Dance to Remember: West Coast Swing Dance for Joy and Brain Health with Morgana Rae

Episode 9:  Join me to hear Morgana's story of starting her dance journey as a young ballerina, only to reconnect with her love of dance again through the delightful world of West Coast Swing alongside her husband Devin. Prompted by learning that partner dance was the number one tool in preventing and reversing dementia associated with Alzheimer's, her husband signed them up for Tango but then they discovered the rhythm and social world of West Coast Swing.  Get ready to be inspired by the Morgana's journey.

Links:
Morgana Rae:  Make Money Fall in Love with you for Abundance and Prosperity

West Coast Dancers Mentioned on the Podcast:
Ben Morris, Jordan Frisbee, Tatiana Millman, Victoria Henk, Benji Schwimmer, Tara Trafzer, Emily Huang, Emeline Rochefeville, Samantha Jane Buckwalter

World Swing Dance Council

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Find my World Groove movement zoom class on Thursdays, under my name, at: https://theworldgroovemovement.com/virtual-search/

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Transcript

Lisa: 0:10

Welcome to the Happy Sweat Life Podcast. My name is Lisa Rung, and today I'm very excited to be talking to Morgana Rae. Morgana is a number one international best selling author and a seven figure spiritual life and business coach for 29 years. She was voted the best coach of 2022 for tangible results by the Life Coach Code Institute. A favorite guest on television, radio, and print, Morgana has guided Tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, innovators, healers, and humanitarians to heal the rift between heart, spirit, and money and to save the world as only they can. today we're going to talk about Morgana's involvement and love of West Coast Swing. So maybe you can sort of tell us a little bit about what West Coast Swing is. So for anybody that doesn't know.

Morgana: 1:03

Well. So swing dancing as we see it in movies, you know, from the like twenties, thirties, and forties as it evolved on the East Coast jitterbug and all that kind of stuff. When it got to the West coast, think in the sixties, And by the way, Lindy hop and Jitterbug and all that kind of stuff actually started with West African dance, over to the US and combined with, you know, jazz. And then when it got to the West coast, it was already, I think the sixties and they were looking at, well, how do we do swing It's dance to rock, blues and, and different, a different style of dancing. So this is, it's swing, but it's, I would say a little slinkier

Lisa: 2:02

Okay.

Morgana: 2:02

and, and it's not just sixties rock, it's like contemporary music, whatever is popular now. And one of my teachers said that a student of his described West coast swing dance as If Snoop Dogg danced swing.

Lisa: 2:20

Oh,

Morgana: 2:21

So it's, it's, it's different. There are lots of different kinds of swing. There's something called shag on the East coast that I really, really, really wanna learn. It's just not done as much on the west coast. So one of the fun things about being on the West Coast where I am is because this form of swing developed here. Most of the world's best dancers of it, world champions, celebrities in the swing dance world, live minutes from my house,

Lisa: 2:57

Wow.

Morgana: 2:57

which is kind of mind blowing. So my are kind of the, the kings and queens and celebrities of the, the form, which doesn't mean it's only here. I mean, it's huge in Asia. There's also a bunch of west coast swing dancers in France who blow my mind. Mostly they married people from Southern California and then added and then took it to France, and they're like the world's best dancers. And you've got it in Russia and South America and. Once a year. This month, August, there is a global flash mob where West Coast swing dancers in countries everywhere have a day where we all dance the same dance with our partners. And it's evolved in recent years so that it isn't So strictly, well men do this and women do that. It's more leaders and followers. the latest thing, which is really taken off in Europe and, and is, we're also seeing it now a lot in the United States is leaders and followers switching off. So

Lisa: 4:16

During the dance itself?

Morgana: 4:17

During the dance

Lisa: 4:18

Oh wow.

Morgana: 4:19

Where this person is, the leader and then, whoa, wait, wait a minute. And now she's leading. And women can be leaders, guys can be followers. Some of the very best, you know, the best leaders learn how to follow and the best followers learn how to lead. And it's, it's also fun to be seeing because I, back in the eighties, I was a ballet dancer, like that was dance. And I also You know, did jazz and I did African jazz and I did, you know, Martha Graham Modern because they incorporated that at the Boston Ballet Company. And you know, I just danced, but I was ballet first and foremost, and ballerinas starved. Like there were stories of, all you have to do is order hot water and then grab some ketchup packets and presto, that's lunch

Lisa: 5:14

Oh gosh.

