Feeling Clunky on the Social Dance Floor?

25 September 2026 · By Bo

Do you look around the room at other dancers and wonder how they move so gracefully, fluidly and with such confidence…

…and wish you could feel that same freedom in your own body?

The reality is you have so much to offer.

An exercise for followers (and leaders too!)

Go into your room and put on some chill, non-Bachata music. Something that makes you feel relaxed.

Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, arms dangling loosely by your sides, with soft, bent knees.

Now choose one body part. I’ll go with my hand. Imagine there’s a little bolt of energy or electricity originating from your hand. It suddenly pulls your hand into motion. Let it move you. Let it drag the rest of your body along with it, up and over, floppy and relaxed.

But just as quickly as that energy appears, imagine that it dissipates. The energy ripples through the rest of your body before disappearing. Your shoulder might follow. Then your chest. Maybe your ribs. Maybe your hips. Maybe your knees soften and your whole body flops in response.

Don’t try to make it look good. Don’t try to make your hips move or force different body parts to move in opposing directions. Just follow the sensation.

Once you’ve allowed yourself to fully flop and crumble, stay exactly where you’ve landed. From that relaxed, floppy state, choose another body part and imagine another electric bolt originating there. Your shoulder. Your head. Your ribs. Your elbow. Your knee. Your hip.

Each time, imagine that little bolt of energy appearing, creating movement, and then travelling through your body. Focus on that initial bolt. Fast, snappy and staccato.

Now slowly start decreasing the time between each flop and the next bolt of electricity. Let the next impulse arrive before you’ve completely stopped moving. Then a little sooner. And a little sooner again. Until eventually, there’s no real pause between one impulse and the next. The staccato followed by floppy movements start to melt into each other. And suddenly you’re flowing.

The goal isn't to create a particular shape. The goal is to discover how your body naturally responds to movement. And that’s where your Bachata movement starts to become more organic. Because when you stop trying to engineer a certain movement and start allowing yourself to feel it…

…you might be surprised by how much movement was already there to begin with. And it all originates from you.

This is where a lot of my own movement exploration started. Dancing alone in my room. Translating movement styles from other dances as well as movement from within, into partnered dance.

I became fascinated by the way contemporary dancers move — how one tiny movement in the hand, shoulder or head can ripple through the entire body. So I started analysing it. Where does the movement begin? What happens to the rest of the body when one part initiates? How does one movement melt into the next?

And then I started playing with it myself. Just putting on music and seeing what happened when I allowed one part of my body to move and let the rest of me respond.

Over time, I started bringing that feeling into Bachata. Realising that a movement doesn’t need to start with a step. That you can be creative. And realising that fluidity isn't necessarily about learning more movements. Sometimes, it's about learning to let the movement you already have travel through you.

That’s why I love this exercise.