Balboa: Bal-Swing Advanced Balboa

This disc delivers well on its limited promises. It builds on Sylvia and Nick’s earlier discs with these five moves – The Damron, the 180 In and Out, Maxie’s Stop Step, Maxie’s Mess Around and Rocks, and the Helwig – and it goes on to demonstrate, in the second half of the disc, how to “mix and match” these moves in “real time.”

It’s not a very long disc, barely 40 minutes, but on this one they don’t burn a lot of time with jokes, or, leave in missteps that could have been edited out. The discussion and instruction is usually on-point, and, where they do wander a bit it’s brief. That can be a big deal if you need to learn the move for the first time and have to rewind it fifty times.

They present these “classic” moves clearly enough for first-timers, while explaining that these are “versions” of these popular and common moves. If you already know “a” version you won’t have any problems with what they present, and, if you are here to learn the move, or, all the moves, you won’t be tripped up later by “odd” variations.

Nick does a very good job here in taking the time, and making the moves big enough, that both lead and follow can see what’s “supposed” to happen. And, Sylvia does a good job speaking mostly only about things that the follower needs to key in on. We appreciated the more even balance in who spoke about what, and when, and that the conversation stayed on track without too much “extra” detail.

We liked the disc because it kept it’s limited promises and didn’t leave us wondering, “Hey, what about…?” And, we liked the disc because they also took the trouble to provide different music for different moves/combos - and credited the band generously.

They could have tried a few more camera angles, sometimes, in showing a move, but, all in all, for “advanced” dancers this is an “easy” disc - while for Intermediate dancers it is maybe only be a little more challenging and will require some “slow” playback in places.

This is disc is part of a generally good series of discs that Nick and Sylvia have done lately… So, if you have any problems or questions, just drop back a disc or two - and come back when you’re ready.