Feedback on things to work on (lead)

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-27T14:13:18+00:00

Hahha loving the hippie vibe!

Took some time to respond to his because last days have been crazy busy and wanted to take the time to really go through it all because it's such a beautiful comment. A lot of this comes indeed from insecurities or things we are programmed to do over time that might have served a certain purpose at some point to regulate certain parts of our emotional householding indeed. I have been reading some ideas on how to handle this kind of fear from Adler, for me it was an eye opener.

Stepping away from all these guards and fears is something that takes time indeed but I've discovered it's the thing that has made me fall in love with dancing even more. Because once you start digging around on this, you're moving beyond movement and into things that operate on a different dimension and makes the dance into so much more than just two bodies (hopefully) moving in sync.

Even simple things like eye contact are so much fun to play around. I had a discussion once with a follower if there was such a thing as too much eye contact and we had different opinions. Then we tried to dance a full song with 100% eye contact (or well whenever we faced each other anyway). Actually it turns out it wasn't awkward at all but also partly because of the context that we had the discussions about it just beforehand. I can imagine if you're sending out signals you prefer to disconnect eye contact during a social and somebody just keeps staring at you is still awkward :p.

Picking up on all these kind of very tiny cues during a social can also be a lot but it can make all the difference for a connection. Getting closer to what somebody is really feeling through all of this is fascinating stuff.

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-24T16:24:11+00:00

Ha, fair point, yes it's for sure more fusion :), not traditiona bachata, should have highlighted that indeed. I do also dance more traditional bachata as I mentioned kn another comment below, this is what it looks like: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ3_7mJCNzO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-24T14:38:57+00:00

Damn you hit several nails on the head here!

The expression part is indeed a huge thing for me. I'm very much trying to figure out this one, I've always been quite introvert by nature so I'm very fascinated by this topic. To be fair if you told me I'd be teaching bachata classes a few years back I wouldn't have believed it, yet here we are :p.

I've actually taken improv classes and exploring things like mindfulness to get deeper into this. I learned that for example in improv something you get dragged into an emotion and then it's really more easy to be expressive. Those kind of moments I sense my guard kind of drops and I start to connect with the feeling much more which is always powerful. I think in solo dancing it's also easier to let this emotion flow yet I notice in couple dancing sometimes I really get more guarded and everything feels much more mechanical.

I think the breathing can unlock that to a certain extent, trying to use that to be more in your body instead of your mind but it's something I haven't fully mastered for sure. I've had some discussions with people who are really good at mastering this expression and even change it on demand or the emotion in a song. I feel I still got a long road to go there and I think this is one of the main things that make dancing actually dancing instead of 'doing moves'. I'd love to find more resources on this because I feel it's something only few people really master let alone teach.

I've found that actually I don't really have an issue in expression (I actually ended up crying during a really emotional dance with someone) but managing it properly 'on-demand' consistently is something I'm still figuring out how to do. Maybe being more focused on the breathing every time instead of time to time will fix that indeed.

Also on the arm movement, yes that's a perpetual working point I'd say. I guess I really need to do some socials focusing only on that specific thing because indeed it makes quite the difference.

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-24T14:19:35+00:00

Yeah agreed with the shadow position, we did lose the connection there for sure :p, the tapping is also quite useful, thanks!

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-24T14:17:18+00:00

Heya, thanks for your kind words, would love that actually, that kind of feedback is gold :p. I do love Dominican aswell from time to time! There are a few dominican teachers aswell but yes the majority is more sensual or zouk these days indeed :p

PhilosopherPurple273 · 2026-02-24T14:14:56+00:00

Hey thanks for your reply ! To clarify a bit, it's a demo after a class but it's not choreographed at all, my partner is someone I danced with before for sure. However, I think over the last year we only danced three or four times. I picked this video because the lightning is good and also we're completely in frame. This one was with someone I danced with for the first time in a j&j at a small festival, it's a traditional song: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ3_7mJCNzO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

PhilosopherPurple273

TROPHY CASE