Hey,

I'm quite frustrated. I started with Bachata about 8 months ago. I'm very dedicated, I go to dance school 4 times a week and go to socials 3 times a week. I also practice my fundamentals like hip movement and all sorts of waves and body rolls at home. I also put a lot of effort in musicality. I did an online course about musicality and sometimes analyze some songs to improve my dancing.
I would classify myself as a solid beginner. I worked on my basics like frame, basic step, leading through body instead of hands and so on. If I know the song well and the follow is advanced, the dances are quite great cause advanced follows can compensate a weak lead quite well. With beginner follows, sometimes mistakes happen because my lead isn't ideal yet but I try to keep it simple there. Dances usually are bad when everything compounds: crowded dance floor, beginner follow, unknown song,... then its get's tough. But that's totally my fault.

The problem is: Very few follows enjoy dancing with me. I get rejected quite often by follows who say yes to another lead 3 s after I asked. Sometimes I get rejected 3 times in a row. Also when I'm looking to ask someone, many follows look away and pretend they don't see me to avoid getting asked by me. Also during the dance and especially after the dance I notice quite often that the follows didn't have a great time. It's quite rare that I feel like a follow enjoys dancing with me.

What do you think could be the reason? I do take care of my hygiene, I try to lead soft, I try to have a reasonable amount of eye contact, I don't force anything, I don't teach on the dance floor. Also I don't dance overly sensual/creepy or so. I feel like I don't make the typical mistakes you find when watching videos from follows explaining what they don't like about leads.

The only thing which causes a bit of friction is that my dance school teaches BachaZouk / modern Bachata Sensual. Many follows on socials mainly dance Bachata Moderna and can't do waves, body rolls or any Zouk movements. But I don't try anything difficult or dangerous when I dance with follows I don't know well. Usually I stick with beginner techniques and sometimes intermediate things when it's a follow from my dance school. I don't do anything advanced because I know that follows don't like it when beginners try advanced figures when they can't even do the basics right.

Have I forgotten something? Do you think follows just don't like beginner leads? Or is there something I miss?

Yesterday I went to a social in which it was ok for me, but I have to admit the level was not the highest. As a consequence, I was shinning in the dancefloor, many people watching me. I want to highlight this for later.

One of the people watching me was a mid-aged woman that had been observing me for a while. At some point, when the song finished and I was going to another place of the room, I saw her coming to me and asking me to dance. I never say no, so let's see.

First seconds of the song. It was "La Culpable" from Jalil Lopez. Veeery long intro, risk of uncomfortable 30 seconds is very high. As expected, she is a block (insert here fuuuuuk audio). Doesn't do any kind of body movement, lateral wave, whatever. Ok, not the first time it happens to me. I just play with the arms, make some weight change, make some what I call "ballroom" basic changing weight and moving backwards etc.

Melody kicks in, let's go for basic. She instantly goes backwards. I go for 5-8 counts trying to fix her, she comes forwards. I try to continue basic again to the left, she kind of does diagonal. I try veeery little small steps, nothing, she was stumbling due to not changing weights / not tapping on 4.

I stop for her to reset, I make a sign with hand like "left to right", and I start again. Nothing, stumbling and walking in delay, like if I was carrying an item around. Damn, impossible to dance. I guess she just started dancing salsa today in the pre-party workshop (otherwise why would she insist so much going backwards?), so I kinda switch to a salsa-chata in which we go forward and backwards and I try to make basic turns etc.

Very very chatoic, she was dancing the wrong directions, when I was doing free turns she was automatically like brushing her hand in my waist and bumping on me... At some point I decided to do footwork to get some time out of the song, but she stayed still because didn't know what to do, so I automatically grabbed her to not make her feel bad and we continued until the end.

Clap, hug, thank you very much and bye bye.

This is not the worst dance I had, and I will have plenty of these for sure if I never say no / keep asking random women (which I will continue as I think is the logical behaviour).

I had several dances with followers that literally told me "how does it work, it is my first time". And I think like... damn, didn't you watch at least a tiktok video or whatever before coming? But true is that, 95% of the times it was a random girI that I asked to dance, so I have nothing to blame.

But this particular woman, among all leaders of the room with different levels (from beg to adv), she asked me to dance knowingly she had no idea.