Morgana: 5:15

Tomato soup that, so that was the model of dance that I grew up with. And now you have all these kids, all these young people who are taking it and running with it and innovating and it's, it's all improvisational, which is so weird for my ballerina brain. And honestly, that's how, why we got into it. I don't know if you know the story. So

Lisa: 5:46

no. Please tell.

Morgana: 5:47

back in 2016, I found out that my father had Alzheimer's,

Lisa: 5:53

I'm so

Morgana: 5:53

and I think that's, I think that's when I found out it's, no, I think it was earlier than that. It was probably 2000 and, well, anyway, so. My father had Alzheimer's and I was visiting a friend in Northern California, a former ballerina like myself, who said, Hey, wanna go to a waltz? And that's totally what you do in Northern California, especially if you're an ex ballerina. Sure. So I went to a waltz and I ended up dancing with a guy who turned out to be a Stanford doctor, and he told me that partner dancing is bar none. The number one activity to prevent and reverse Alzheimer's related dementia.

Lisa: 6:35

Oh my gosh.

Morgana: 6:36

So I went home and I told my husband, and next thing I knew, he signed us up for Tango because that's the kind of like super loving guy he is. And you, Lisa, you know that he also came up with the idea that we get married a hundred times in a hundred countries

Lisa: 6:52

Yes.

Morgana: 6:53

I met him after I slayed My Love monster the way I teach slay your money Monster. So anyway. He signed us up for Tango. We were really bad at Tango. We never really got good at Tango, but while were taking Tango, our teacher said, you know, you're so terrible at Tango. Maybe you should take West Coast swing too so that you're less terrible at Tango And we got better at West Coast swing, or at least we thought we did, you don't know what you don't know. And actually West Coast Swing and Tango are considered to be the two hardest partner dances that there are.

Lisa: 7:27

Oh, no. Okay.

Morgana: 7:29

so, but I didn't know that, you know, I was just like learning how to count six count patterns in an eight count music, which is kind of mind bending.

Lisa: 7:40

Yes.

Morgana: 7:41

You grow up with everything as choreographed in counts of four. So the thing is, the better you get at something, the more addicted you get. And I'm just good enough now. You, I think we've been dancing for five or six years now to, to actually fool people into thinking I'm better than I am.

Lisa: 8:04

I'm sure you're great.

Morgana: 8:07

So yeah, you know, it's a, it's a really, it's a cool community. It's a cool culture. Very different than ballet. One of my favorite things is like really good dancers. Of course there are gonna be exceptions and there's you know, there will be jerks here and there, but overall there's a culture where it's like, well, I remember when I was a beginner, so I'm going to partner with beginners.

Lisa: 8:36

Oh wow. That's so nice. That's so great.

Morgana: 8:39

You know, because we all pull each that, we all pull each other up. We all began as beginners. And so I will dance with beginners and I'll dance with people at my level, and I'll dance with people who are outta my league I'll learn from it. And. That's what social dancing is. It's social and you learn from every partner because everybody has a very different preference. They, everybody has their favorite default patterns. Some people like a really kind of heavy lead and some people like a very light touch.

Lisa: 9:15

Hmm.

Morgana: 9:16

And the feeling of connection the way I know what my partner wants to do because that was the thing I never I'd be able to do a lot of it. It's, it's so much in connection is the pole, but it's very light and it has so much to do with the way you hold your shoulder and your back so that you can feel the pole and you can twist intuitively know from where your partner is standing in the line if he wants you to go this way or this way, or straight ahead. and, and oh another really because it's improvisational. I think the biggest trick for me to learn and why I love dancing with people, I don't know, like with my husband, I anticipate him all the time, and I'm a terrible follower because I, I'm always guessing ahead what he's gonna do, but with an amateur, I actually have to wait. to always hold back just a little bit. Followers are typically like just behind the music and then, and then you catch up and that's the swinging us of it. It's like which makes it far more interesting than step, step, step, step. It's like step, step, step, step, step to just, you know, find out what does your partner want you to do.

