Are you ready to get up close and personal with your dance partner?
Now don’t get any IDEAS, we’re talking about lead and follow here! Listen, often men are unsure of how to make the lady do what they want, when they want it. (hhhmmm…again, we are talking about dancing here, but that sounds like something my husband would like to learn more about for everyday applications:)
Max Sinitsa is our resident masterful American Smooth coach, and a brilliant teacher on refining your ballroom lead and follow with timing skills.
We’re sharing this exclusive video from our member library to help dancers understand the nuances of how direction of the lead and position of the hands affect the timing and movement for the lady.
Max teaches three scenarios for leading, using Waltz as the example dance. The lovely Eulia Baranovsky demonstrates the Lady’s part.
Getting Up Close and Personal:
- Lead Down
- Lead Up
- Lead Down & Up
Lead Down causes a syncopation when then connection is moved down, down. In waltz it would cause the lady’s timing to change to 1 and 2, 3.
Taking the Lead Up causes a canter timing, which rises immediately. The timing is changed to 1 (hold 2) 3.
Lead Down & Up causes the timing to be the regular waltz timing:1, 2, 3. This combines the first and second points to create the standard waltz timing and rise and fall for the Lady.
Important Tips:
Closing the space without proper connection can cause an unattractive lines in the leading (or following) arm.
Not only does this affect your posture and the overall look of the line, it doesn’t clearly define the timing that you want the Lady to follow.
The basic take-away is that to get closer to the Lady, or bring her closer to you, the Leader must either lift or lower the connection, rather than pull while maintaining the connection at the same level.
There you go! All you need to know about how to get up close and personal with your partner and look good while doing it.
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With her husband Erik, they are the founders of DanceSport Place and have a passion to help dancesport competitors reach their dancing goals.
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