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the Hustle Dance Club
Hustle USA 1998 Dance Championships (Sept 24, 25, &
26)
A catchall name. At this time, it should refer to the mainstream hustle dance, the NY Hustle. It also is used to refer to any dance done to disco or high energy music.
by Victor Eijkhout (eijkhout@math.ucla.edu)
Hustle is a swing-related dance, but the style in which it is performed depends a lot on your background. Most of the time, people talking about Hustle refer to the 3-count Hustle, which has a basic rhythm of 4 steps, counted either &123 or 12&3. The 3&1 or 2&3 can be either a _coaster_step or a rock. Occasionally people will use 4-count hustle (1234) which has the same figures as 3-count, but since the rhythm is easier it can be used as a preparation for the real thing. Latin Hustle is (for as far as I can tell) a 6-count dance with a basic consisting of two 3- count basics back to back.
I've seen hustle taught at Arthur Murray, where the couple has no fixed orientation to the room,and both partners do an equal amount of movement. I've seen Hustle at swing events, and there the dance is often oriented along a slot, and the man moves much less (in fact, Rick Andrews teaches the guys to do step-step-tap while the women do step-triple-step). The typical Hustle music is disco. Boom-boom- boom-boom. There are several other types of Hustle, probably most of them long forgotten. Rent Saturday Night Fever for both line- dance type hustles and partnered variants.
Dances not mentioned, and now extinct, include: American hustle Continental hustle Tango hustle (merged into nightclub two-step - it is the traveling right turn).
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A catchall name, it can be any of several Hustle dances - Hustle, 3CountHustle, NewYorkHustle.
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Refers to 3 people dancing NewYorkHustle. Usually 2 women and 1 man. Unlike regular NewYorkHustle, the basic used is the push-break, which has been obsolete in hustle for 10 years. In double hustle, the man attempts to lead the 2 women at the same time. It can be very challenging to lead, and relies heavily on the women taking care of themselves, since the man is just to busy to lead both women all the time. Can also be 2 men trading off leading 1 woman. 1 man and the woman dance, then he hands her off to the other man, and they dance. Then they switch again. Having tried both myself, I prefer the version with 1 woman and 2 men. I have also seen 1 man dance with as many as 5 women at the same time, which is fairly difficult. Also, the number of leadable patterns is fairly low.
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The reason this is called 3-count Hustle is because the basic pattern in 3 beats, even though the music is 4 beats per measure. Swing is 6 (or 8) counts per pattern, and the patterns end either at the end of a measure or halfway in a measure. For Hustle counted 12&3, the most overlooked aspect is that the woman's part in hustle is not a rock step but a _coaster_step; that is, her last two steps are "close-forward," not the "back-replace" of a rock step. Please don't do a rock step in hustle, particularly for the lady. The together-forward on the &3 in Hustle moves forward. If you rock, you move backwards instead of forwards, ripping the arm out of your partner's shoulder. The man may do a side on the & when the lady does a close or "together".
Michael Kheim, a professional instructor from San Diego area, tells that Hustle was derived from West Coast Swing, specifically from the sugar push pattern. However, he demonstrated this by showing the connection between WCS and an older version of Hustle, the NewYorkHustle, not modern 3 count hustle. There is a reasonable argument that that hustle is not a swing dance. In swing, the strongest musical accent is on every even dance count, with a lighter accent on every odd count:
Step Trip--le STEP Trip--le STEP Rock STEP Dance Count One a TWO Three a FOUR Five SIX
In 12&3 hustle, the musical accent is on every dance count:
Step STEP TRIP-le STEP STEP TRIP-le STEP Dance Count ONE TWO and THREE ONE TWO and THREE
It's reasonable to argue that a different rhythm (if we define rhythm as a combination of time signature and accent patterns) combined with a different character and a different syllabus can reasonably be said to be a different dance. The swing/hustle timing difference:
Single swing
Step Step Rock Step Step Step Rock Step (action)
1a2 3a4 5 6 1a2 3a4 5 6 (swing ct)
4 | Slow Slow | Quick Quick Slow | Slow Quick Quick |
/ | | | | | | | | | | | |
4 | o o | * * o | o * * |
|__________ Basic ___________| |__________ Basic _________|
3-count Hustle
Step Step Step Close Step Step Step Close (action
1 2 3 & 4 1 2 & 4/4 counts
1 2 3 & 1 2 3 & (hustle ct
4 | Slow Slow Quick Quick Slow | Slow Quick Quick
/ | | | | | | | | | |
4 | * * * * * | * * *
|______&123 Basic ________|
|_____TN A.Murray Basic ____|_____TN A.Murray Basic ____|
|_______12&3 Basic ______|
The best example of where this difference becomes an issue is the double underarm turn. In swing, the man leads the lady into an inside (counterclockwise) half turn on the first slow step, then he turns an inside half turn on the second slow step, and they both do the rock step together. In hustle, the lady's turn is more or less the same, but the man has *half as much* time to complete his turn as the lady, since she turns on a slow count and he turns on a quick count. Although the moves may appear the same to a spectator, they are danced very differently.
