Tips on becoming a better follow? Social Dancing

Tips on becoming a better follow? Social Dancing

Follower has been told that she anticipates moves.

When you're practicing, ask your partner to sometimes throw in other moves as well! Preferably that starts somewhat the same. Try not to practice choreographies you see in classes in their entirety, but just their individual parts.

Or you could even try practicing with a blindfold on. Obviously, ask the lead, someone you trust, to do this only basic steps and easy turns in a safe, well lit location where it’s just you and the lead on the floor. Try with and without music.

Attending socials and dancing with different leads will help. Particularly if you see new faces or leads who learned elsewhere.

I think something that's quite important psychologically for following to really work is trusting the leader and letting go of control. It's why the role is called following - you're not the one calling the shots. You're going along with what the leader is doing. This requires comfort, vulnerability, feeling safe. Those are not easy things to have especially starting off dancing with complete strangers who are clueless as well. So remind yourself of that and give yourself time to acclimate.

Now another aspect of it has to do with the quality of communication between leader and follower. Part of why you're predicting moves may be because of a poor ambiguous signal of a move from the leader. That's something that can only be determined by dancing with solid leaders. So ensure that in classes the instructor leads you through a move a few times so you know what it should feel like.

Another part may be that you've got to work on your framing, body control and positioning. This is basically what sets you up to be lead appropriately. If you're too loose, it'll be like trying to get cooked spaghetti to dance, it just goes everywhere. If you're too stiff it's like trying to move something really heavy across the floor which sometimes jerks around or gets stuck.
From what I've seen, the best followers are excellent at shines and I believe that's because it gives them a solid amount of body control and positioning and a good understanding of what a person would need to have their body moved as they know how to move their own body. So I really recommend working on shines. If I was to start dancing anew - I'd prioritize shines over partnerwork. I'd film the instructor, practice solo, film myself, compare videos and slowly pick one thing at a time to fix about my movement and work on it.

Another common thing I found in my area with the best followers is that they did private lessons with a well-known specialist in teaching following. If there's someone like that in your area, it'd probably be a good idea to do a few lessons. Ask the good follows in your area and see what they say.

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