ohyeahswingdance:
Being a follow can be tough. Dancing is still seen as pretty girly even in the 21st century, often leading to a lack of (male) leads. This can be particularly frustrating if you’ve paid a lot of money to attend an out-of-town event, and you’re hardly getting any dances. For me, it can make me feel like a terrible dancer (“No one wants to dance with meeee…”) and can lead to me having a generally craptastic time.
Many other follows with dancing skills ranging from “beginner” to “very good” encounter the same problem, unless they happen to be among the very best (and well known) follows in the room. I’ve heard of mythical places with more leads than follows, but I’ve yet to experience them myself; and more follows than leads is much, MUCH more common where I am.
So I thought I’d make a list of ideas of how to deal with this - strategies that don’t involve stalking leads aggressively and hating on your skills*.
These points are both resolutions for myself, so that I don’t get bogged down in negativity, as well as strategies for you to try. They are meant for larger weekend - event - type things where you don’t know many people, as those are the most frustrating for me.
However, most of these strategies should come in useful at regular social dances, too!
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