Followers and Leaders in Rueda

I've noticed that in rueda there are some women (straight) who want to, and take the leader's role, on a somehwhat permanent basis. I've never seen men do the opposite, taking the followers role!! Is this an anomally to my area or is this common where others are? I wonder why?

The only place where this happens alot is in the classes I take. Followers who do the lead quite frequently either consider it to be more of a challenge to learn both parts or the assistants who are in training. For some reason, people don't do rueda here in the Orlando area outside of class so I can't really tell when we're out socially. It's a shame really. I love rueda and it's alot of fun.

In our group we have a woman who dances both leader and follower... and we have even done some male only ruedas when all our ladies suddenly dissapeared into some dance course because there where too many men there...
Sometimes we do a commando called "confusion". it is called after a vacilala, leader and follower change places 3 times so that the leader ends up on the followers place and the follower becomes the leader.

Rueda only in classes ? Oh my... :? Why don´t you just meet and dance some ruedas together ? It is so much fun

Salsero_AT said:

........Rueda only in classes ? Oh my... :? Why don´t you just meet and dance some ruedas together ? It is so much fun

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Yeah, we try that and........ I don't know. :roll: From what I see, it's more of a confidence, exposure issue. People are afraid of being the "caller" or being the center of attention being that Rueda is beautiful to watch. In this area, you're not considered good if you can't dance one on one while spinning people all over the place. :evil: :evil: Crazy, I know. The other thing is, there is only one school that "really" focuses on rueda in this area and there are quite a few students (Probably 80 students per class) however, people still don't do it publicly. I get the feeling that students learn "specific" moves then only apply it to one on one dancing.....So why learn Rueda if you're not going to do it "outside" of class? :?

There used to be a small rueda group in my area who everyone just hated to see coming into the clubs...

A rueda can take up some room, often more then the same number of couples dancing solo. WHen floorsapce is at a premium, this can be irksome. What really was annoying, however, was their floor space selection. I am *not* saying that anyone here does this, but if those who rueda are the vast minority, taking up the entire center of the dance space is not a way to make friends! Please take over a corner -- one which will obviously grow in size depending on how many dancers get involved. The two walls/sides are nutral and now only two "sides" of dancers need to work around you... much more considerate to everyone else in the club.

OK, I'm guessing that now is when all you rueda fanatics lambast me for this... :wink:

SDsalsaguy said:

......Please take over a corner -- one which will obviously grow in size depending on how many dancers get involved.

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In Orlando, I just wish we could get them to do Rueda publicly in the corner of a parking lot. ROTFL

But yeah, I can definitely see where that would be a problem in a salsa club. :idea: I wonder if the DJ wouldo designate rueda for one song, he could keep both sides happy? Hmmm...With the Orlando crowd where one on one is king? Don't know but might be worth a try....

Sagitta said:

I've noticed that in rueda there are some women (straight) who want to, and take the leader's role, on a somehwhat permanent basis. I've never seen men do the opposite, taking the followers role!! Is this an anomally to my area or is this common where others are? I wonder why?

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Sagitta, Come to think of it, I have seen this in alot of the video clips I watch on line so it's not particular to your area. I know that sometimes in this area, if you're not a leader, you're considered unimportant. :roll: (But that's more ego than anything) Would be interesting to hear from them why they choose to lead though.....

Yeah peachexploration. I must ask them on Tuesday/Thursday night this week why they chose to do the leader role. So salsero_AT...Am I right in thinking that you said men do the followers role quite a bit in Vienna?

I'll report back what the women leaders in rueda say in my area.

SDsalsaguy said:

There used to be a small rueda group in my area who everyone just hated to see coming into the clubs...

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I can relate to this. A couple of years ago when ruenda was BIG here, a HUGE group would regularly dominate the floor in any given clubs. it was even more noticable in Sydney.

This was before I learnt rueda (& loving it ever since!) properly, and leant to work with the space available (ie. control the size of circle, break into two separate groups if need be). People should have the common sense to NOT make themselves traffic-hazards out there.

Theses days our floor space is occupied by elite dances with flashy moves & tricks......they take up just as much room :roll: .......sometimes I don't know what I prefer.

(Now we rueda socially with 2-3 couples in a tight little circle. I find this alot better then a big, impersonal group )

So salsero_AT...Am I right in thinking that you said men do the followers role quite a bit in Vienna?

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It depends on the situation.. in our workshops when there are not enough women around we have used this, and sometimes we use "confusion", but of course only if there are women present who can lead the figures. And it is interesting to learn the figures from the other side, it improves one´s dancing quite a bit i think.

By the way some ladies really do not like to lead because "it is so difficult" they say... :evil: :wink:

SDsalsaguy said:

There used to be a small rueda group in my area who everyone just hated to see coming into the clubs...

Click to expand...

I stopped having rueda lessons around a year ago. At the clubs, whenever there was a couple of people who know rueda we´d start dancing. I didn´t realize it at the time but some people were praying for us to get off the floor because we occupied too much space.