Lisa: 10:41

Wow. That's, yeah, that's interesting. It, it's funny'cause I, I kinda looked up what the definition of West Coast. Swing is, and they said it, it's an elastic look that results from extension and compression technique of partner connection is, yeah, yeah.

Morgana: 10:59

You're either apart or you're together, and when you're together, you're pushing apart and. when you watch it, and I so recommend that you go on YouTube and watch some of these dances. And my favorites are Ben Morris, Victoria Henk Tatiana Mollman Jordan. but Tatiana and Jordan just, you know, Google that. By the way, these are all my teachers, starting with Ben Morris. And Jordan and Tatiana, they're just so much fun and it's so much more than the base patterns. And oh, Benji Schwimmer, who won I think season two of So you Think You Can Dance, he's another Westie. and real dancers, you know, draw from everything. So it's, you've got West Coast swing, but then they'll throw in stuff from Salsa or from Tango or from Lindy Hop, east Coast swing, you know, just hip hop.'cause they're always just, we're just weird. Free flow, modern. There's this dancer in France named Emmeline who is she and her partner are So elastic and they do all sorts of like, you know, weird improvisational stuff and then they land on the beat and that's that fun experimental place where one of my teachers had us do this exercise where you're holding a piece of tissue paper and so you have to maintain the same, my partner's holding one end my, I'm holding the other and the. The trick is to always keep it tense, but never tear it and use that as an exercise in a very, very light sensitive follow where you stay connected the whole time. But it's, it's that level of lightness.

Lisa: 13:02

That's really challenging. gosh. Yeah.

Morgana: 13:06

fun. It was wild and I've, I, it hit me last time that I was at. A swing dance event because there are competitions going on all the time everywhere in the world, and that's where there's a lot of social dancing and there are a lot of classes with all the best dancers and teachers and superstars and winners. And honestly, every one of my teachers now is a world champion, including Andrew's son, who was my very, very first teacher, just like swept all the championships last year. So, you know, they, they all are now. And it hit me while I was sitting there that I, I, this is like my comic-con, I've become as like obsessively nitpicky. Like I can get the inside jokes when dancers, Do when they dance in the style of another dancer, it's like, oh, I can see who that is. That's, that's, you know, Tori, you know, there are just so many like super dancers, but they all have own imprint and just like, I could do the same back with ballet in the day. There were certain people who are like very, you know, flourishy and, and we have the same, the main thing is, I don't believe exercise should ever feel like punishment.

Lisa: 14:39

Right. Right.

Morgana: 14:40

You won't do it. I was put into ballet'cause I was fat and my mom didn't want to be embarrassed by a fat daughter. What a healthy message. And so there was always this like kind of pressure and heaviness'cause I had to earn love.

Lisa: 14:57

Oh,

Morgana: 14:58

But I love dance because it's fun and it's life affirming, and I think, you know, while we have bodies, we wanna move our bodies however we can. There are professional dancers in wheelchairs who are amazing, you know, so dance, swim, walk, yoga. Whatever, move your body while you have it, but make it fun, not a punishment.

Lisa: 15:33

yes, that's excellent advice. I love that. Yep, and that's kind of what I'm trying to communicate in my podcast is that there are ways to enjoy. And look forward to you know, exercise. So that's great. I was kind of reading a little bit about the history too. And one of the things I was reading that is that they banned jitterbug, maybe in the films or something, because too many people were getting injured. And so they sort of did this West coast swing, like that had a slot format to it.

Morgana: 16:08

It does it. It does. That's one of the differences is so Lindy uses a circle and West Coast swing uses a slot. And in West Coast swing, the woman really does the heavy lifting. So well men will lift a woman, but. the guy pretty much stands in the middle steps aside and sends the woman down the slot and back the slot. So we're, a lot of it is just going back and forth and, and then it's everything in between that makes it interesting and the styling so that you can do the same pattern a dozen times and it won't look like it's the same pattern. But yeah, that's one of the things that makes it weird and tricky and, and specifically West Coast swing. It also, all these social dances, like you would never know it, looking at Dancing with the Stars, but all these social dances like Tango and Swing, were designed to dance in really crowded spaces. So, so like Argentine tango is actually very intimate. It's, you know, you aren't going all over the floor because you're crushed in a little patio and West coast swing. The slot allows a of people to cram in and also gauge where the next person is.'cause sometimes, know, some of these dances are a lot of people in a really tiny amount of square footage.

