Too often when we first learn partner dancing, we are focused on dancing with a partner, and what it takes to accomplish that specific task. However, if we develop our individual skills as a dancer, we will always be more accomplished partners. For leaders, you need to have something to communicate, and the more clearly you are aware of what you want to convey and how you want to move, the easier it is to relay this to a partner. For follows, an example of why you want to develop your own skills is, if you want to be a good turner, learn to turn. A leader has no magic that can make you accomplished at turning. They can be there to help you with your balance, or give you a connection to work off of to get more speed and effect, but they cannot make you a good turner. You either have the skill to swivel your feet or you don’t.
You want to know how to move and how to move on time with the music. When you learn to dance, there is a series of skills and coordinations you want to develop.
- First, you want to develop your own physical coordination. This is learning the moves or the steps.
- Second, you want to develop your internal sense of the relative speed of the movements or the steps. You would want to coordinate the physical movements with a timing/rhythm or speed.
- Next, you want to match your internal timing to the actual timing of the music you dance to. There are several different tempos or speeds for any type of music. Some people develop a very good sense of the rhythm of the dance but they don’t coordinate it with the music that is playing.
- You will now be ready to coordinate your movement with a partner who also has developed their own physical and musical skills. This can be different than actual lead and follow and is more about being connected or coordinated with a partner.
- Finally, we get to the skills of lead and follow. You want to develop the physical coordination of the lead/follow and then achieve a level of “conversational” ability, where the skills we have already developed begin to feel ‘natural,’ and you are able to use them easily and mainly from a place of ‘feeling’ instead of ‘thinking.’
Only after developing our own dance skills can we then develop into being good partners.
Next: What is this “connection” anyways…
