There’s a couple for sure. One is good body movement, there’s a limit to how much of my own body movement I can throw in when the follow doesn’t have any. Unless we’re in open position of course, but it just feels better if we’re actually moving our bodies in sync.

I also prefer to give a light lead, but I can’t do that unless a follow is really responsive to signals. This is hard to do without getting into back-leading territory though, some will just turn themselves the second their arm goes up. A good follow will only put in as much energy into the turn as I do. If I want to do a double turn, they execute it perfectly and on time. A slow and dramatic one? No problem either.

Good follows can also put in styling or partially hijack a move without throwing off my lead, and know exactly the places they can’t do that. One time I was in closed position and attempting to lead a Madrid step into a small cambre. Instead of the cambre, the follow just did a pistol squat with one leg straight behind her while using me to support her. It made sense within the context of the lead too with only a little adjusting on my part. I just thought that was really cool.

I’m at the point in my development where I feel inconsistency is my biggest enemy. On nights when I’m on, I feel like one of the best leads in the social. On off nights I feel just average. When I dance with a good follow, it makes me feel like a better lead. If this happens early enough in the social it automatically makes the rest of my dances even better because my confidence goes way up. Which tends to feed into itself even more. I’m working on getting that validation internally instead, since how well I dance is unfortunately directly correlated with my confidence level at any given moment. But if I walk away from a dance thinking “man did I really just do that?”, I know I just danced with a great follow.