easy adds more variety, additional wall changes, and simple syncopation.
3. Intermediate is where longer dances become common, choreography becomes less repetitive, and you'll start seeing tags, restarts, simple A/B phrasing, and more technical movement.
4. Advanced is where everything gets turned up—faster music, more complex choreography, greater precision, and a higher expectation that you can adapt on the fly.

Of course there are exceptions. But I think a difficulty system should help a new dancer answer one question: "Can I reasonably expect to learn this?" When we start inventing labels like Easy Intermediate or Advanced Beginner, I think we've crossed the line from making things clearer to making them more confusing.

Curious what everyone else thinks. If you were teaching someone their very first line dance, how many difficulty levels would you use? Four? Five? More? Or is the current mix of labels working just fine?

https://preview.redd.it/rw0i6bwnctdh1.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=79bf15a2de5eca5751a9b1dac0c1aa96dafdbb23

https://reddit.com/link/1u5ogqa/video/fiyi6aokq97h1/player

4 things i learned from country swing dancers @theshowdown.nc

1. they dance to the music

when the choreography disappears, the music is still there. rhythm, lyrics, and energy changes will usually keep you moving with the beat, even if you’re not on the correct foot.

2. they use their whole body

they are grounded to the floor. that foundation allows them to use their head, arms, shoulders, eyes, facial expressions, and other body movements to change levels as the music changes.

3. they connect the movements

line dancers often focus on “right, behind, right, together.” swing dancers spend more time thinking about how one movement physically flows into the next, with particular attention to weight transfers. the result is movement that feels fluid.

4. they play (+ laugh off mistakes)

they react to the music. they add a hop, a twist, a funny face, or a little styling because of a lyric, a mistake, or something their partner did. and they smile a lot.

THANK YOU
@theshowdown.nc