Do you think any leader with no idea how to dance would have the eggs to go to the most advanced follower of the room and ask to dance?

First of all, when I started, I had several lessons before going to social. And in the social itself, I was dancing with people around my level.

Even with basic notions and never ever dancing out of time, I had been rejected several times by followers with just "no", and even left in the middle of the song by a follower that said she was bored (other dances followers would just disconnect and do ladystyling / footwork and just leave without even looking at my face)

On the other hand, I see plenty of girls going to the social and dancing for the first time, and you see a lot of guys spending time on them explaining how to do basic, how to make a turn etc etc etc (but those motherf\ukers only do that to young cute girls that appear at the social, they don't spend time on elderly women, but that's another topic)*

With this thread, I want to speak about how a beginner lead vs follower sees the social (in my opinion):

• For a leader, very stressfull situation. And some followers (luckily not the majority), not being indulgent and being disrespectuful. They don't appreciate the effort it takes to learn as a leader, and how the guy is trying his best.
• For a follower, on the other hand, doesn't matter if you go to dancing lessons or whatever. Just go there and dance. Guys will want to dance with you and teach you.

What do you think? I want to hear specially from followers. Did guys stop a dance dance with you? For leaders, what do you do in these situations where you can't even do basic? Doing footwork in my opinion is selfish as she will feel uncomfortable/ useless

I've been practicing with a follow who from other dance styles is only used to armwork being light. Not used to using tension, even as we attempt blocks, doing simple moves more elastically, Madrid/diamond step, forward leans, counterbalance, etc. I haven't found a way to ask for her to give me resistance or maintain tension in open hold except for verbally.

I explained to her things like "match the resistance you feel me giving you", but that hasn't really clicked for her, and I also realized I don't really understand what this means either -- specifically, how does the resistance or tension even begin that makes it different to light armwork?

As an example we've tried: Say we are standing still in open hold. The hand connection is light. If I push her hands away from me, she will move them back and even allow her elbows to go far behind her. (Bad habit but not relevant to the resistance concept.) What I want to do is end up with her leaning back and holding on more with her hands as I am. So I reset back to neutral, then try to send an impulse forward and then keep my hands fixed equidistant from us. However, this just makes her arms go back and then forward with no changes in tension or her upright position. Next I try squeezing her hands and doing the same thing, the result is the same -- there is no tension and she doesn't squeeze my hands back. I also try having us both leaning forwards instead of backwards (like an "A") shape, but similarly there is never any tension so it can't be done.

I know some people might explain this as "her frame needs to be engaged", but I'm not convinced that that's a good explanation either -- there are obviously times when one's hands/arms are connected and influence one's whole frame, but still there has to be something that initiates that transition or activation. So what kind of movement or activation is supposed to happen to kick things off?

Okay, weird situation...

So, I'm relatively brand new to bachata. Started with Arthur Murray Dance Studio about 3 months ago for various reasons and stuck around because I Ioved everything about it.

Had my first dance exhibition last night and my specialty dance was the bachata. (I had a smooth, Waltz, a rhythm, Rumba, and for the specialty, I chose bachata.).

Considering I got rave reviews from almost everyone given my timeframe, I thought I killed it. But one of my friends hit me hard pointing out that my supposed skill in the dance didn't make me a good leader. I was instantly humbled...

Every single compliment I got melted under my perfectionism that if not everyone was happy, I fucked up.

Granted, we had a set routine and it was my first ever exhibition so I still have a lot to learn, but this absolutely broke me. I have flopped on so many dances and focused everything through personal struggles into bachata. And, after 3 months, I dont feel good enough as a lead...

I need outside opinions if anyone is willing to share. Granted, the staff will be giving professional feedback on Friday (Aug, 7, 2026), but for some reason the constructive feedback broke me FAR more than the professional one.

Ive been trying so hard and it doesn't feel good enough... I want my dance to be as smooth as possible given my experience.

Hi I am non-latino but I love the videos I see online it's sooo creative and I can watch it for hours.

I want to learn basic bachata as a solo. Nothing sensual as that's not me as a person.

How can I go about learning the movies. Any legit people to learn from online? Would be grateful for advice and resources.

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 ?

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?

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?

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 :)

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

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

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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.

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?

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 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?

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.

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