Which cities in Europe have a good Dominican bachata scene, with regular classes and good teachers? Thinking about a workation with some dancing. Troyes has Samy el Magico, Paris has some, any others?

UPDATE: |Thanks for all the feedback. Although there’s some variation on opinions on this I respect why some people see this as an annoyance. I think I’ll ask my gf if she wants to do a private class, go to another group class and rotate or if we want to to go to another group class and not rotate, check in with the instructor beforehand. If they frown upon it we’ll either rotate or just skip and wait for the dance party. She just wants to dance 😂 |

Is it impolite to not change partners when you go to dance lessons as a couple?

My girlfriend and I went to a bacahata/salsa dance club together for the first time last night. They have an hour lesson before the dance party. They did 15 minutes showing everyone some moves solo and then split up into beginner and intermediate groups. We went with the beginners obviously as I’ve never done either and they had us pair off and make a circle around the instructors. After a couple minutes they asked the followers to rotate clockwise to the next leader. My gf was kind of confused but I was like sure whatever. Then I noticed one couple wasn’t switching up so the next time she came around to me I told her just to stay because I wanted to practice with her so we could try to get in synch for the dance party. One woman seemed annoyed with us and the other couple for not switching up though.

Is this considered rude or bad etiquette?

It’s not like this was specifically a singles dance lesson or anything. And I didn’t really have any interest in dancing with other people. even though everyone seemed respectful there was a flirtatious nature to it that I wasn’t crazy about. That part didn’t really bother me so much but I really just wanted to dance with my gf.

We had an amazing time btw and I can’t wait to go again and get better. My hips were killing me after a couple hours as I’m not used to those movements 😂 but I think it’s like any other exercise and with time I’ll get conditioned to it

Advanced leaders,

do you have your homework routines that you do to improve your skills, turns or waves for an example? How do they look like? And how do you incorporate gym trainings not to become to "heavy" on feet? Whats your focus?

Thanks in advance!

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I’m a female follower and I have a male classmate (lead) in my bachata class. We sometimes talk and we both dance salsa. I must say that we dance salsa VERY well together. We once stopped an entire room and I don’t even like being centre of attention. Anyway, I digress.

I met his gf at another event and I also have a bf. I think he’s a nice person, but he is overly complimentary and a bit too touchy feely. I heard that he’s complimentary with most people, though. He also told me that he spent a couple of years in Costa Rica (not sure about the culture out there tbh), but he comes from an Asian country which is not known for its PDA. We both live in this country by the way.

Now he is taller than me and has a habit of patting me on the waist, which I find very odd and a bit uncomfortable to be honest since I know how conservative his country is. He tends to do this when giving compliments, but just the other day, he actually “patted” me on my behind and I did not like that. I will admit, I should have been a bit more firm in my reaction. I arched my body away uncomfortably instead because I’m stupid.

Is his being situationally unaware or taking advantage and if so, how can I call him out with souring the mood?

Hey,

just a thought. My observation is that a lot of leaders lack styling and expressing the music through their own body. We learn to be musical through the body of our follower, before we learn to dance through our own body (we never learn this). I think that is another problem in the way Bachata is taught - not only is there too much focus on combos as opposed to technique and "glue", holding the dance together with little moves - we also don't learn to express the music by ourselves.

There are few dancers that are good at this, usually they come from Jazz or Hip Hop. There are even advanced teachers, who can not do that, and who's hips move in a radically uninteresting fashion.

Obviously, you can't and don't have to teach everything. However, I propose a reasonable way to practice Bachata alone would be, not to shadow-dance, but to practice your footwork as expressive as possible (while maintaining the rules of Bachata). I got inspired recently from a warm-up in a really good school. It was the first warm-up that was fun for me, because it was so perfectly expressive and fitting to the music. Learning to lead yourself in this way I believe, might be a reasonable practice for when you are alone at home but have bachata cravings. I am yet to explore this idea for myself. I believe that if you manage to dance a whole bachata song alone and enjoy yourself, chances to have a bad social dance will diminish radically and you will have a better time overall. Let me know what you think and if you do such a thing already. :)

I would learn a combo, apply it a few times in a social, but then forget about it on the dancefloor. I take quiet a few classes and do the workshops on festivals, but the reward for my social dancing can be quiet low. Especially when I dont feel comfortable at the venue or with the follower, my dancing will regress. Only thing that works for sure for me is doing the same move over and over again, so it goes into muscle memory. But that requires a lot of time and practice.

How good is your information retention regarding dancing and what do you do to retent as much information as possible?

Hello dancers !

I’m in bit of a fix and would love your help.

I’ve been dreaming of travelling to South America for the last 8 years. The culture, the food , the exotic people and locations are just mind blowing! And now I finally have a 3 month backpacking trip planned to Colombia - Brazil - Peru.

