Finding Your Own Bachata

For my first two years I danced like a very careful photocopy of my teachers. Every arm line, every hip, borrowed. It was clean, and completely anonymous.

The turn

The shift came the night I stopped counting and started listening. The song was slow, the room was dark, and for four minutes I let the music decide instead of the choreography in my head.

Your body already knows the song. Your job is to get out of its way.

That is the whole practice, really: enough technique to be free, and enough trust to actually be free with it.