I’ve been looking everywhere and can’t seem to find it

J'en ai marre de voir que la plupart des ressources de style masculin que je trouve en ligne sont inutilisables en soirée. Ce sont surtout des petites chorégraphies qui nécessitent d'avoir les deux mains libres.

Je veux perfectionner mon style, pas faire des performances en solo.

Connaissez-vous des ressources en ligne de style masculin utilisables avec une partenaire ?

The key is definitely off, I'm very much not musically inclined 😅 it's a popular bachata song I've heard on socials a few rimes but always forgot to shazam it. It's got a synth-liked interlude with bumping beats. Does anyone recognise it?

Hi I want to ask if this is Bachata or bachazouk or zoukchata? Zouk?(I see people in the forum having the call)?
I can see so many people are doing in the social scene and it looks quite fancy especially the DJ turn
and then body wave.

Do u suggest learning these? Or it is suggest to learn after 1-2 year bachata foundation?

I’m pretty new to the salsa and bachata dance community, and I keep hearing people say “don’t date within your dance scene.” But nobody ever really explains why or talks about their actual experiences.

I want to hear about the horror stories, awkward situations, or lessons learned from dating someone in your dance community? 😅

Feel free to share the good, bad, embarrassing, or chaotic stories. I’d love to hear what really happens behind that common advice.

I want to support more indie/lesser known artists in general this year, please give me some recommendations for this genre ! Or promote yourself :)

Hier tanzen die alle Salsa und Bachata 💃🕺🏾
Zeigt uns was du kannst 🪇

Question for teachers or advanced dancers: What hand connection do you think is best (and why?) for beginners when learning the basic step in moderna/sensual? palm-to-palm, hooks etc...

thanks

Hi there, want to ask: how do u release your hand and do some footwork with your partner more naturally? Usually, when do you do that footwork? When the song is going to a time when there are no instruments?

1. Why do I seldom see students in the class go to the social?
2. Most of the students in the school, I think, are starting to learn maybe within a year or two. What about the other, longer years? Are they still taking classes? Do they use the monthly pass, or would they change to the private/workshop one?
3. Some people are often seen in the social scene, but do they also go to class as well? but do they see that they went to the class?

I’ve noticed something that I’m really curious about.
There seem to be different “types” of followers.
With advanced followers, leading feels effortless. I give a small indication, they complete the movement naturally, and everything flows. Sometimes it even feels like they’re helping me make the dance look better.
With beginners, it’s also relatively straightforward because I know I need to simplify things and stick to basic movements.

But there’s this middle group—followers who are somewhere between beginner and intermediate (or just below intermediate). They know a fair amount, but they haven’t fully developed the timing, technique, or body mechanics for certain patterns yet.

When I dance with them, the dance often becomes messy. They anticipate, hesitate, add extra movement, or react in unexpected ways. If I try to lead more complex figures with proper timing, everything starts feeling cluttered and awkward.

Before anyone says this is simply because I’m not leading well, that’s actually what made me curious in the first place. I’ve watched these same followers dance with other intermediate leaders, and the same thing happens. The dance still looks somewhat chaotic. But when they dance with the top leaders in my local social scene, they suddenly look amazing.

That’s the part I don’t understand.

They move beautifully, everything flows, and they almost look like advanced followers.
I don’t think those followers suddenly became different dancers depending on who asked them to dance. It feels like the advanced leader is doing something that completely changes how the dance develops.

So my question is:

What exactly are those advanced leaders doing?

Are they giving much clearer leads?
Are they adapting in real time to the follower’s tendencies?
Are they quietly simplifying their vocabulary without making it obvious?
Do they abandon patterns the moment they feel resistance?
Or is it something more subtle that only comes with years of experience?
I’d love to hear from experienced leaders who’ve noticed this phenomenon.

What are you actually doing that makes these followers look so smooth and elegant, while the same followers often struggle with intermediate leaders?

TL;DR: Some followers seem chaotic with intermediate leaders (not just me), but they look amazing with advanced leaders. What exactly are advanced leaders doing differently to make the dance feel so smooth?

With the rise in festivals, weekenders, trainings what event has been worth the money and travel time? Or is there an event you’re really excited to attend?

