The Scary Advanced Follower Syndrome.

You could imagine that the better you get in partner dancing, the more everybody would like to dance with you. Sounds pretty logical, right, and actually this logic seems work with leader dancers: when they reach a certain level it will become hard for them to even leave the dance floor in dance parties let alone have time to go and ask someone for dance. Great, a nice reward for the hard work done!

However, when a follower reaches a certain level, instead of having the same reward of a constant dance queue, she is suddenly left alone. There are almost no leaders inviting her to dance and, thus, if she wants to dance she has to make the initiative herself. The question is: why?

A concrete example of this phenomenon can easily be found in any dance congress. All the leader teachers are exhausted after each party because it is impossible for them to leave the dance floor. The girls are literally attaching them just to have one dance with their favorite teacher. But if you pay attention to the follower teachers, they are mostly left in peace – not because they would reject all the dance invitations but because they hardly get any!

I have noticed this happening to myself too. I am rarely asked for a dance in any social dancing events. Of course it is not only the leaders’ task to make the dance invitations but if it is me who has to make the effort again and again, it just doesn’t feel nice. First I thought that maybe there is something wrong with my dancing or with me – I thought others just didn’t like dancing with me! Or maybe all the leaders were simply too busy since there are usually excess amount of followers around. But no, there were too many situations where leaders were making the invites that this could be the ultimate reason.

Then I realized there are some more universal rules happening behind this phenomenon: I call it the scary advanced follower syndrome.

The thing is, when a follower gets into more advanced level, the leaders below her level easily get intimidated by her. The leaders might think that they will not be able to impress her or to make the kind of moves she would like to be led. They might get worried that she will get bored. They might be worried that she will reveal all his mistakes. Thus, she becomes a scary advanced follower in the eyes of the leaders and as a consequence the leaders will start avoiding her.

I have to admit that I can kind of associate with the feeling though. When I started dancing Zouk I was terrified of asking teachers to dance with me and at some point I was even avoiding of getting any dance invites from them. You see, I knew that I wasn’t able to follow many of the moves they normally led and I felt bad when my skills were inadequate to keep up the dance flow. I felt lost especially if I was supposed to do any head movements. As a follower you never know what was going to happen and I was expecting the worst: that something too difficult would come and that I would of course screw it up. However, I don’t see the leaders having the same problem. Leaders know (because it’s their job to decide) what kind of movements there will be and they are familiar with those movements. Since the follower is more advanced it is likely that she will understand what movement the leader wants to lead and thus there will not be any unexpected new movements that could scare off the leader. Also, a more advanced follower is capable of fixing some possible small mistakes the leader makes and thus to add more flow to the dance. So what is the problem?

“Yes, I think you are scary”, I was told when discussing about this topic the other day with my dancer friends. “But don’t take it personally – it’s mostly a matter of a male ego!”


So that is the thing: male ego! Well guys, you better grow some balls and start dancing with everybody because I didn’t spend countless of hours of improving my dancing skills just to be left alone in dance parties! Besides, I’m not looking for advanced or complicated moves or someone to impress me. I just want to dance. It is not that I would like to dance only with advanced leaders – I want to dance with everyone. For me partner dancing is a conversation and I would like to have a big variety of conversations with different kind of dancers, from beginners to professionals and everything in between. So what if I have better technique than you: there will also always be dancers who will have better technique than what I have and that doesn’t make me any worse off. So what if another leader can do "more" than you: sometimes less is more. So what if everything is not working out: make it part of the conversation.

Dancing isn’t all about technique or the level you are in but the way you connect with your partner in that very moment you share together in the dance floor. I'm not expecting showy lifts, crazy combinations or mind-blowing figures. Just feel the dance and enjoy it – and stop putting your male ego in between!

Let me tell you a secret before I finish: I'm not really that scary.