Firehouse Swing Dance at Queen Bee's

I visited from out of town after finding out about this weekly dance on the internets. It felt like any other swing community - friendly and warm. The only difference was that I saw a lot more Balboa than I'm used to which, you know, makes sense in this area. I paid $10 cash for admission because there happened to be a live band the night I visited. Leads were very nice and I danced with several. They had a birthday/visitor jam so I really got to dance with several! I enjoyed sitting back and watching the dancers as well - there are so many great dancers here! A few dancers I chatted with told me about other local dances and some upcoming parties. Meeshi and the community are doing a great job keeping swing alive in southern California. Long live Frankie Manning!

My fiance and I recently completed the 90-day challenge with Meeshi and Yvette (amazing deal, by the way - if you do not know about this, you seriously need to check it out!), and we enjoyed dancing in general and the classes in particular so much that we are going to sign up for another 90-day challenge!! Neither of us has much experience with any kind of dance, so we were both a little nervous, but we never felt put on the spot or embarrassed, and we had a total blast the whole time! Having a male and female instructor was great - not only are Meeshi and Yvette fun to watch, but also my fiance is forever indebted to Yvette for teaching me how to follow, and I am forever indebted to Meeshi for teaching my fiance how to lead :)!  

My fiance and I also started taking private lessons with Meeshi because we want help choreographing and learning a dance for our wedding. Meeshi is a great teacher and has so many fun ideas! My fiance and I cannot wait to take more lessons and show off all the cool moves we learned!!

FYI - you do not need to have a partner to take this class (great place to meet others with similar interests), but you have the option of staying together if you come with someone.

If you've always wanted to learn how to swing dance, but were afraid to begin, stop worrying. Start here! If you're looking for somewhere to swing dance, this is the spot.

Firehouse is a safe, nonjudgmental space for dancers at all skill levels and ages. Everyone's friendly and willing to help you learn new moves or practice your steps.

As a beginner, I started out with the 90-Day Swing Challenge, taught by Meeshi and Yvette. It's $100/person for 12 weeks (1 90-minute class/week), including the dance session after class, during which you learn East Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, and Charleston basics. They break down the steps and teach you to feel the motion and tune into the music, as opposed to focusing only on the mechanics and what your feet are doing. They also post instructional review videos on Facebook for practice.

If you practice, you'll definitely be able to swing dance by the end of it. (Don't have someone to practice with? Stay for the dancing afterwards and ask people to dance. Really, it's okay, even if you suck. Just change your shirt if you're a sweaty mess.) You'll also get to meet a lot of cool people during class as you rotate partners throughout.

The DJs are generally good about playing a mix of tempos, so you can do everything from lindy hop to balboa and even blues if it's slow enough.