Purpose:

This exercise will help leads learn to adapt to follows and be inspired by follow momentum to create new moves. This will help leads be smoother in their transitions, and encourages leads not to force moves that don’t work with their partner.

The gist:

The lead chooses a few moves or social dances normally. First, the follower follows normally. Then the follow will attempt to take liberties in their following—that is, intentionally changing the momentum (speed up, slow down, change direction), or use follow-initiated moves (the follow should practice doing this only occasionally, and being intentional about it). The lead’s job is to allow the follows to make those choices, and adapt their moves to match the follower’s momentum, such that the transitions are as smooth as possible, and the follows can dance comfortably. Hopefully, this exercise will also inspire leads to create new moves on the fly.

Exercise breakdown:

Version 1

Four roles: the lead, follow, caller, and observer

• The lead thinks about a sequence of four moves (maybe three simple moves and one more complicated move, repetition is okay)
• The follow selects one of the following things to change about their dancing
  • Adding momentum
  • Reducing momentum
  • Pausing/freezing briefly
  • Not going when asked to go
  • Taking a longer time to get there
  • Traveling in a direction of your choice
  • Reversing the momentum of a turn to turn the other way
  • Or make up your own!
• First, the lead and follow dance normally. The lead loops the four moves.
• Then, when the caller shouts “go”, the follow changes their dancing. The lead should try to adapt their dancing as smoothly as possible, likely changing the moves they planned.
• Then the caller shouts “back to normal”, the follow follows normally again. The caller can shout “go” or “back to normal” as many times they want.
• The observer's job is to report back what they noticed. What did the follow change? How did the lead respond? All four group members discuss.

You can create other versions of this game!

“Follower Takeover” exercise

In the version described above, the follower chooses one element at a time to play with, which can be helpful for focusing on how that one element changes the dance. However, it’s possible to crank up volume of follower choices, as demonstrated in this video from Swingin’ Denver: https://youtu.be/P8-sMv8nl-8?si=EaqZvRVsF7vIKaTx.