Lisa: 17:37

Oh, that's interesting. I never thought about that aspect of it, but yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know you were talking a little bit earlier about sort of your, your growing up with dance and I wondered if you could just tell that story

Morgana: 17:50

I think one of the cool things about returning to West Coast swing now is I was a dancer for so much of my life when I was young and then I wasn't. And to like wake up and be a dancer again is really does feel like waking up because there is such an aliveness to being able to use your body to music. Like when they teach you the choreography, it's so dry. then as soon as music comes on, everything becomes easy and it all makes sense. I was honestly, I was put into ballet at seven years old by my mother'cause the doctor determined that I had hypothyroid and like my dad and my mother in her questionable wisdom. Decided to put me into ballet rather than actually give me medicine.

Lisa: 18:54

Oh,

Morgana: 18:55

Yeah. Which,

Lisa: 18:57

Interesting choice.

Morgana: 18:58

yeah. I, I think that I always, for a very long time took for granted that they made, she made the right choice. And then like I started thyroid about a year ago, and suddenly all these like shoulder pains and things disappeared and it occurred to me, wow, I could have skipped a lot of eating disorder years, mom. But here's the thing, ballet was such a gift. It really, for all the bloody toe shoes and. Hard work that goes into it. Any kind of dance connects you to your body. There are so many, honestly. Hello. Look at the world today. Challenges to living in a body and in a flesh suit. So grab the joys where you can find them. and it's really hard to find anything more joyful than dance. It's what we've been doing, you know, as long as we've been human

Lisa: 20:10

Yes. I mean, you see all the little babies dancing. So natural.

Morgana: 20:14

and, and what I love about West Coast, like ballet clear expiration date. Like I would enjoy, you know, ballet for middle aged ladies with questionable knees at this age, which is so weird'cause I know how to plie and so I don't know why my knees hurt now.

Lisa: 20:33

Mm

Morgana: 20:35

but the thing about West Coast is it's something you can do with age like Can I do the deep lunges and dips and, and pirouettes and fouettes. By the way, you can do fouettes in, in west coast. You really can and pirouettes and attitude and all this there because, so there's so many ballerinas doing West Coast now. But when you dance, you're dancing on an almost flat foot, which took me years to figure out how to lower my heel. Gives you, actually, it's just different center of gravity. It gives you more connection to the ground, more balance. But you can do west coast really into your nineties. you can, you just strip away. It's some of the acrobatics and you can still do this dance forever. And I love, love, love dancing with older partners'cause they are the best. They know what they're doing. Their lead is so clean and so clear, and they are so economical, you know, with, with what they do. And you really can dance this forever.

Lisa: 21:59

That's wonderful. Yeah. I love dances like that, that you can just adapt and change as you, as you get older and continue to enjoy it. I was thinking too, I wondered if your ballet, like, helped with, you were talking about the shoulder, you know, having the proper shoulder thing, like, do you feel like that helped you in?

Morgana: 22:32

I It does. And it doesn't like, oh my God, yes. Like, You know, when teachers are teaching you how to turn out in West Coast swing and show the heel, it's like, oh, honey. Yeah. No, not a problem. My problem is that I keep wanting to extend my leg too much or and which can trip my partner, you know? Because ballet is always my default in my body, but there's so much that, yeah, I know how to spot, I know how to turn. even in my fifties. And the hardest part for me is ballet. Your center of gravity is very high, it's very lifted, west coast is very down. It's very rooted, and you're arching your back and sticking out your butt, which doesn't protect your lower back like ballet does. So in terms of injuries, I actually found that ballet protected my body better than West Coast swing does.

Lisa: 23:34

Huh. That's

Morgana: 23:36

I, I think that's, that's why the knee has been hurting, and it's not just me. Everybody seems to have knee trouble, and I really am not trying to put that out there as like, stay away from Do it. You know how far you take it is totally up to you, and you can just have so much fun as a beginner. There are so many beginner classes. I think that it's just so popular and there are beginner classes everywhere, and there are intermediates and advanced people who are always taking beginner classes because we need to perfect our basics. Forever and go back and just improve our form. And especially when you have really, really good teachers and there's so many of them out there because when they're not winning their awards, how do these dancers make their money? They make their their money teaching classes. So if you're in Southern California, go to Irvine and take a Thursday beginner class with Ben Morris. You must, must, must, or you can take online classes with, with Tatiana and Jordan. I like the in person because you know, you get a feeling dancing with different people and you know when there are flare ups of COVID it's also really good that there's a virtual community too, where you your teacher can see you on screen and correct your form.