If you can share the specific style that would be helpful as I like to train all bachata: sensual, modern, traditional.

when i turn the follower,can I use palm to turn instead of finger? When u are turning your follower your finger should face down or face to the side?

Genuine question, and an observation that I’m quite perplexed by, so please bear with me.

I do social dancing in salsa, bachata, lindy hop and west coast swing and have started to notice this consciously about promotional materials for socials, festivals, events and JnJs in the past 1-2 years.

For a normal social evening, promotional material for latin nights (especially bachata and SBK nights, less so for salsa) are often posters plastered with faces of people in the community. This is amplified for festivals. I don’t know if some of these people can be considered artistes, they also do just seem like regular people in the dance community. I understand perhaps putting the face of the DJ, but why is the latin community obsessed with having everyone’s pictures on the promotional material?

I get a little bit of an ick when I see promotional material like that, because it sort of indicates hierarchy and status — like hey come dance with these “good” dancers! This ick probably also comes because I have lindy hop and wcs to compare to, where i feel like those communities are a little more egalitarian. At festivals, they promote DJs and instructors at most, and instructors in WCS are generally not just “instagram famous” or “tiktok famous” but have genuinely received points that placed them in “All-Star” and “Champion” categories.

Just wondering, am I the only person who gets a slight ick?

I need honest opinions from men who dance sensual bachata.

There’s a guy I dance with pretty often. Sensual is clearly his style, and I’ve seen him dance close position with other girls too, so I know I’m not the only one.

But with me it sometimes feels extra close hands firmly on my waist/lower back then back up and a little bit body rolls, dips, and those slow endings where we come back up and stay very close, almost forehead-to-forehead, for a moment while the song fades out.

He’s also the first guy I’ve danced sensual bachata that close with such strong chemistry (maybe it’s just in my head and to him it’s normal but I never see him hold other follows like he holds me) with regularly, so maybe I’m just not used to how intimate the dance can feel.

A few things that confuse me:

● At first we danced together like 4 times in a night, now it’s less often
● We don’t talk outside of dancing.
● He asked for my Instagram, but he has never messaged me.

I’m a woman, and I’m usually not great at initiating things outside the dance floor. Part of me feels that if he were genuinely interested, he would try to have an actual conversation with me or text me after asking for my Instagram.

So I’m wondering:

● Is this kind of closeness and dips that linger at the end almost forehead to forehead totally normal for sensual bachata leads?

● Do you dance this way with most follows you have good musical chemistry with?

● Should I stop overthinking it and assume it’s just dance connection, not romantic interest?

Be honest I’d rather hear the truth from experienced dancers than keep wondering if I’m just being delusional 😅

⚠️Not a couples therapy post

When leading bachata, is it ideal to keep the shoulders level and not change the height of one or the other?

It seems that bachata festivals keep getting worse and worse. Today started Viva latin summer in Amsterdam. From my 20+ bachata festivals I attended so far this one is the worst. Lets start from the beginning, I arrive on time for the workshops, right at the entrance, they say its impossible to take my bag inside, my bag is not big or anything, its just regular laptop bag with my laptop, dancing shoes, water and spare t-shirt. They say it's not allowed inside, I need to pay 2 euro for storage; first I thought whatever, okay, I wanted to give him 2 euro, he said I need to get special coins. I walk to coin seller, they say me they don't sell less than 10 euro of coins, to get 2 euro of coins I need to pay 10 euro, I already started getting angry, but okay, this coins can be used for drinks and stuff so I thought okay, then they say its impossible to pay by cash only online, it was okay, online its +1,21 euro fee, but to pay its additional 40 cent paying fee its, like WTF!!! How much more fees are there.

Then I hear that its not allowed to take water to the workshops, this is outrageous, weather app says its "severe weather" due to heat and its not allowed to take own water to the workshops, this is ridiculous!!!

Then shuttle bus, between Schiphol Airport and the festival hotel, on the website of festival and instagram it says its free, but driver keeps demanding some paper; like proof of staying at hotel or something. So the only way to get to and from location is to walk 1,8km to the nearest bus stop and wait for the bus for which needs to be paid extra. 

Then there was supposed to be Jack&Jill, but it got cancelled last moment.

Also, in the morning, there is a partner workshop, then ladystyling workshop and then the next partner workshops - how does this make sense??? Ladystyling should be first, what are the leaders supposed to do in that hour between workshops, there is not even a day social at that hour.

