Nicole Ramirez has appeared on Dancing With the Stars AND So You Think You Can Dance. She's also a 6x WCS World Champion. Someone asked her which was harder. She didn't hesitate. The answer surprised everyone in the room — including the person who asked. 👀 #WestCoastSwing #NicoleRamirez #DWTS #SYTYCD #SwingDance
2026/07/03
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She Was On "Dancing With the Stars." She Won A WCS World Title. She Said One Was Harder. It Wasn't the One You'd Expect.
Nicole Ramirez has one of the most unusual competitive resumes in partner dance. Six World Championship titles in the Showcase Division at The Open Swing Dance Championships.
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Random song competition. MADjam 2024. The DJ played Shakira. Thibault and Nicole Ramirez — a married couple — had 30 seconds of notice. What happened in the next 4 minutes has been watched 553,000 times on TikTok alone. But nobody talks about what Thibault said afterward. "I thought she was going to hate this song." She did not hate the song. 😂🔥 #WestCoastSwing #ThibaultNicole #MADjam2024 #Shakira #SwingDance
2026/07/03
Formally trained at the Joffrey Ballet and Carnegie Hall. Scholarship to Theatre Dance. First year of medical school — then she stopped, packed her things, and went to teach line dancing at "Denim and Diamonds" in NYC and waitress to pay rent. In 1995 she discovered WCS. In 2000 she won the US Open. She has never said she regrets the med school decision. 😮 #WestCoastSwing #DeborahSzekely #SwingDance #Origin #Unexpected
2026/08/12
"The Naked Truth: Real Talk About West Coast Swing." Co-hosted by Deborah Szekely — former medical school student turned US Open Champion — and Eric Jacobson, one of the longest-serving figures in WCS event organization. Their most downloaded episode is not about dance. It's about the conversation they almost didn't record. 🎙️ #WestCoastSwing #NakedTruthPodcast #DeborahSzekely #EricJacobson #SwingDance
2026/08/12
What Happens to Your Body When You Dance West Coast Swing — and Why Scientists Are Only Starting to Understand It.
2026/08/12
1994. A social dance. Glenn Ball — already an established name on the WCS circuit — danced with a sixteen-year-old follower who had been dancing WCS for eight months. Three decades later, she is one of the most respected judges and instructors in WCS. She still describes, in teaching contexts, exactly what he did in those first eight counts — and why it changed how she understood the dance. 🥹 #WestCoastSwing #GlennBall #SwingDance #SocialDance #Mentorship
2026/08/12
SwingDiego 2018. Glenn Ball. Deborah Szekely. A combined 50+ years of WCS competition experience between two dancers who had never been drawn together before. When the draw was announced, the room's reaction was audible. When the performance ended, the room's reaction was something else entirely. 😶 #WestCoastSwing #GlennBall #DeborahSzekely #SwingDiego2018 #SwingDance
2026/08/12
The WCS Community Had a Specific Reaction to COVID-19 That No Other Dance Community Had. It Involved a Spreadsheet, 40 Countries, and One Shared Google Doc.
2026/08/12
35 years of dance training. Over 60 styles. Ballroom, Latin, swing, hip hop, country, international forms most WCS dancers have never heard of. Myles Munroe was asked, in a 2021 interview, which one surprised him most — which dance form showed him something he hadn't expected from movement. His answer was not West Coast Swing. It was something he studied long before WCS became his primary focus. 🤔 #WestCoastSwing #MylesMunroe #SwingLiteracy #SwingDance #DancePhilosophy
2026/08/06
Six UCWDC World Championship titles. 35 years of training in over 60 different dance styles. CrossFit instructor. One of the most respected chief judges in WCS. And on his body: a tattoo that reads "Technique prevents the body from limiting the soul's expression." He got it because he kept trying to explain his teaching philosophy in words — and that sentence was the only one that got it right. 🎨 #WestCoastSwing #MylesMunroe #SwingLiteracy #SwingDance #Philosophy
2026/08/05
Bachelor of Kinesiology from UBC. National Coaching Certification. An Olympic-track competitive swimming coaching career that was already underway. And simultaneously: Premier League soccer referee, part of an elite program training officials for the FIFA Women's World Cup. Then she found West Coast Swing — and went back to school to get a second degree. She has since used both of them to build something that has changed how WCS is taught worldwide. 😮 #WestCoastSwing #TessaCunningham #SwingLiteracy #SwingDance #Origin
2026/08/05
West Coast Swing Was Danced in Hollywood Films Decades Before Anyone Called It "West Coast Swing." Dean Collins Brought It From Harlem. Nobody Gave Him Credit Until Decades Later.