Lisa: 25:09

Oh, wow, okay, so they're teaching over Zoom.

Morgana: 25:11

Yeah. It started in 2020. I don't think it was much, I don't know if it was a thing at all before 2020, but in 2020 teachers had to switch online, and so for two years, my husband and I didn't go social dancing at all and. I grew and I was better by the time I returned. cause I was, I had an opportunity to spend two years just learning new technique, new styles, new basics. Every week I would learn follower stuff. My husband would learn leader stuff. And then once a month we would have a guided practice where we would learn to do stuff together.

Lisa: 25:54

do you feel like you've developed your own style? You were talking about recognizing the style in other

Morgana: 25:58

Yeah, I would wonder what other people would think it is. I think anything I do is gonna have that, like floaty ballet lyricism to it. and I can get staccato, but it's still very, you know, it's molded by the dance classes that I took in my youth, so that's always gonna show up.

Lisa: 26:21

And did, did Devin have any dance background?

Morgana: 26:25

None.

Lisa: 26:26

Okay.

Morgana: 26:27

None. Nothing. And the first few years he felt so like he had two left feet. I mean this. And he was only doing it for me. So generous. And now he's got swag. He cute, he has charm and he can learn choreography. And we've done the flash mob thing, we have done the swing team thing, which was so unbelievably inappropriately difficult but fun and grew us, and I got to learn how to do stuff that I had been wanting to learn for years. So, and yeah, you know, it's Again, everybody starts as a beginner.

Lisa: 27:17

Right, right. do people feel comfortable just going alone? Do you have to have a partner when you get

Morgana: 27:22

No, you totally don't have to have a partner and you're gonna switch partners because that's how you learn. And that's, that's the fun and the excitement is everybody's so different. And I will enjoy some people more than others. And I'm sure some people enjoy me more than others do because everybody has their own background and they have their own defaults and preferences. But remember when I said way back earlier that it's the number one activity to prevent and reverse Alzheimer's. It's the not knowing. It's the being in the moment and putting it together. It's the. It is such a form of meditation because, and this is why I get high from it, is you can't think about anything else because you have to be so present to every single moment.'cause I have no idea what my partner is gonna lead me into. And then after that, and then after that. So I have to be waiting and listening and paying attention, responding and playing every moment. And then you throw in music and musicality and timing to it also. And then the more advanced you get, it's not just patterns, it's like, and the music swells up here, so we have to do something that shows that, you know, and change the pattern a little bit and hit the little beats and, and it's easier. the better you get at it because you aren't counting 1, 2, 3, and four, five and six, which is the base pattern most of the steps. You just start to, your body just knows. And the better, you know, the more time goes on. And I'm not quite there yet. I am, and then I'm not

Lisa: 29:17

Yeah, it reminds me somewhat of figure skating. you have your jump and then you don't have your jump. And the more you kind of get the basics, the more you can improvise and add on and do other things. The other thing I was watching on the videos on YouTube were Jack and Jill competitions.

Morgana: 29:36

Oh yes. So this is, this is the coolest thing. So yes, there are choreographed dances and competitions like, you know, the flash mob choreographed JT Swing choreographed. But at its heart, swing dance, and tango and salsa, bachata and cumbia, and all these dances are improvisational. you don't know what you're gonna get, and that's why they're so good for the brain.'cause the brain is going, what? What? What is catching up is struggling and figuring it out. And always surprised. And that's, that's brain food. Jack and Jill. You don't know what your music's gonna be. You're gonna have a slow one and quick one so that if you're good at quick, you're gonna have to do slow. If you're good at slow, you're gonna have to do quick. Two,

Lisa: 30:21

Oh,

Morgana: 30:22

you don't know what the music's gonna be and it might suck. or it might be something you've never heard before and you dunno who your partner's gonna be or even what gender your partner's gonna be because anybody who leads is a jack, regardless of gender. Anybody who follows is a Jill. So you may get your wife or you may get somebody you've never danced with before. and, and there are levels. So I would qualify for like a beginner'cause I have no points and I've never competed. And what I've heard from like, the best superstars that I totally idolize who are so good at this, that it's like, And they tell me that the beginner Jack and Jill is the hardest because it's the most unfair and the most subjective and arbitrary. First of all, you don't know if the partner you have has been dancing for five years or two weeks,

Lisa: 31:27

wow.

