How to be a better Bachata Leader
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 – Learn Musicality
To be a better Bachata Leader, you need to learn musicality. Think of your favorite song, you know how you can sign along to it, move your feet and body to it? Well that’s musicality. You are reacting to the music and doing moves and accenting it based on the instrumental changes. Doing accents based on what the singer is singing. The question is how do you start? Well, I assume you can’t take our Bachata Level 3 Musicality class where we teach this. So the best way is to start experimenting at dance club. It’s kind of like learning to draw not from a picture book but on your own. It’s messy, it won’t make sense but if you do it enough times, something beautiful begins to form.
Tip #2 – Learn to Follow
Yep, I said it and you should do it. The best dancers know how to follow and lead. The biggest comment I hear from followers about other leaders is they are too rough. The yank, the pull to hard and force moves. Once I started to follow I realized not only how to flow more smoothly but also how to be more gentle as a leader. Only using power when needed and a lot less of it. Don’t be embarrassed as well, one of the things I love about the dance floor is everyone belongs. So ask a friend of yours to lead you and start practicing!
Tip #3 – Dance with everybody (x2)
I am writing this for the second time but that’s because it’s just that important. (Check out Part 1 here) 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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