Men, have you ever thought about why it’s recommended to lead softly or to establish a good connection with your follower at the start of the dance? The goal behind it is to develop trust and safety so that both partners would have a pleasant dance experience. In this article I wanted to discuss specifically what safety is for a woman in the context of dance, why it’s important and what creating a safe space for her will enable to happen.
Let’s take a step back and put on our scientist glasses. Physically, women are weaker than men and we can’t deny it. Since this knowing exists on a very deep primal level, women tend to feel anxious more often than men. When feeling unsafe, women will switch to protection/survival mode, instead of relaxing and enjoying what’s around them. They cannot be their best selves unless they feel safe. For women, safety is crucial.
By creating trust and safety in the dance, you will actually both end up having a better experience. When she’s calm and relaxed, she will have the mental capacity to pay attention and understand your leading signals. She will feel safe enough to add her own styling and flavor to the dance, which will be a joy to witness. Her body will feel relaxed instead of tense and it will be more pleasant to lead her. I recently experienced someone making me feel safe on the dancefloor even though I wasn’t initially feeling like dancing or expressing myself. It was wonderful and also quite surprising that he was able to do that.
If you’d like to make sure your female dance partners are feeling safe in your hands, know that men generally feel safe in the world and what you perceive as “small insignificant things” can throw a woman off. Things that may make a woman feel anxious and unsafe on a dance floor (depending on their dance experience and personality) are:
- Leader gripping their hands too tightly
- Being led sharp quick movements
- Strong pushing and pulling from the leader
- Leader rushing
- Losing her balance
- Being led too complicated/difficult moves for their level
- Overwhelming them with too many signals/moves at once
- Being dangerously close to other couples on the dance floor
- Leader being too close to them
- Leader dancing sensually with them without consent
- and more
Everyone is different though and what someone likes, someone else might despise, which makes it tricky to know what to do. How do you know if your follower is not feeling safe? Probably when her body feels tense and she is not really dancing, not adding any styling and just following. Please note that smiling is not a good indicator, since women may smile out of nervousness and of a strong desire to please (this is “fawning” as a survival response, if you want to do more research on it).
Advanced followers have a lot of experience, therefore they mostly feel safe when dancing, which is why it’s so nice to dance with them. You cannot really surprise them or catch them off guard enough to make them go into survival mode. Even if things go “wrong”, they have experienced it so many times and already have ideas on how to save the situation. Beginners on the other hand may feel anxious from the moment you ask them to dance with you.
Ways you can help your female dance partners feel safe, are:
- Leading softly (read more).
- Starting the dance with easy basics.
- Relaxing your own body by breathing slowly and deeply, which helps her relax too.
- Doing easy steps with good musicality, instead of complicated and challenging movements.
- Making the dance gradually more difficult, instead of right at the start. For example testing out more complex moves slowly at first and only if she follows well, repeat again faster.
- Leading confidently.
Asking easy questions and talking may help ease the tension, but I know many followers who absolutely hate talking while dancing so I cannot really advise that. Maybe ask some friendly questions while you walk to the dancefloor, but not later. From personal experience I can say that no matter how friendly the person is, if they are leading me roughly, their friendliness doesn’t help me feel safe, since their body language is threatening.
Of course, you as a leader can only do so much and it won’t always result in the woman feeling safe. You are not responsible for how she feels and sometimes one good dance from you will not be enough to relax her from 4 previous bad dances (or some challenges she’s going through in her personal life). So try your best, but don’t take it to heart if she is unable to relax with you.
These were my thoughts on creating safety on the dancefloor for women. Anything that resembles fighting or aggression, like tight grip and fast movements, is probably going to activate women’s survival mode, so slow and relaxed is the way to go. You may have to put in more effort to create safety for beginners, since they tend to be more anxious to start with, but I am sure advanced followers will appreciate it as well.
I’d like to hear your thoughts – how do you make sure your dance partner feels safe? Are there any ways followers can create safety for leaders?
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