Morgana: 31:28

and judges have different taste. Some judge below the waist and they're looking at like the cleanliness of your pattern and your timing and some look at above the waist and they're looking at your style. And those are two very different things. So but what happens is eventually, Eventually cream rises to the top, meaning that somebody is so outlandishly good that you can't not notice, they get better and better and better until finally they break through. But I was at an event in April where a guy I know who's a West coast swing teacher in the central Valley up at San Luis Obispo. I mean, fricking good. So good. Didn't make the next level in the competition for the Jack and Jill at that particular event because somebody wasn't watching him at the right moment. Who knows? So you cannot, cannot take it personally. And then when you go to the all-star level, because. They keep having people get so much better and better and better that they keep having to add new

Lisa: 32:55

New categories up there.

Morgana: 32:56

Yeah. It's like, oh, whatever. You know? It's like there may be one or two that are just your favorite, but honestly, at that level, everybody's so good and so perfect that it's like, yeah, whatever. Pick, pick the one you want. There's a newish dancer, like not so much new, but she's young and I saw her for the first time this year and I saw her during the Jack and Jill for whatever her division was and I could not take my eyes off her. And she won and now she's like partnering with all the superstars'cause she's so Amazing. And she makes it all look so damn easy and fun. Her name is Emily, she's actually doing a lot of partnering with Ben Morris these days. Cute young Asian woman who is like, I think the next superstar in my humble opinion,

Lisa: 34:03

What do you think makes her, like, why were you fascinated by her or watching her?

Morgana: 34:07

because her musicality is so perfect. So here's what musicality is. We all learn basic patterns. But when somebody can stop or do some kind of move or add some little flourish that perfectly matches the music that they've never heard before, that's when we call it musicality. And that's like, that's like the next level. And as you get better and better and better, you get counted more and more on that is just the artistry. And so her technique is just so sweet. And her artistic expression is just so exciting. You know, it's like cool and hip and funny and, and musical, and it's satisfying to watch. And I think that's what all of the, the best dancers are. Like how did they do that at that moment not break anything.

Lisa: 35:12

I think too, what you were saying before, like the few that I've watched, there is this like sense of humor in it, like, like a little like nod to something. I don't know. It's just sort of funny when, when they get

Morgana: 35:24

Morris and Tara Trafzer are probably the best at doing funny, and and that's what I, that's why I love watching them. Tara especially, she did one with this young guy named Leo, where at one point she holds her arm like this and he leaps through her arm. He's jumping through a hoop, and then he holds his arm like that and just like wiggles her way out very easily. And then he spins in this like, Endless pirouette and rips off his shirt so everybody can see his like hot chest. And then she starts doing a pirouette and pretends she's gonna pull it off, but she doesn't. It's, it's just such a, you know, she's fun. And then she did a dance with Ben, which was something about doing the song talking about Doing things wrong. I don't even remember what the song is. And the whole dance turned into this sort of demonstration of how to dance badly.

Lisa: 36:25

Oh,

Morgana: 36:26

Just like holding on too hard, having, you know, turning in. It just, it, it was such a, it was just, they're having so much fun with it and yet they're still dancing. Even when they're dancing badly, they're dancing perfectly'cause they're connected and, and they know what they're doing. they're hitting all the beats, and I think that they, they won first prize for that bad habits. That was Google Ben Morris, bad habits, and and Tara. That was the dance. Okay.

Lisa: 36:55

I'll put some of this in the show notes, so people want to see who you're referencing.

Morgana: 37:00

Yeah. Jordan Frisbee finally. You know, studying with them for years, like Tatiana Millman Jordan Frisbee, Tara Trafzer Ben Morris Benji Schwimmer, those are the names. There's another one that I really, really love and I just, my brain is not remembering her name at the moment. I'm not really good at names and dates.

