- Step straight forward in full confidence - or you will just end up doing a funny swing, thinking to avoid her feet. Now, stepping on her toes might hurt your dancing relationship, but walking like a duck will definitely kill it. Put your heel down first, and not the way you would if you wanted to kill a bug.
- When you lead a pivot to your follower, have in mind what comes next and make sure you share that thought. A pivot is much easier if it takes the energy from the previous move
- Keep a straight pose. Do not seek to help your follower in his or her job by bending inside their space. You will achieve the exact opposite and the couple will look dreadfully.
- If you do want to help your follower, concentrate on keeping the information flowing in all possible sources: your arms, your upper body, your hips. If your follower can understand what you want, without being a psychic, that makes him or her comfortable
- Your attention should be shared between your own dance plan, checking if the follower is where you expect him or her to be and checking the environment (i.e. the other pairs, the space, if the wife is looking, etc.). The first factor is up to you. Try to minimize the second and maximize the third.
- If your follower ends up on the wrong foot (in reference to your dance plan), you have two solutions: - adapt; or -stop. It's OK to pause, adjust your embrace, reset the steps and then start again. Don't pause if you can adapt, but pause, rather than require your follower to adapt.
- Be firm in your decision, don't hesitate. Make your steps clear and decisive, even if they are wrong. For a follower, being unable to follow what you lead is far better than not knowing what you lead. Partly because the former situation rarely ever happens. Followers are quite resourceful.
- Never be afraid to ask someone to dance. When you ask, though, be honest about your skills and stick to what can't go wrong - particularly if you have never danced with that person before.
For leaders (I)
Here are some useful notes for a beginner leader:
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