Are you fed up of your repertoire of dance steps? Have you forgotten all those cool moves you were taught? This is the place for you to get your next fix (no - not therapy)!
This site was set up as a personal challenge to learn how to publish on the web. The moves are all the ones I have learned over the last few years.
If you want to get started quickly then see the following quick start guide. Otherwise, just read on...
It is not my intention that anyone learns new jive moves from this database. You HAVE to go and learn from a jive venue. This is the real jive experience and is great fun. The whole point of this database is to remind you of moves you already have learned, perhaps bring out some forgotten learning points and to bring back some vitality into your dancing.
Note that all jive moves are potentially dangerous (especially if you have say a knee injury), but some have been identified with a red flashing warning as having additional hazards. It is important that these are taught by qualified instructors and using additional safety precautions whilst learning (see safety advice).
I have no allegiance to any particular jive organisation and have attempted to use names or descriptions that are generic to all forms of jive. There are, after all, only so many ways of knotting up two bodies with two sets of arms connected on either side of a neck! All jive moves are derived from the 40s and many currently used in other forms of dance such as Lindy Hop and Salsa etc. However the phrase search will detect memorable organisation specific names, where they are known, but the summary will only display generic ones.
These are my own personal notes. They were entered around midnight after returning from a long night, learning and seeing the sort of moves that were being danced. I have been slowly reviewing each move for clarity of description and consistency and now over 500 have been completed. Initially the system only shows reviewed moves.
Let me know what other features you would like and I will try to support them. If you know of any resource or are willing to offer any article of advice, please let me know as its my vision to offer such or link to it from this site. My email address can be obtained from the feedback page.
If you are not sure what modern jive is then click here.
To view some animated moves, simply hover your mouse over "moves" on the top menu bar to produce a pull-down menu and move down and select "animated only".
You will see a control panel showing 1 of 8 records (over 300 if a gold member). The textual description of the record is given in the pane below. You can increment and decrement through the records by clicking the buttons on the right and left or click "random" to move to a random move. Clicking "animation" will change the view and after loading will show an illustration of the dancers on count one with another control panel to the side. By clicking "play", the dancers will move through their positions on each count. Clicking "gallery" will show each of these illustrations with any textual descriptions underneath. Use of the print button is advised as this will ensure that the correct pane is printed.
To return to the home page, just click "return to home page" in red at the top right.
If you click "all" under "moves" from the home page and you will have access to over 500, however you can only increment, decrement and choose a random move. By becoming a gold member (small payment to charity) you can select by name from a pull-down list, filter by characteristic and see any animations. Currently over 200 moves are animated. All other areas of the site are free for all.
For your information CW is clockwise, ACW anticlockwise, RHS right hand side, LHS, left hand side. Click here for a full listing.
At the top of most pages is a navigation menu bar. This contains both actions (eg home, print) and topics. By placing the mouse cursor on one of these topics, a pull down list will appear. Simply move the cursor down the list to the topic of your choice (each one is highlighted in red) and click.
The navigation menu bar does not scroll off the screen as with some sites, it gracefully disappears and reappears at the top of the screen when you stop scrolling.
The navigator menu bar will disappear: when in the database mode and the dance forum. In these two cases a "return to home page" link is by the title on the right hand side.
"Return" buttons are not normally places on each page. It is assumed that you know how to hit the "back" button on your browser.
The key feature of this jive site is the move database. This is one database for all moves, singles and doubles (one man two ladies), textual and animated etc. Once in the database, the filter can be changed to select your desired choice. However there are some simple ways in pre-selecting common choices. Under "moves" on the navigation menu bar, "all" does (nearly) as it suggests: displays the first from a list of all the moves, ie more than 500. Note however that this excludes moves that have not been "reviewed". You will need to manually alter the filter to include these. "Animated only" pre-selects just those moves which is only 8 or so if you are not a gold member but more than 300 if you are. You can select just the beginner moves or a core set of intermediate ones to ensure you have a healthy move diet (!). "Filter" lets you decide exactly what you want before seeing any. Move-maker (gold members only) Allows you to trace moves in the database frame by frame or even build up your own using manual insertion from all the database illustrations or Intellisert, which predicts which might be best.
Currently this includes tips for beginners who are finding the whole learning episode quite daunting and advice for improvers who are humble enough to know that they could pick up some new ideas and correct perhaps some faults. Additionally there are some exercises. These are not designed to necessarily correct your dancing as modern jive includes many styles, but help you move out of some fixed style, try other ways of dancing and choose what suites you.
A feedback page simply lets you know how to send a message or email me. I always reply to emails and it means of lot to me for someone to spend the time just to tell me if they are enjoying the site, quite what they use it for, or suggestions for improvements or additional features.
There is also a dance forum. This is somewhat primitive as it is just a Microsoft free feature with the web design package I use. Please use it to share any ideas questions or experiences with others. I know it is difficult to know when and where new messages appear!
This area lets you know what you get for how much and where the money goes along with a manual registration control centre for gold members. This is normally not needed as the registration is automatic.
I only link to those who link to me. That's fair isn't it? However, most of the organizations who have helpful information about dance moves and advice are linked to. Rather than just presenting a list, a short description of the features they offer is given. You can filter the list down if you wish say to only show those that have move information or workshops.
This includes a list of music titles (sorry no MP3s!) that I think are suitable for dancing modern jive to, other resources for learning modern jive, regulator things etc. There is a page for anything else that is interesting. I always welcome hosting a page with any helpful ideas and will give due credit. If you have something you would like me to host, just let me know.
Obvious isn't it? Well maybe not! Many have found that using the browsers print button prints just the left margin strip (unless you click once in the main pane first). This button avoids this mistake by ensuring the correct pane is selected.