I lead most of the time I dance tango. I practice my follower’s skills in practicas. In milongas, I will sometimes follow in playful roles swaps with some lady friends.

I love to follow. It has been a process of re-discovering the dance. It made me gain much more appreciation for the dance and in particular, for how a leader can make a dance wonderful.

After reading this entry from tangopilgrim I realized why I love to follow. While leading I always need to be ahead of the follower and the dance in some ways, as a follower I release myself from all that and focus on the present. And the present only.

A while ago, after a one on one with a teacher, I realized that I was developing an unbalanced way of leading. This caused physical fatigue after a while. While I have my own theories about why I developed this I won’t bore you with them. The teacher lead me like I was leading him thus making it very obvious to me on how it felt. Not as great as I’d like to.

More recently I made the interesting find that some followers are very good – and vocal – to notice unbalances and others are not. While attending a practica before a milonga I asked a respected follower for her opinion on things to work on and develop. She did not say much besides the obvious. I don’t believe she was being shy. On the other end, another really good follower has been telling me for a while to relax a part of my body. She’s always said it to me in a very kind way. She’s a very kind and serene person.

While dancing with the latter follower I’ve always focused on doing that but I was never clever or dedicated enough to understand the root of the problem. I believe I have now furthered my understanding of the issue, figure out one of the root causes and also how to better cope and deal with it.

I’ve learned throughout this process that I need to explore much more the tips I receive. With a different approach that is. Now, every leader gets lots of tips. They tend to be freely shared by younger and less experienced followers. They also tend to be less useful since you’ve gone past that hill already. On the other hand, what is really important is to get ahold of the tips given by experienced but seldom vocal followers that you believe have a deeper understanding of the dance. I’ve learned not to see them as the root or issue but as more probably than not an effect of something each person needs to dig deeper and figure out within their dancing why that may be.

I’ve got lots of stuff to work on for a while now…

Am I the only one that doesn’t really like the jumpy holding hand?

Some followers even back-lead me that hand motion.

There’s something grandiose about a follower that truly follows, committing themselves to the moment and lead. It seems you only get that in blank slate beginners and extremely advanced dancers.

Too bad 90% of a follower’s tango life is spent between those two stages.

Recently someone commented on my dancing: “Your upper body does something and your legs do another”.

I’m still trying to figure out if it was a compliment or what. I do know what she means (!) but I also know why I do it and why I love doing it…