Lead & Follow Using Tai-Chi Theory

Learning to lead and follow tends to bring you a myriad of thoughts, emotions and expressions to dancing.

What makes a best leader or a best follower?

We had a discussion today leading to the concept of following like doing Tai Chi, whereby you take the force/momentum/direction of your leader and run along with it (not fight), adding your own force together with it to make you go faster. (in pure physics terms, force A + force B going along in the same direction will make the force bigger).

Following is like that. You don't fight him when he wants you to go somewhere. Instead, you take it and go along with it, adding your own force gradually to make the going easier and faster. In the event that he leads you askew or off balance, you take that force, use your own additional force to reroute it if possible, or exert some opposing force to diffuse the unwanted force so that you can go to the desired location he intends to lead you. It's about channeling the force he gives you to the right outlets.

As a follower, I instinctively 'help' my partner like this. If he leads me too forcefully, I diffuse the force by relaxing my tension a bit or increasing my tension to be harder so that I don't get yanked around by him. If he leads me off balance, I re-channel the force he gives to bring myself back where he wants me to go. If he doesn't lead me hard enough, I run with him, adding my own force behind so that I end up where he wants me to go.

An then we realized that it works the same for a leader as well. If she doesn't respond well to you (in terms of following), there are a few ways you can respond to it. First option is to use direct force to block her moves and counter with you own (what I call bulldozing or force-leading your way through). This usually ends up with the 2 of you fighting with each other, feeling very exhausted at the end of the dance. The leader typically has to bulldoze until the follower gives up and decides to follow because she has no strength left to fight.

Second option is to employ the Tau Chi method: use her force and momentum and add on to it, re-routing and re-channeling her movements to where you want her to go. For this, you have to let her move, flow with her, then spring a 'surprise' on her by using her momentum and pushing her into an additional turn or a different position.

This is similar to Tai Chi when you use your opponent's momentum and turn it around to hit him back. The advantage is that you do not need to be very strong in order to succeed. However, you do need to be able to react and think fast or you would not be able to execute the moves you desire.

At the end of the day, what's important is that partner dancing (eg salsa or tango) is a PARTNER dance. You need to connect and flow together as one in order for it to work. Good leaders/followers are those that are constantly in tune with their partners. They ADAPT to the changes in lead/follow. They understand that when they are leading/following, their partners need to respond to them as a whole (they lead/follow with their whole body, not just move the hands but leave the body behind). It there is no response, they need to change tactics until there is a positive response.

How do we get there? First and foremost, you need to practice doing this. You need to attentively do this every time you dance. This practice must become second nature to you when you dance. The alarm bells in your head should ring if it doesn't feel like your 2 bodies are flowing as one.

On the other hand, even if it feels rough and out of sync, it may still look good, it you cover up well... =)

Hope this helps... or issit too chim?