2026/08/05
The WCS Competitive Circuit Has Only One Rule That Has Never Changed in 45 Years. Every Other Rule Has Been Revised, Debated, or Abandoned. This One Has Not.
2026/08/05
2am. Myles Munroe and Tessa Cunningham are at a WCS event across the country from their student — in bed, in pajamas, at a dance weekend that ran late. Their student called because they had a teaching challenge the next morning and didn't know how to solve it. Myles and Tessa answered. They stayed on the call until the student had what they needed. This is apparently not unusual for them. 🥹 #WestCoastSwing #MylesMunroe #TessaCunningham #SwingLiteracy #Teaching
2026/08/05
40+ weekends a year, for over 20 consecutive years. That's the competitive calendar Myles Munroe and Tessa Cunningham Munroe have maintained since 2002. Their daughter grew up on airplanes, in hotel ballrooms, in the specific permanent-temporary community of the WCS circuit. She has been to more countries than most adults. She did not choose this life. She was born into it. 🌍 #WestCoastSwing #MylesTessa #SwingLiteracy #SwingDance #DanceFamily
2026/08/05
The Reason Most Beginners Quit WCS in the First Three Months Has Nothing to Do With the Steps. A Study of WCS Studios Found the Real Answer. It's Uncomfortable.
2026/08/05
Partners since 2002. Married. Canadian Champions. Ranked #1 in Canada and 2nd in the world. 40+ events per year for over 20 years. And then: a teaching methodology so comprehensive that students fly from other countries to take it. One student wrote: "I have been honored with their full-service mentorship. I cannot imagine this level of dedication is common." It is apparently not common at all. 🥹 #WestCoastSwing #MylesTessa #SwingLiteracy #SwingDance #Teaching
2026/08/05
The WCS Community Has a Word for the Feeling You Get When a Dance Goes Perfectly. The Word Doesn't Exist in English. It Was Created by a WCS Dancer Who Couldn't Find Another Way to Describe It.
2026/08/05
Laureen Baldovi won eight US Open titles with Robert Royston. Then she stepped away from competitive WCS for nearly two decades — injury, life changes, the distance that accumulates between a person and something they used to be. When she came back to compete again in 2010, the room watched with the specific attention that only comes from watching someone return to something they had once been the best in the world at. 🥲 #WestCoastSwing #LaureenBaldovi #RobertRoyston #SwingDance #ReturnStory
2026/07/20
Robert Royston was a principal dancer in the Broadway production of "Swing!" — a show that ran for 461 performances from 1999 to 2001. He performed his own choreography. It was Broadway. The WCS community, by multiple accounts, largely found out about it through a casual mention in a teaching context rather than from any announcement. He had not told most people he was doing it. 🎭 #WestCoastSwing #RobertRoyston #Broadway #Swing #SwingDance
2026/07/20
Every week, Robert Royston teaches a beginner group class. Every week, he says the exact same sentence to explain what dancing is. He has been saying it for 32 years. Most beginners nod and don't understand it yet. The ones who eventually become champions all say the same thing: the sentence didn't make sense until years later — and then suddenly it made sense about everything. 🤯 #WestCoastSwing #RobertRoyston #SwingDance #DancePhilosophy #Teaching
2026/07/20
