Different types of follows

When you start to social dance, u'll realize there are many many types of follows. As a good lead, one should be able to adapt to the follow to make her dance more enjoyable.

This is a general list (hopefully wont over generalize) but definitely not exhaustive:

1) Loves to shine
There are some follows that loves to shine. These usually belong to the highly skilled dancers who are not shy and are confident about their dancing. When u let them go, they dont want to stop :P (but sometimes, they dont stop coz they dont like you lead...... so u've gotta evaluate and reflect after your dance)

2) Hates to shine
Most beginner to intermediate follows hate to shine. It's because they seldom get to shine, haven't learnt it, not enough practice, not enough confidence, etc. etc. When u dance with this type of follow, if u let them shine, they'll give u the pleading look (or annoyed look) asking u to resume partner work.

3) fly all over the place
This can be due to several reasons. Some can't control their turn and direction. Some fly all over coz u threw them all over :P You challenge would to be hold them in check, control and make it easy for them to maintain their poise and position.

4) back lead
This often happens to follows who just started to learn how to lead. You can tell that their brain is not 'clear' and some often try to anticipate too much. As a result, they will back lead, giving too strong a feedback, or worse, force you into doing move u didn't intend to do. Such a type of follow also tend to be very heavy to lead. In general,.... don't try to fight them, u'll only waste your energy. You've gotta to very CLEAR and FIRM in your lead in order to control them. If they don't react as expected, just let them be (i.e. let them do what they want) and the dance will feel nicer and look better too.

5) ATAS (look down on you)
If you meet this kind of lead, don't be intimidated by them. Just do your own stuff, be confident and try to be as ATAS as them :P I've met follows who are like this and even made some excuse to leave the dance floor after only 3 counts of eight simply because they didn't think I could dance (I wasn't dressed like one and I'm kind of rounded in shape and I started with really simple moves). Well, it's their loss :P :P :P

6) Patient and laugh at every mistake
This is the '2nd best' kind of follow in my opinion. I was fortunate enough to meet quite a few who ALWAYS dragged me onto the dance floor whenever they see me. LOL, they were the ones who gave me the confidence to social dance after attending so many classes. They focus on having fun and enjoying the experience rather than stupid mistakes. You will always remember these follows. (why only 2nd best?)

7) Very tall girls (taller than you, with long long arms)
It's difficult to dance with such girls. Due to their height, it's very easy to hit their head. It's also difficult to spin or control them simply because you do not have the leverage. Their long arms also reduce the room for error in complex moves (but make certain moves easier, e.g. sexy titanic).

8) Those who gives very accurate and good feedback
Here comes the BEST follow in my opinion. They can know what went wrong with you execution of a turn pattern and often help you figure out the problem. These follows also can compensate for your mistakes and make you look good. Even when u throw them around, they usually can maintain their own balance. They are usually instructors :)

Shines (and Sabor)

Sabor means 'flavour'.
Why learn shines?

There are many good salsa songs that have sections which are simply not suitable for turn patterns. There will typically be parts where you "have to" do Afro Rhumba moves, or shines.

If course, u can still ignore it and do turn patterns, but it just doesn't feel right musically.

This is especially so when you've developed your dancing to be able to interpret the music and know what musicality is about.

Thus it is important to learn shines.

Beside the above, shine also gives Leads a VERY good way to improve their styling. Subconsciously, their body movement learnt from shines will creep into their posture, etc. when doing partnerwork. This will make them look a lot better when doing patterns!

Breaking in shines is also another level of leading, which goes beyond hand contact.... it's goes into play with music, visual contact with your partner, etc. Stuff which are really hard to describe with words, you simply gotta see it with your own eyes to understand.

If I can find a suitable video, I'll post here to illustrate this point.

Static (Noise)

There are people who loves to move their body to the music, swinging their arms, etc.

Well, this is fine is you are not leading.

As a lead in partner dance, even a flick of the wrist can be a signal to the follow.

Thus excessive movements would make it confusing for the follow to pick up which is actually a lead and which is not!

It would take a very experienced and fast follow to be able to read leads that have too much unnecessary movements.

I personally advocate that leads (for salsa) keep their arms and wrists relatively still (note that 'still' does not mean stiff) while not leading any moves (e.g. when doing basic). The results are very obvious.... there were many many follows who complimented me for being very clear in my lead and easy to follow, after their 1st dance with me.

On the same note, one VERY common mistake that leads make, is to 'row' their arms while moving :) They might think it FEELS cool but most don't realize it can LOOK comical if not done 'properly'. (Many Cuban style movements rock their arms in a way but that is a separate story)

Geeky-Awkward--Silly -> Cool-Sexy

That's a damm cool phrase I learnt from Meech during the WCS workshop.

