If you want to have a long line of people waiting to dance with you, You can’t have a good time unless you learn how a leader needs to act on the dance floor. I wish I was given these tips as a leader when I first started dancing Bachata. I learned through a lot of trial and error and watching others dance. If you start to include these three tips, you are going to be the star of the dance floor.
Tip #1 – You are there to serve. One of the worst habits that I, unfortunately, picked up when I first started dancing Bachata is that I would do all the advanced moves I could in order to impress the followers. Think of being a leader versus being a boss on the dance floor. A leader’s job is to serve the follower. When you are dancing with a beginner and try all these advanced moves in order to impress the follower, the follower ends up feeling foolish because they can’t keep up. You don’t want to be known as the type of leader who can only dance with advanced dancers. So make sure you remember that your job as a leader is to serve the follower; not yourself or your agenda. If you get the reputation of being a leader who serves, everyone is going to want to dance with you.
Tip #2 – Do more turns! Many leaders are always spinning the follower around and making the follower do all the work and the leader doesn’t do a single turn. They are just moving and grooving but not putting in the work. A follower really appreciates a leader who puts in more effort, who takes the load off the follower sometimes. So spin, do right turns, do left turns, do body waves – don’t be the type of leader who only forces followers to turn, or do rib cage isolations or whatever else. Some of those things I mentioned are more advanced moves which we do teach in Bachata levels 2, 3, and 4 at Toronto Dance Salsa, but it doesn’t matter what move you do, just put some effort into moving yourself beyond the basic Bachata steps. The follower will appreciate it because then they are not exhausted after dancing one song and can dance the whole night.
Tip #3 – Dance with everybody. The thing that hurts me the most when I go to socials is seeing leaders who will only dance with certain people. I think belonging on the dance floor means that everybody gets a chance. It doesn’t matter how well someone dances, how they look, or the kind of body they have – just ask them to dance. It makes you look amazing in front of everyone. I believe that nobody should be sitting down. I believe that everyone should feel like they #belong on the dance floor. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. But you can help change this by becoming a leader who makes everyone feel welcome.
There are so many more tips I could share but, to sum up, remember you are there to serve. Don’t make it about you, put more effort into your own dancing and dance with everybody. Notice I didn’t focus on how to spin or how to do body waves because those things don’t matter. What people remember most is how another person made them feel. So leaders serve their followers and make them feel great about themselves. You will become a great leader and very popular on the dance floor.
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