Leader’s role in social dancing

 

   If you are a woman you may want to check out Follower’s role in social dancing. Today I want to explore what it means to “lead” in social dancing for men. While there may be different opinions on this subject, I would like to give you my personal view on what the man’s “job” is. 

 

   This post isn’t meant to give you the dance techniques of leading, but more of the mindset of what to focus on.

So what is the leader’s role?

 

   In the most simple sense, the leader’s role is to give his partner crystal clear signals/gestures as to the moves he wants to do so that the lady can follow him effortlessly. More specifically, men’s main 3 responsibilities are:

 

      1. Deciding the moves he want to do ahead of time.

     2. Changing their lady’s direction.
     3. Changing the lady’s timing.

 

The rest... is her job.

There is a misconception out there that men have a 100% of the burden and that they need to do EVERYTHING for the ladies... but that is false.

 

     Just focus on deciding the moves you want to do (before you do them), and then learn how to change the lady’s direction and timing to get her to do those moves.

 

    The leader’s job is NOT to push and pull his partner just to get his way. The leader’s job is also NOT to lead every single step that the lady has (It is her job to know her own steps).

Sounds simple right? You only need to worry about 3 things...

But the truth is that being decisive and learning how to change direction and timing is a life-long learning process. You will need to develop the correct techniques to do those things well.

Now, let’s dig a little deeper into these 3 main responsibilities: Deciding very clearly what move you are going to do

This is the first step to leading anything. If you don’t know what move you want to do, how do you expect your partner to know? Men need to plan their moves ahead of time. It doesn’t mean

that you must have some sort of a 4 minute choreographed routine that you lead every lady into, but you should decide what move you are going to do ahead of time. How? I recommend that while you are dancing the basic step – you come up with 1 move that you want to go into next and then lead her into it. After that one move go back to the basic until you come up with the second move you want to do and repeat this over and over... Use the Basic dance steps as your default moves that you go in and out of, so that you can buy yourself some time till you remember the next one. Another thing that may help is to have a 4-5 memorized sequence that you start with just to get into the groove in the beginning.

 

    2. Changing of direction

 

    When we talk about changing the lady’s direction we mean any move that requires leading the lady to go from:

 

    – A back walk to a forward walk (done in all dances).
    – Closed position to a promenade position (Done often in Tango).
    – Turning her underarm (Done a lot in Salsa, Cha Cha and Rumba). – And many other direction changes.

 

    Leaders must understand exactly what they need to do with their torsos, arms, legs and feet to change their partners’ direction. They also must know exactly on what count they change her direction on. Often times, leaders are either too early or too late with their signals. For example, if you are dancing the foxtrot basic step where the ladies are always going back... In order for you to lead her to go to the promenade position, you would need to first stop her momentum of going back by applying a stop with your arms on her back and then also open her with your torso to face promenade position. This all has to be done at the EXACT time for it to be effortless! As you can see understanding how to change the direction is crucial. This is something that is very hard to explain with words so I may make some videos in the future with specific examples.

 

     3. Changing of timing

 

Leaders are also responsible for changing their partner’s timing. There are many moves that require different rhythms. Timing changes are done when you want to dance something faster or slower. For example, in foxtrot you can go from the regular S,S,Q,Q timing to a S,Q,Q timing. In Cha Cha you can go from the regular “1,2,3, Cha, Cha” timing to a syncopated timing of “2,&,3, Cha Cha, 1”. These are just some examples and there many more. . If you are going to speed up into a syncopated timing you need to make sure that you lead you partner very early as to give her an indication to go faster into her next step. The single most IMPORTANT thing you must do make a clear timing change is to be very clear with YOUR OWN body timing. The better you can dance your own timing the more your partner will feel it.

 

    I hope this post helps you become a better leader and gives you an understanding of what you should focus on when you learn new moves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follower’s role in social dancing

 

    In the Leader’s role article, I discussed the main responsibilities that men have to pay attention to. In this article I will talk about the lady’s role. I will present the main things every follower is responsible for on the dance floor. This will hopefully instill the right mind-set about what it means to follow your partner.

Just as I have mentioned in the men’s article, many men think that they have to do all the work when it comes to social dancing. Well, many women tend to think so also...
But this is simply FALSE!

Often times I hear the the ladies complain about how bad their partners lead them and that if only they had a decent leader, they would be able to dance much better. They hardly ever point the finger at themselves.

Could there be something you are not doing that you should?

   Let me give you 3 main things every follower needs to pay attention to:

 

1. Connect your weight forward to your partner.

2. You must know all your steps by yourself.
3. Go with the flow and don’t resist.

 

   Connect your weight forward to your partner

 

   The first point is a technical one and a very important one. If you want to feel what your leader is going to do, you need to make sure that you establish a forward connection to him through your arms. Why? Because if you don’t have any connection to your partner, no matter how good he leads you, you will not be able feel it. Your partner must feel your weight so he can direct you properly. How do we do this? Make sure that you have tone in your body by stretching up vertically and engaging your “Center”. You can view “how to connect your partner” dance lesson for better understanding of this. From this stretching, extend your arms forward toward your partner and make sure that your elbows stay in front of your body at all times. Lastly, apply some pressure through your arms to connect to him. Doing this will allow you to feel your partner’s lead instantly and follow him better.

 

   2. You must know your own steps

 

   One of the biggest myths is that the ladies think the guy has to lead their every step. But this is not true. Once the guy changed your direction or timing, you need to dance the rest of the steps by yourself. The followers need to learn/know all their own steps, just as the leaders do. For example, when your partner raises his arm up to signal a Rumba underarm turn, your job is then to complete that turn on your own. Don’t expect your partner to push and pull you around for each single step – His job is only to indicate... Not to do it for you! Pushing and pulling can make the dancing feel very physical and heavy. You should view yourself as a strong independent woman who can do all the steps by herself. The guy just gives you a signal, but then you finish it off with your own flare and styling. This leads into another point – you must also keep your own timing with the music.

 

   3. Go with the flow and don’t resist

 

   This one is both a technical and a mind-step point. I can’t tell you how many times I start to lead someone to turn left only to have my partner struggling to go right... Or sometimes, I will be doing a basic pattern only to witness the lady trying to do some weird turn out of the blue that I didn’t lead. This just makes the dancing experience rough and unpleasant. It is the man’s job to initiate the moves, so let him! Even when you do complete that turn that you led on your own, it hardly ever comes out nice and smooth because the guy didn’t even have his arm raised. And you could get injured this way. So stop trying to lead and focus on following. What you need to do instead is have a razor sharp focus on what direction your partner wants you to go. And you need to be able to react as fast as possible. In other words, you don’t want to initiate moves but you want to follow them as fast as possible when they are given.

 

Above written by Leon Turetsky