30/04/2026
Hey! hope you're having a great day - heres a litte thought dump - feel free to let me know your thoughts!
Teaching dancing as I do, I think a lot about the balance between getting it *right* and simply enjoying the dance.
Lately, I’ve noticed more and more dancers - especially those early on in their journey - seem to be putting a huge amount of pressure on themselves. Trying to catch every beat, hit every instrument, respond to every musical detail… all while still figuring out their basic steps and It’s a lot!
It starts to feel less like I'm watching dancing and more like I'm watching people performing a task.
Don’t get me wrong - the level of musicality in the scene right now is incredible. Dancers are exploring music in creative, expressive ways that we’ve never really seen before, and that’s something to celebrate. But I do sometimes wonder if in pushing the ceiling higher, we’re also raising the floor a little too quickly - turning the dance scene into something less welcomng and inaccessible to would be dancers.
A lot of this comes from teachers of course and I know I have a tendency to fall into this trope. The way we dance, the way we talk about music, the way we talk about understanding the music/ figuring out the structure etc etc - it all shapes the student's experience and what they undersatnd as 'right', 'correct' etc.
If everything we demonstrate is layered, complex, and hyper-detailed, it’s easy for beginners to feel like they need to do the same just to fit in.
But whether we're dancing salsa, bachata or any other social dance, it can be simple and still feel amazing.
There’s something really special about just letting a song play and feeling the rhythm, sitting comfortably in your basic, maybe playing with the instruments when it feels natural - not because you 'should', but because you 'can'. That kind of freedom is where a lot of people fall in love with dancing in the first place.
Its important for us as a community, to keep making space for that.
To remind newer dancers that it’s about having fun and not about he most complex moves or to catch every single accent or drop in the music.
That musicality isn’t about ticking boxes- it’s about listening, feeling, and responding in your own time.
And to remind ourselves, as teachers and more experienced dancers, that modelling joy and simplicity is just as important as modelling skill.
Competitions, Jack & Jills, and social media have their place - they can inspire, challenge, and push the art form forward. But they’re only one part of the picture.
At the end of the day, most people walk into a dance class or a social because they want to move, connect with other people, and enjoy the music.
It would be a shame to lose that.
Every now and then, lets make an effort to come back to the basics - not as a limitation, but as a choice. A place to breathe, to listen, and to remember why we started dancing in the first place.
Have a great day!
