Video How to Do Basic Jive Steps | Ballroom Dance

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Aaron: Hey guys, it's Aaron.

Kristina: And I'm Kristina.

Aaron: And we're professional dance instructors here in New York City, and today we're coming at you with a little dance we like to call the jive. So for starters let's take a look at the basic footwork. So gentlemen, why don't we take a look at our footwork first. We're going to be starting again with our left leg and we're going to start with that link step, or rock step, behind us. Starting with one, two, three and four, five and six. One, two, triple step, triple step, rock step.

Now one thing you'll notice here with the jive, a key characteristic of this and in the music is this percussive accent that we tend to highlight in our foot and leg action where we accent with the knee one, two, and three and four, and five and six, seven, eight, so as to differentiate between the swing and the jive itself, which are both members of the same family and come from that basic swing dance action. But again, as this music is a little bit faster and tends to have more of a percussive accent and rhythm, a-one, two, a-three and four, a-five and six, seven, eight. A-one, and two, three and four, five six. So now let's take a look at the ladies' footwork as well.

Kristina: Okay. So ladies, again, everything that Aaron said, it's related to the swing. There's a little bit more knee action but it starts the same way. So ladies, we're on our right foot. We're going to take a rock step. Rock step. And then side triple. Triple step and triple step. One, two, and three and four, and five and six, seven, eight.

Aaron: Now let's take a look at this action together. So, we have our closed position here that we're starting from, and so as we don't bump knees together, we're actually going to rotate slightly outward on a little bit of an angle here. And one, two, and three and four, and five and six. One, two, and three and four, and five and six. A-one, two, three and four, and five and six, and one, two. Now we're also going to talk a little bit about the different hand holds that we're going to have within this dance.

Kristina: So we have the traditional kind of swing/jive dance frame with the lower hand hold connection.

Aaron: Every now and then we're going to take this hand hold that we have here and change to a little bit of a palm-to-palm action which is going to help us gain a little bit more leverage in some of our advanced techniques.

Kristina: And then we also have a double hand hold, and then we can have a single hand hold, right to left. Or the handshake hold, which is just what it says. You're shaking hands. So those are some of the different hand holds that we have in the jive. Now let's try that to some music.