Over the last 2 years, I started learning bachata and have gotten pretty good at it. I can’t go one week without dancing at a social now lol. So I’m thinking if I should skip this trip and do a full bachata immersion in Spain / Romania / Poland etc . But only if the Europe scene is significantly better than Colombia / Brazil / Peru in terms of quantity and quality of dancers .

For people who’ve been both sides, what do you all think ?

PS. I’ve heard the women ( and hence followers ) in South America are way better and friendlier so that’s a plus point too over Europe

Hello Bachata community,

I've recently come across an amazing move in Melvin and Gatica's Bachata Influence style that I absolutely love. It's so smooth and captivating, and I'd really appreciate if someone could create or write a detailed tutorial for it (Melvin's side), especially with Melvin's signature styling.

Here's the move I'm talking about:

1. In this video: Melvin & Gatica - Bachata Influence, check out the sequence from 1:24 to 1:34.
2. He also uses it here: Melvin & Gatica social dance, at 0:47.

The move is a nice combination of flow, and expression, and Melvin’s styling makes it stand out even more. I’ve noticed that he incorporates this move frequently, but I’m struggling to break it down myself.

If anyone skilled in Bachata Influence style could create a step-by-step breakdown of this move, especially keeping Melvin’s styling in mind (like in the first video), it would be great, I’m sure, to many others in the community! 🙏

Thanks in advance !

#BachataInfluence #MelvinAndGatica #BachataStyling #DanceTutorial

I have the opportunity to spend a few months working from anywhere and looking for a couple of cities where I can level up in sensual bachata. For example, last year I spent a month in Brazil working and dance training in zouk. But Spain appears to be far more expensive--for both private lessons and also living expenses. Medellin fits this description though I've been there a couple times before and was looking for something new.

I am still very much open to Spain if folks are aware of great teachers who perhaps aren't world famous and have reasonable prices (and can partially explain topics in English). Would love some suggestions for great value that others have explored or heard about. Thanks so much!

Dear advanced followers,

i saw on some videos that the leads hand on your shoulderblade (SB) is "enough" to understand/get it that you go under the arm in the zouk tourn. Is it really so? Can you give me from the followers point of the view what does the hand on your SB mean to you when bein lead in the turn? Thank you!

It's winter where I am and the number of dance events has gone down in my area as they were mostly outdoors.

To make it productive, thought I'd start focusing on my fundamentals like basic steps, quality of turns, maybe multiple turns etc. I'm a lead.

However, I can't help but imagine that doing the basic step to improve it for a 3 or 4 min song can get boring, so looking for ways to make it more interesting and ideally a more useful way to get better!

Hi, Im from Europe and really like Romeo santos and bachata. I cant go a day without bachata, and I really want to see the show Romeo santos: el Rey de la bachata. But it is un available on every platform. Can some one help me find a website where i can watch it. Or show me another documentary about Romeo in English. Thanks. Ps I’m from Norway and have no hispanic genes or anything but i just really feel in love with the Spanish language and Latin American culture. Thanks.

A couple of days ago, I went to a social and I've been taking intermediate classes. Generally people say my leading is good and enjoy the dances.

I had a strange incident the other day where I was dancing with a follow (who told me they'd been out of the game for a while) and I started doing simple moves, like going into a wrap/pretzel, simple turns etc and I got the impression that this might be as high level as I could go based on how I felt the connection, and her weight transfer, positioning etc, which felt more beginner level to me. So I stuck with these kinds of moves.

Afterwards, she told me the dance was good but I should drop down to a lower level class for a bit while I got the fundamentals perfected, and I didn't do any advanced moves so should learn more of those.

I was really confused, as I think in general I often do simpler moves but try to match the energy of the music, add in footwork, some styling etc. And in the moment, I didn't think she would handle anything more advanced so also stayed away from too many sensual moves. I've never really been given a criticism like this before so trying to figure out what to make of it haha - thoughts?

Perhaps there's other follows who think the same but won't express it out of courtesy, or perhaps it's a one-off, but given I do get compliments from other follows, I'm not sure what to make of it

I don't know if this depends on where i come from or my abilities as a leader, but I am often a bit disappointed by women followers' social laziness. I feel like many of them don't invite leaders to dance, unless they know them (same dancing school for example). Oftentimes you see women just standing at the edge of the dance floor, annoyed by the fact that no one is inviting them to dance, yet not taking initiative themselves. Does this happen in every bachata circle? I come from Rome, but I remember going dancing with a dutch girl - studying gender studies and all pro female emancipation blabla - who would refuse to invite because "that's a thing men do, and I feel shy/scared". I guess it doesn't depend on the place then, at least for Europe . I have also been told that I am quite a good leader - and I often get asked by friends from my school - but not often by strangers (at least in comparison to me asking).

Being invited to dance feels empowering, and men have all the right to feel it, as much as women do. I have thought about it quite a lot, and I can't help thinking that a place where both men and women equally ask to dance would be a better place. I feel like we are still far from equality.