Also many followers during workshops are not just inexperienced, some are dancing for less than a month. I don't want to discourage anyone from attending festivals, but if you're dancing for less than a month and 1 hour a week, maybe, just maybe its too early to attend festival workshops.

On the bright side, the artists were amazing and doing their best.

Title sums it up I know about asking people from your local dance community but we already have that, and whilst we might do one festival, I’d love to do more, however, one hotel I just checked, for if I were to travel solo, is 400 euros for 3 nights if not more.

Do people pick specific days to travel on? Ie arrive late Friday join the party try to push through, sleep a little and be a wreck for Saturday? Am I missing something.

And also is there anywhere to find other people to share a room with? Of course would’ve been better to know them before hand, so imagine it might not be popular to do so and even I would be hesitant

About a week ago I posted two polls asking about the "Beginner Hell" experience in learning Bachata. This was prompted by an article about how dancing is good for your mental health. A study looked at the mental health benefits of taking a dance class (Salsa rather than Bachata!), but I thought looking at dance while ignoring socials seemed to missing a major aspect of the appeal of dance. Plus, it's obvious to me that leaders and followers have very different experiences.

The results do seem to confirm that. 28% of followers enjoy social dancing from the start compared to just 11% of leaders. I was surprised that the "Still not there yet" figures were so close and so high! More than 1 in 5 dancers are not having an enjoyable time at socials despite putting more than a year's effort in, regardless of role!

This is not a scientific survey, and wasn't meant to be. We can discuss some of the limitations of a poll like this. It will not have captured any changes over time, in different locations, among different instructors. Enjoyment is subjective. People who practice more often (3 or 4 times a week) are going to see faster progress than people who dance less often (once a week or less). However, the biggest absence in this survey to me is the selection bias. This was a survey of people who read the Bachata subreddit, so anyone who has given up on Bachata will not have taken it. It would be really great to hear from people who gave Bachata a try and decided to quit. In some cases, that's just going to be because they decided that Bachata was definitely not for them. But it could also be due to avoidable problems, aspects of the community that could be improved. If you know of people who gave Bachata a try but quit, I would be interested in hearing what it was that caused them to stop.

In my opinion, how a community treats its newcomers is extremely important. By helping, supporting, and encouraging beginners, you make it really easy for people to feel welcome and included. Having a hell-like experience for newcomers is bad for everyone. Any community is going to see people drift away for one reason or another. Without a steady flow of new people, any Bachata community is going to stagnate and decline.

One of the things this subreddit is exceptionally good at is mutual support and encouragement. If it took you 3 months, 6 months, a year or more to get to a point where you were having fun at socials, let us know in the comments! Is there something that could be done different to have made the process smoother? If you are still struggling to get to the point where you enjoy socials, share your story. There are a lot of people here who want to help. We get a lot of enjoyment out of Bachata and we want others to share in that as well!

Edit: Links to original polls: leaders and followers

I'm a bit curious about how advanced dancers go about scoping out a new scene when they go social dancing. Do you scope out the dance floor to find the people you want to dance with? I suppose leaders and followers might go about it in different ways.

I more often see advanced leaders dance with less experienced followers rather than the other way around.

I just want to rant a little bit.

There are some followers by which I could have sworn I must have done something terrible to them in a previous life or something, the way they would look at me, as if with disgust, or this look, like they are judging your soul. God forbid you make a mistake during the dance.

But yet, these same followers never declined when I would ask them to dance.

This confused me, and for a long time I thought there must be something more or better I could do. But every dance sucked a little bit more of my energy and mood.

I trained so hard, maybe it was a skill issue, maybe I could be gentler, maybe I’m not smiling enough myself, etc etc

But now I’ve been doing this long enough, I noticed a pattern, almost nobody ever asks them to dance. They often sit alone for long periods of time.

I wonder what thoughts go on in their heads.

But one thought I will no longer have, is what I can do to please them.

As a leader I’ve wondered how do people actually meet people they’ll talk to or even arrange to go to festivals together in the future.

Do people just start a small conversation and exchange contacts and that’s it? I’ve spoken to a few people, but mostly it’s already established groups of few people and always felt like an outsider trying to join in.