Jonathan Bixby first learned to swing dance at Billy Clowers Dance Studio in Ventura, California, while Sylvia Sykes learned the basics from her friends while growing up. So when a 14 year old Sylvia spotted a 15 year old Jonathan swing dancing at the Conejo recreation center in 1965, Sylvia walked up to Jonathan and said, "Hey, I can do that." And just like that, Jonathan and Sylvia became a team.

Casey Kasem ran the dance where Jonathan and Sylvia met, and when Casey saw Jonathan and Sylvia dancing together he invited them to come dance on his teen dance show Shebang! Jonathan and Sylvia then caught the eye of Dick Clark, who invited the pair to come dance on his show American Bandstand. So, very quickly, Jonathan and Sylvia got used to dancing together in the spotlight.

When they weren't dancing on television, Jonathan and Sylvia met at dances in Thousand Oaks. In those days, Jonathan had to disconnect the odometer in his family's car just to go dancing, since his family didn't approve of him driving so far from Ventura! They continued to dance together through high school and the first years of college, with Jonathan attending Ventura College and Sylvia attending UC Santa Barbara. During those days there were no lessons, so Jonathan and Sylvia would stay up late to watch old movies on television in the hopes they would learn a few things from the few minutes of dancing they might see. In addition, during Sylvia's first year of college a local radio station sponsored her and Jonathan's participation in the American Bandstand National Dance contest, in which Jonathan and Sylvia placed third. Jonathan then transferred to UC ˆ Santa Cruz while Sylvia stayed at UCSB, and they were only able to dance together on holidays.

While Jonathan was in Santa Cruz, Sylvia continued to partner dance and even paid her way through school by helping to organize a quarterly dance event at Campbell Hall at UCSB. During that time Jonathan and Sylvia also did a lot of freestyle dancing and each learned to disco dance. After graduation from college, where Jonathan and Sylvia both earned graduate degrees, Jonathan went on to teach kindergarten in Morgan Hill and Sylvia worked for a nonprofit in Santa Barbara.

In 1975, Jonathan started to teach a disco dance class in the evenings and found much higher job satisfaction. In 1978, Jonathan took a leave of absence from teaching kindergarten and began to fly down to Burbank to meet up with Sylvia and teach disco in Thousand Oaks and Ventura. Finally, in 1979, Jonathan resigned from teaching elementary school and had to make a major career decision. Would he become a dance instructor or would he pursue some other career path?

After much thought, Jonathan decided to move to northern California to work with a photographer. According to Jonathan, when he broke the news to Sylvia she said, "But I thought we were meant to boogie!" Jonathan replied, "Okay, well if you quit your job we can try teaching together." Sylvia agreed and Jonathan moved back to Santa Barbara. (For the record, Sylvia disputes the boogie comment, but it makes for a better story.)

For a time Jonathan and Sylvia worked part time at Jonathan's father's fireplace, wood stove and barbeque shop in Ventura and part time as dance instructors, but Jonathan wanted to be a full time dance instructor and in 1980 they decided to devote all their energy to dancing. That meant spreading awareness of swing dancing, so Jonathan and Sylvia began a series of "Guerrilla Swing" missions. These missions consisted of going to the mall or other similar place, setting up a portable stereo and dancing. In addition, Jonathan arranged for a newspaper article on swing dancing and began a series of unusual newspaper ads meant to intrigue people into learning about swing dancing. Based on the success of these "Have feet will travel" advertisements and the guerrilla swing missions, Jonathan and Sylvia began to teach private lessons as well as regular group classes.

In 1980 Jonathan and Sylvia entered a swing contest in Redondo Beach where they came second to a pair of highly trained dancers. Jonathan and Sylvia met the couple, Tom Boots and Shirley Fietsem, learned that Dean Collins had taught the two and arranged to meet Dean Collins themselves. Jonathan and Sylvia then took lessons from Dean twice a week from 1981 until 1984. Dean also got Jonathan and Sylvia in the habit of going to Bobby McGee's in Brea and in Long Beach to dance with and watch the old time swing dancers.

Jonathan and Sylvia asked Dean about the dance Balboa that they saw the old timers doing, and Dean told them that the best Balboa dancer was Maxie Dorf. Maxie was very hard to get in contact with at the time, but Jonathan and Sylvia finally caught up with Maxie and he reluctantly agreed to teach them. Jonathan and Sylvia were among his first students and they took lessons from Maxie from 1984 until 1987.

During this time, Jonathan and Sylvia began to compete in the US open. They competed for the first time in 1983, placed 3rd in 1985, 2nd in 1986, 3rd in 1988 and 1st in the team division in 1991. In 1992 Jonathan and Sylvia were both awarded the Nova Star Award from the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame.

Over the years, Jonathan and Sylvia have taught at a variety of venues, finally finding a permanent home at the beautiful Carrillo Ballroom in Santa Barbara in 1989. Jonathan and Sylvia have seen swing dancing pass through several waves of popularity, including the explosion of the late 1990's when classes were so crowded they were forced to teach on stage instead of on the dance floor. During that time Jonathan jokes that a common question he would hear in the beginning class was "When do we learn aerials?"

In addition to teaching in Santa Barbara, Jonathan and Sylvia have taught workshops throughout the country and even internationally. In fact, it is very unlikely that Balboa would be the popular dance it is today without Jonathan and Sylvia spreading it worldwide. Moreover many famous dancers, including Rob van Haaren, Kara Britt, Randy Maestretti and Debbie Gitt, studied extensively with Jonathan and Sylvia early in their careers.

In 2001 Jonathan stopped traveling to go back to school and now enjoys a slower paced life teaching only in town and at his studio. Sylvia, on the other hand, continues to be one of the most traveled dance instructors in the world. On the road Sylvia teaches with Nick Williams, David Rehm, Peter Strom, Mario Robau and many other world class dancers, and in 2002 Sylvia was honored by her induction into the World Swing Dance Hall of Fame.

Here's what Jonathan and Sylvia have to say about each other and about themselves:

Sylvia: "Jonathan is very funny and excellent at focusing a room full of people. And dancing with Jonathan was always wonderful and I loved it. As for myself, I truly love Balboa and Lindy and I'm happy to honor my commitment to the old dancers to pass on my knowledge. Most of all I enjoy taking something that looks difficult and breaking it down for a room full of people. It's very important to me that I send people home happy they took my class."

Jonathan: "Sylvia's best trait as a teacher is her extreme patience. I tend to focus on keeping the class moving forward while Sylvia is interested in offering as much individual instruction as possible. I think that's part of why we work so well together. And as a dancer, Sylvia is very easy to dance with and very accommodating. There are so many things that go into making a great dancer; focus, adaptability, musicality, experience and malleability; and Sylvia has all of those qualities to a very high degree. When it comes to my teaching, I never take it for granted that people will show up. Even in the beginner class, which I've taught for more years than I care to remember, it's the first time for many of my students so I make sure to teach to the best of my abilities each and every time." © 2006 JonathanAndSylvia.com