From Zero to Super Bachatero – Fast and Effective Dance Learning Part 2

This is the second part of the first in the series of articles: Hola! Tu Taniec!

Improve your skills…

Remember that in dance, not only practiced dance skills can be useful, but also non-dance skills. This means that in order to achieve visible effects in your dance development, you will need activities such as: strength (resistance) training, endurance (conditioning) training, functional training, relaxation training, etc. It is worth focusing on stretching, stabilizing and strengthening exercises. To sum up: in addition to dance training, developing physical fitness and preparing our body for movement plays a huge role.

Nowadays, sitting at a desk for almost half the day, we are not able to go dancing and be flexible, fast and fluid enough in our movements. That is why the gym or exercises at home are such an important element of conscious dancing. To this we need to add exercises that will improve our body movement and necessarily body isolation exercises that will deepen our range of movement. Therefore, please do not avoid warm-ups at the beginning of classes or body movement, which instructors teach during solo classes. Remember that warm-ups are used to avoid tensions in the body that lead to injuries and perfectly prepare our body for the movements that we practice in pairs during classes.

Another important element of dance development is devoting time to practicing the basic step by yourself (solo) and perfecting all of its elements. From my own experience, I can tell you that from the beginning of my adventure with dance, I played Bachata at home for hours and practiced solo steps, isolations, body movement and figures. I also practiced rhythm changes in music and accents in songs. Therefore, remember that apart from regular classes at the dance school, individual solo work on your dance development is also important. Thanks to such activities, your progress in dance will move forward very quickly!!

Parties / workshops / festivals – when to go to your first big Bachata party?

After two weeks of learning Bachata, when I decided that I wanted to learn this dance as soon as possible, I approached my instructors and asked what I should do to speed up my dance development? I got this answer: Go to as many parties a week as possible! And that’s what I did!! I went everywhere I could that had Bachata in the name. So if you care about your dance development, in addition to your regular Bachata classes, go to Bachata parties.

Someone wise once told me that dancing is like muscles, if you don’t use them, they don’t develop. So if you only go to classes, you will never develop as a dancer as quickly as those people who added Bachata parties and festivals to their weekly schedule. Over the years of observing dancing people whom I met only at classes in dance schools and those whom I also met regularly at parties, I have noticed a huge difference. The conclusion was obvious: Parties are so much developing that the people whose schedules included the parties soared with their Bachata level so much that they stood out from all the others who only went to classes.

Parties and festivals give you the opportunity to open up to dancing with people from other dance schools, cities and even countries, and not just practice more figures and combinations with participants of your regular classes. Of course, this is also necessary, but it is also worth opening up to other possibilities. By going to such an event, you can perfectly verify your leading (leader) or following (follower). It may turn out that what worked for you during classes at the dance school suddenly does not work and you have a problem with something because, for example, your partner does not know a given figure or your partner leads a given combination in a different way. Therefore, if you do not know the technical and precise leading of a given figure yourself, it will not be possible to perform it with all the dancers. This applies to both the leader and the follower. When it comes to partners, for example, if we don’t maintain the right tension and don’t focus on the partner (on feeling what leads), we can misread the partner’s leading. Parties will help you not only test your skills, but also learn how to adjust leading or following to less advanced people. They are also a great opportunity to dance with more advanced people, which is practically unattainable in regular classes.

Have you been to your first festival or workshop?

It is known among instructors and people who have been dancing for a long time that the greatest leaps in skills (progress) are achieved during festivals and workshops. You have to experience it yourself to believe it. Sometimes it happens that by taking part in workshops at a festival of a different dance style or participating in workshops dedicated to body movement or footwork, you will improve elements of your dance that you had a problem with so far or suddenly you will start to do a combination or figure that was giving you trouble. Another advantage is that when you decide to participate in workshops or a festival, you can expect participants from other cities, with whom you can dance, learning completely different leading or following, verifying your current skills and finding out what else is worth working on.

So I have some advice for you: it’s not worth sitting in one place (school and city) all the time dancing with the same people, but it’s worth taking the opportunity to dance with people from other schools, cities or countries to constantly develop your dancing skills. This will definitely be useful to you on your way to a super Bachata. To sum up, participating in festivals and workshops is another element that will help accelerate your dance development.

A few words at the end…

These elements leading from the basics to advanced Bachata are my personal observations and opinions on the subject. Not everyone has to have the same opinion and agree with it, and not everyone will become a super Bachata after using them. It all depends on your individual musical skills, determination, talent or physical conditions. Over the years, I’ve seen many people who stopped at a certain level of dancing and, despite the passage of time, couldn’t get over it and move on. Remember that on your dance path you can also experience moments when you stop for a moment, because, for example, your body needs a moment to download a new movement or get used to performing a certain position. Despite this, it is worth constantly developing yourself consciously, training and going to dance events, of course also giving yourself time to regenerate. Although in my dance career I have been to many festivals and workshops both in Poland and abroad, I still want to go to more and more, learning from the best instructors and improving those elements of my dance that I can still improve. And this is also advice for you. Do not stay in one place and do not focus on what is not working, but learn through classes, workshops and festivals what you can improve and improve.

Remember that in your dance adventure, discipline, systematicity, the desire to learn and improve, meet new people, but most importantly the desire to enjoy dancing and have fun. Which I wish you with all my heart.

If you liked this article please share it with your dancing friends so that more Bachateros can benefit from it!!

See you on the dance floor!

Author: Małgosia Andrzejewska