12/04/2025
Here's a quote from Bobby White's "Practice Swing":
"My teaching partner and I will be at a weekend and we dance with students the first night of the workshop to get some ideas on what we want to teach them. We come back to each other to compare notes for class preparation. I tell my partner “The followers keep bringing themselves in after rock-steps instead of waiting or me to bring them in.” My partner then says “Well, that makes sense, because the leaders aren’t bringing me in on their rock-steps.”… it’s important to remember that the problems came about because the leaders and followers were all trying to keep social dancing successful, not because of ill intent … despite the good intentions, the leaders and followers of that area have picked up reinforcing bad habits." (White, Practice Swing, p.365)
This is a fairly common thing. Once you know the basics of a dance a bit, it can be worth some "bad dances" to get used to leading and following better, something that requires both parties. It's especially helpful to do so on days in which connection was the primary driver of the lesson, because then all parties should be prepared to work out improving connection.