Hi Bachater@s

I am pretty sure that was recently shown a cartoon here on reddit (most likely this sub) which had the following properites/content:
- Content was about the qualities of a man and a woman
- 1 character (i guess the follower) listed (was thinking or talking about) the many things "she brings to the table"
- All we learned about the other character was, that he is "pretty good at leading the Madrid step".

Does that sound familiar to anyone of you?

I would love to share that cartoon with some friends but just cannot find it anymore.
-----

Edit: Found it.
Since it was not on reddit, I will share it with you.

https://preview.redd.it/r47156fad43e1.png?width=852&format=png&auto=webp&s=94c3c752b10938b4d11e08b5077524151836191d

Hello ! I heard this song at a bachata party.

It's a bachata "influence" style song in english.

The only word I could remember is "Dignity".

Does anybody know it ?

I recently went to an in-person class on how to dance bachata with two follows. For that class, we used open hold, and lead some basic turns, forward and back, and cuddles. It was fun, and I'd like to learn more. Does anyone know of some other online resources covering how to do this?

I was able to find this instance of some doubling in Bachata (and Kizomba) https://youtu.be/c8nFduO7gX8?t=125, but it is choreographed. I also found a recording of a class on how to do this in salsa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_NmzCkF0v0.

Any

I'm talking about the move at the 1:09 mark. I've seen this move a lot, especially from this dance couple. Is it a hip roll, or booty roll? Does the leader really need to control the follower's hips for her to perform the move?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2xv4PsuJc8

Hey, could someone share songs or playlists which are not originally bachata but are good to dance to. For example, songs that has some accents which would play nice with dancing. As one example, I am sharing this: https://youtu.be/LWYFEbnrye4?si=RpoQTIrUrBEeCTvf

Hi everybody, I (Male/lead) am planning to travel to Latin America in January. I'll be following Spanish classes but would also like to go to socials and perhaps some classes. For this I'm thinking to go to Colombia but I'm doubting between Medellin or Cartagena. Does anyone have any idea what the social scene looks like? I've visited both places before but very shortly so I'm not sure what's it's like to stay for a longer period of time and what the dance scene looks like.

Thanks in advance!

I have trouble leading followers with spaghetti arms (not enough tension), which can lead to some of my moves failing, or not able to do them well. However, I see other more experienced leaders able to lead them just fine. Is there anything a leader can do to lead them well?

The file management of video recaps can quickly get daunting. Here are the options I already know of:

The default plan: sharing recap videos into our school WhatsApp group: Pro: compresses files. Con: demanding of my data and at scale will make my iPhone backup unmanageably large. Also must come from my personal phone, but I record recaps on an older secondary phone, so it’s just inefficient.

Other solutions: GOOGLE PHOTOS: an instructor that I like dumps all of her class recap videos into Google photos. The problem is Google photos doesn’t support titles in a way that is contextual. So you have to manually browse through the videos that are unlabeled to find the correct class because she uploads fr an instructor that I like dumps all of her class recap videos into Google photos. The problem is Google photos doesn’t support titles in a way that is contextual. So you have to manually browse through the videos that are unlabeled to find the correct class because she uploads from multiple levels for multiple levels.

pCloud folder: just keep one share folder for all class recaps. Pro: was awesome until CON: I surpassed the 5gb limit and I don’t need another monthly bill. Also no support for captions so I must rename the files and that’s not fun after a long day of classes.

TELEGRAM: pro: infinite free cloud storage, cross platform, can compress videos to be less draining on your data. CON: not everyone uses it. So then I’d have to make students download another app.

Any other idea’s I’ve never come across? Searching answers from instructors who share class videos and have a sustainable process of doing so. Thanks!

(Off topic answers will be moderated)

Hey everybody!

With a friend we were wondering what was the average spending per year per dancer. We have very different opinions on that (she said up to 7K per year, I tap more around 3K).

What’s yours??

It includes:

• classes & privates
• events (workshops, festivals, weekenders)
• socials
• shoes & clothing
• transportation & housing (for far away events)

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is a Zouk instructor and she was telling me that people have this perception that solo practicing isn't helpful. Is this true for Bachata as well? I practice solo a lot because for one I don't have a dance partner to practice with, so it's the limited option I have to gain improvements in my dance arsenal. I will say solo practicing doesn't necessarily help with initiating certain movements, but I think it can help with musicality, footwork, and confidence.

What do you all think?

Anyone have good exercises for head delay, mine drops as if I've been beheaded. But when I look at other heads it looks like they've been beheaded elegantly or in s l o w m o t i o n. Like how! Is there some zouk magic to this?

Voy al concierto de Aventura que comienza a las 7 p. m. y tengo entradas VIP (SILLETERIA GENERAL) Solo me preguntaba a qué hora debería hacer cola para poder tener una buena vista. Primera vez que asisto a un concierto en Colombia. Soy un fan de Aventura y solo quiero una gran vista de ellos.