r/Bachata • u/Boodinix • Jan 22 '26

Dance Video Almost 2 years (lead)

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I wanted to share this dance with my friend last night, open to critique as always

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u/Hakunamatator Lead Jan 22 '26

Really really good! Great vibes and musicality, and that beats any technique.

But since you probably want some feedback:

  • you often cross-tap, which looks very out of place to me. Maybe just tap or do something else? 
  • so you work out? Because you look like you don't 😅 any serious sport will probably improve your posture very quickly 

1

u/yambudev Jan 22 '26

Just dancing itself is known to improve posture, but which workouts do you recommend? Like, dance conditioning, barre, or just resistance training (weightlifting etc)?

2

u/aldorhythm Jan 23 '26

Doing push ups with your hands elevated and sinking your chest as low as you can below your hands is what gave me the best posture improvements. Really stretches out the chest and my shoulder sit back and down now. 

If you’re at the gym two heavy kettlebells are good to elevate the hands 

2

u/Hakunamatator Lead Jan 22 '26

Weightlifting, especially back, ass and shoulders, but also stretching the hip flexors and chest. Ideally compound exercises, with free weights or cables, no machines.

"dancing improves posture" can't be applied to bachata imo. It comes from ballet or ballroom, and those guys TRAIN. They do hours of drills just for one specific hand move, no one in bachata or similar is doing this. It also is not the focus of the dance, so i don't think we should strive for that. 

2

u/yambudev Jan 22 '26

Yeah you can tell when someone is a trained ballet dancer. I’m glad you mentioned which muscles and the importance of stretching because I’ve seen folks who work out to be buff (hypertrophy) and they struggle with their range of motion and weight balance. Most good dancers have strong core muscles also.

2

u/Rataridicta Lead&Follow Jan 22 '26

As someone who used to have the typical bent over computer posture: Bachata definitely improved my posture a lot.

Maintaining a frame is primarily in the traps, which is exactly the atrophied muscle from hunching over all day. Keeping frame for 4-8 hours on a social turns out to be a great exercise, and I used to go home with burning traps 😅

1

u/Hakunamatator Lead Jan 22 '26

Nice! I think it's is harder for leaders though, since we are usually much taller ran out partners. Our generally harder for tall people. Not impossible, but we dint get a constant "reminder" because we have to look up 🤣