In California, everyone teaches 3 count hustle as & 1 2 3 as opposed to the equivalent 1 2 3 &. The reasons I would call & 1 2 3 "correct" are as follows. At the end of count 3 the movement is stopped, so that makes a good point to cut the patterns. That would work for &123 or 123&. However, with 12&3, the movement is under way, making it difficult to teach a pattern since you can't start from a dead stop. A together-forward, side-replace, cross-replace/step, or step-cross happens on the quick-slow, which is at the start of the &123 rhythm, the end of the 12&3 rhythm, but the 123& rhythm cuts this action in half. For the man, which of side-replace, cross-replace/step, or step-cross occurs depends on the following step, not the preceeding step. Therefore, it makes more sense to teach this at the beginning of the step, making the basic &123.
This is how Arthur Murray has Hustle in its syllabus.
Step Turn Time
Left foot back None &
(small step)
Replace weight Commences to
to Right Foot Turn right 1
Right foot None 3
closes to
Left foot
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Like a 3CountHustle, but the basic is two patterns (6 beats) long. According to "The Disco Hustle" by Carterter Lovisone, Latin Hustle is 1 2 & 3 4 5 6
by James Religa
A catchall name. Back in the late 1970's, most disco dances were called Latin Hustle or NY Hustle. It was a marketing ploy, since people wanted to learn to dance Latin Hustle or NY Hustle, and those dances were in a constant state of change.
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The definitive disco hustle dance. Generally, if someone is dancing hustle, they are dancing NY Hustle. The dance has evolved greatly over the years, through at least 6 major changes. The earliest version (1975?) looks like it was developed by women doing the woman's part in West Coast Swing. Originally it was a 6-count dance, then changed to 3 count about 1980. About 1980 the dance had a rock- step in it, but that was changed to a together-forward about 1982. Many people believe they are doing NY hustle, but they are doing older versions of it. Dance teachers often teach the obsolete versions. Originally, NY Hustle was a catch-all name, and some versions of it were identical to some versions of Latin Hustle. By about 1983, the other versions of hustle had faded away, and what was left we called NY Hustle. (I literally mean we - there were only a few of us who kept the dance alive through the 1980's in the San Francisco bay area). The original count was &1 2 3 &4 5 6. It is now just &1 2 3. There are a few patterns which are &1 2 3 &4, or &1 2 &3 4. The count is not, and has never been, 1 2 &3, or 1 &2 3. All the leads start on the & step, so what sense does it make to start the lead half- way through the pattern?
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2 dances. The more common was a variation of merengue, actually. There was also a different rope hustle which was NY Hustle in which the man and woman were connected by small ropes, not hand to hand. The man led the woman through the ropes. Of course, the number of moves were limited, because it was so easy to get tangled in the ropes. A very strange dance. I only tried it a couple of times. It was really impossible to keep the tension needed for leading.
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3 count Hustle. Also called swing hustle, also called 4-count hustle. It is a 4 count variation on the NY Hustle of 1980. All the steps take the same length of time. There is a rock-and in it, like the 3-count hustle of 1980.
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Any hustle dance done by people who are not dance-studio trained, and are not doing NY Hustle in a recognizable manner. Similarly, the designation of street dancer refers to a dancer who was not trained in a dance studio. Sometimes studio-dancer is used to refer to dancers trained in dance studios, but that isn't common.
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