Basically, we must have the guts to embarrass ourselves and DO the moves while looking Geeky, Awkward and Silly..... before we can reach the final stage of being Cool and Sexy.

Unless you are a dance genius or a very seasoned dancer, u can't skip the earlier steps :)

Think of how you want the girl to move (when learning new moves)

After teaching salsa for so many years..... I've come to realize, ... the biggest mistake most learner leads make, --> is to focus on what are their own steps rather than focusing on what should the follow be doing :)

Why so?

These leads become so obsessed with their own moves, they forgot their primary role,... to lead. Without learning how to get the follow to do what they want, these leads will not be able to execute the same moves on the dance floor! They might think they have learnt the moves because it seems to work in class, but little do they know that it's because the follows already know what they are supposed to do in class!!

I've tried my best to teach the patterns in a way such that the leads will have to decide what to do and lead (by giving multiple options to exit a move). But that is still not really sufficient in most cases.

When I learn a new move, this is my sequence of thoughts
1) What steps are the follows doing (turn which way, on what count, on the spot or traveling?)
2) What are the cues to make the follow go that way?
3) What do I do while executing those cues?
4) What are the potential points where I can hurt the follow?
5) What are the styling that can be done while executing those moves (for both lead and follows)

Notice that styling comes last? Yah, no point trying to style when you can't even do the move properly :)

As most people agree that guys can't multitask very well, it's best if the guys practice their basic (own footwork, etc.) and build such a solid foundation there that they do not have to think of their feet. In this way, they can then focus on all the other things mentioned above :)

(PS: I wrote the above article after one session with a student... when I told him to focus on the girl's steps, he suddenly had that 'Eureka moment' and his progress started to accelerate from that point onwards)

Quote - If you hurt a girl, she will remember you forever (For the wrong reasons)

Yah, the point of this post is already in the tittle. Simple to understand right?

But many guys just don't get it.

I've said this countless times, take care of your partner on the dance floor. But I have never thought of it the other way (coz such notion is inconceivable to me)..... what happens if you hurt your partner?

Well, one girl asked me to tell my students, and I can say that it's a quote, 'anonymous' of coz, that "If you hurt a girl, she will remember you forever" (and siam* you forever as well).

This girl happened to be quite good looking AND very patient. She don't mind dancing with guys who are new and still learning.

Unfortunately some guys just try out all sorts of complicated stuff which they cannot handle (maybe they were trying too hard to impress?) and ended up yanking her all over, arm/finger twisting, etc. Simply bad. Worse, they don't even realize they are hurting their partner. I'm quite sure many were puzzled why they kept being rejected by the girls after one dance.

So guys.... if you want the girls (who dance) to like you, learn to dance properly 1st. It'll make your buaya-ing attempts more successful :P :P

Focus on the dance then the girls, this has a higher chance of success than the other way round (girls then dance). LOL (this is also quoted from her, kekekek)

(PS - I'm not advocating guys to buaya hor, :P :P :P)
(PS - For non Singaporeans, 'siam' means avoid, and 'buaya' means crocodiles but we are usually referring to flirts/flirting)

Relation between Driving and Dancing

While teaching salsa, I've come to use quite a few driving techniques and terminology for analogies.

They are quite fitting too. (some of these .... were taught to me by Justin)

1) Power steering vs Autopilot
For the followers, we want POWER STEERING -> Feel where the lead(driver) wants u to go, and assist by moving in that direction!! The result? You will feel VERY light to him!
Do NOT AUTOPILOT, that is.... move on you own against the wishes of the lead. This will result in 2 people dancing on their own rather than together.

2) Braking technique - smooth. Squeeze hard at start, release the force slow and reduce it gradually towards a stop

Mathematically, this is the relationship: As Speed-->zero, BrakingForce --> zero
Or... Dy2/Dx2 = zero, rate of change of acceleration = zero,

Now if that don't make sense to you (e.g. if you hate maths), the idea is to CUSHION the force such that your follow do not feel the brunt of the impact when you need to change directions, stop, quickly, etc. etc.

This is very important when executing bastard moves (moves with quick and fast direction changes).

One other example to illustrate this is... imagine if you hare holding a swinging pendulum. You want the Pendulum to stop PRECISELY at a particular point. How do you do it? If you use too much force, it will swing back, if you use too little, it will continue moving! Thus you need to ADJUST the amount of force such that it is JUST enough at the RIGHT time to stop the movement.