Lisa: 37:27

Well, I think you're doing great, so thank you for all these names. I

Morgana: 37:31

The main is just start wherever you are. Take a class, do a social dance. Dance with other beginners, dance with intermediates. Dance with people who are better than you. Dance with people who are worse than you and try new things.

Lisa: 37:42

Yeah, and just, I think, know that you probably won't be great at it right off the bat usually. It takes, takes a while.

Morgana: 37:49

Well, and this is, this is the thing. The beginning is not fun. The beginning is. So robotic, it's like one, it's just learning to freaking count. 1, 2, 3, and four, five and six. And all the thing about like your frame and the connection, the good teachers will be drilling it into from the beginning, but you may not hear it. And you just, you and you just get better. And I've danced with beginners and I see them get better. And what really helped me because I was terrified of social dancing for the longest time because I can do anything well in a class.'cause I was a ballerina and we did class but social dancing's not a class. So it terrified me. I was so afraid I would get a partner who would be disappointed and I think I did the first time. So I ran away and didn't come back for years. Who would be judgy or something? And then I was leading a retreat, a rich witch retreat at my house back in 2019, and we ended at like 5:00 PM on Thursday so that I could get to social dancing that evening, get to my classes and my social dancing, starting at seven that evening. And one of one of my clients wasn't leaving and going back to Chicago was where she's from until the next day. So she came along with us and went dancing. And she got up on the social dancing floor, have having never danced West Coast swing in her life, not knowing it at all, and just danced with people and had a great time and everybody danced with her and she had no shame and it was no problem. And it was like, oh my God, what have I been depriving myself of for the last three years? I have, she can do this, I can do this.

Lisa: 39:51

I think sometimes, I don't know, we get so much into our head that it's a hindrance rather than a help, but.

Morgana: 39:58

Ballet was so perfectionist and judgy West Coast is so different. Everybody has, you know, different styles and some teachers may have Different beliefs about things, and you find what works for you, and then you toss it out with a different partner because it doesn't work with a different partner.

Lisa: 40:21

I love that there's so much improvisation in it. I didn't really realize that that was a big part of it.

Morgana: 40:27

That's like what it really is. The, the choreographed part is for performance, but it's really a social dance.

Lisa: 40:39

Yeah, I think that's a good point that you've brought up a number of times to emphasize that it is a social dance.

Morgana: 40:45

And most of the time nobody's even looking at you because they're busy off dancing and worrying what they look like.

Lisa: 40:52

it's about. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, any final words that you want to say about West Coast Swing?

Morgana: 41:01

Yeah, well I think, you know, there's very little more life affirming than dancing. And you know, you introduced me at the beginning and my whole thing is I've been a life coach. This is my 30th year now. I focus on relationship with money, or at least that's what people think I focus on, I, it's really all about relationship with life. And the reason for money is only to serve, love, lifestyle, and legacy, and dance hits at least two of those, you know, right on the nose. Love life. Do what you love. Love your body. Love what you do. And have a great life. healthy and enjoy your time here,

Lisa: 41:53

I think dance can be so much about joy. Just really enjoying, yeah, music, other people, moving, all those things.

Morgana: 42:02

and if you're not enjoying it, find a different teacher. Find a different

Lisa: 42:06

I love that. Well, thank you so much, Morgana, for speaking with me about West Coast Swing

Morgana: 42:12

My pleasure.

Lisa: 42:14

And do you want to share your contact information

Morgana: 42:17

Oh yeah.

Lisa: 42:18

to get in touch with you?

Morgana: 42:19

you're curious about what I do and how to slay, your money monster and change your relationship with money from a monster to a honey. Like Lee was talking about at the beginning, there's so much material for you. Start with the free stuff at morganarae.com. It's just my name with the.com at the end. Start with the four part video series for free and take the money love quiz. And based on your responses, there's No way to get this quiz wrong, just based on your responses. I will send you recommendations for what to do next, and I always include free stuff. So you know, dip your toe in the water and see if you like my approach. morganarae.com

Lisa: 43:09

Wonderful. I'll put that in the show notes too in case anybody's Doesn't understand how to spell

Morgana: 43:14

you.

Lisa: 43:15

Thank you.