How to Do the Jive

The jive is just like swing dancing but much faster. In competition the jive is the last dance performed due to its quickness. There are many variations of the jive-single, double and triple-each more complicated than the other.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Ballroom dance shoes
• Partner
• Ballroom location to dance

1. Hold both hands to start and step away from each other with tension so you are stiff.

2. Step at the same time away from each other counter clockwise on a 90 degree, or quarter, turn. The gentleman should keep his arms at waist level. The lady should be on the right-hand side of the gentleman after this.

3. Turn 180 degrees counter-clockwise. This will put the lady on the left side of the gentleman.

4. Turn another 90 degrees away from each other counter clockwise while facing one another. The gentleman will raise his left hand to shoulder level for the turn but both dancers will keep their fingers loose during this contact.

5. Turn the lady counter clockwise 360 degrees, a full turn, so she is facing the gentleman. The gentleman will do this while hold the lady's hands. The turn begins in Step 4 and continues in Step 5.

6. Step straight back from each other.

7. Step toward each other again and return the lady to the gentleman with a counter clockwise 360 degree turn.

8. Step straight back from each other again.

Tips & Warnings

• The speed of the music determines the different rhythms of the Jive dance.

Resources

• Refer to Jive Dance Steps

[musselmant]

on 3/27/2008 Jive is NOT just like other forms of swing dancing. It looks quite bizarre to lindy hoppers; to us it looks like ballroom dancing, not swing dancing. Look at some youtube videos and you will see that West Coast Swing looks different than lindy and blues dancing, and both different than ballroom jive, which isn't danced by humans anywhere other than in the ballroom world. If you go to a swing dance event, no one is dancing jive.