I used to enjoy rueda a lot, however, after a while, I started to dislike certains things that were happening. What really got me angry was when we´d do an advanced rueda (complex moves that everyone in the group knew) and some beginner couples (who only knew the "arriba" and the "abajo") would "invite" themselves in! I thought this was very inconsiderate. :x All of a sudden, the leader would have to drastically lower the level because these new couples would screw up all the moves! He´d eventaully keep repeating the same two or three moves till the end of the song. How exciting and motivating! :cry: Some people just don´t realize that doing rueda is not the same as dancing one to one with a partner! If you screw up it causes complete caos (unless you know how to seemingless get back on track - beginners don´t)! Eventually most of the advanced dancers would leave the circle (during the dance) and leave the beginners with the rueda leader. This happened so many times that I stopped participating as well as most of my friends. Blah!

Anyway, in rueda, I´ve seen initially small circles begin to grow to such an extent that it occupied almost all the dance space. This can be very frustrating for the salsa dancers.

Regarding Sagitta´s topic, I´ve seen "all men" rueda done at socials for fun and laughs. I enjoy watching because it´s hilarious. Sometimes during classes, some people would switch roles also (usually when there was an eneven number of guys/girls). I´ve noticed also that when a person tries doing the other role they usually have a lot fun.

Sagitta said:

I've noticed that in rueda there are some women (straight) who want to, and take the leader's role, on a somehwhat permanent basis. I've never seen men do the opposite, taking the followers role!! Is this an anomally to my area or is this common where others are? I wonder why?

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I can't really speak for reuda, but partner dancing in general tends to restrict the guys to the leaders roles, but allows women more freedom to do both sides. It's like a lot of other things, like clothes. Guys can "only" wear pants, whereas women can wear skirts or dresses _and_ pants. Otherwise the guys are gay, and who wants those people around? (Not my opinion, obviously, but I think that kind of thought restricts a lot of guys.)

Men doing the follower role seems fairly common among swing dancers, but it started with women learning the leaders role. Men still don't do the follower role that often, but it does happen.

In the ballroom world (outside of the gay communities) it is very uncommon to see role switching, in large part because competitions are gender role fixed. Leaders are men and followers are women, and that is the only combination allowed.

Social dancing is (obviously) more loose, but men still tend to restrict themselves to doing the leader role. Why? I think it goes back to what it means to be "a man". Men tend to think hierarchically (think team captains) and are "supposed to be" in charge, and so aren't willing to give up the control necessary to be a follower. Women tend to think of themselves as part of a group first, and don't (generally) like to elevate themselves above others and so tend to accept the follower role. As human culture is changing, women are experienceing more freedom, wheras men are still restricting themselves.

Luckily I'm a teacher so I am "supposed to" know both sides, so I'm free to do both roles. Following is fun, and totally different from leading! Except when guys won't dance with me because I'm a guy. That's no fun at all.

Kevin

haha....sometimes when I am dancing with my friends (girls) and they start to repetitively lead themselves I let them lead since they insist on leading while they are supposed to follow. Haha....that teaches them that leading is not easy.

I agree. It isn't easy at all. I've done it a few times with followers whom I sort of know and now if I suggest it they look as if they want to murder me. I'm actually thinking of taking a beginner salsa class later on this year and just drive everyone whom I know crazy by insisting on doing the follower part. I will get half off for the lessons as I've already done them over, so it won't be bad, but I think that's the only way I will get to do this. I spend quite a bit of times encouraging my non-dancing friends along and I guess this way I can help them out better.

Going a little off-topic:
I'm actually doing a beginner swing class tonight. Hmm!! I probably won't be able to it as they will be way to many followers. We'll see..Anyway I can do the follower basic and a couple things for ECS anyway, though I haven't danced as a follower at all.

I used to enjoy rueda a lot, however, after a while, I started to dislike certains things that were happening. What really got me angry was when we´d do an advanced rueda (complex moves that everyone in the group knew) and some beginner couples (who only knew the "arriba" and the "abajo") would "invite" themselves in! I thought this was very inconsiderate. All of a sudden, the leader would have to drastically lower the level because these new couples would screw up all the moves! He´d eventaully keep repeating the same two or three moves till the end of the song. How exciting and motivating! Some people just don´t realize that doing rueda is not the same as dancing one to one with a partner! If you screw up it causes complete caos (unless you know how to seemingless get back on track - beginners don´t)! Eventually most of the advanced dancers would leave the circle (during the dance) and leave the beginners with the rueda leader. This happened so many times that I stopped participating as well as most of my friends. Blah!

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I agree this is a problem. We tried it solve it that we declared on day (sunday) as our advanced day. We only dance advanced figures on this day and tell everyone who wants to join that we do more difficult moves. If they insist on joining and do not know the moves we do long and complicated moves so they loose interest quite fast. This works quite well for us.