Good for you for giving them their dues!!

Teaching solo as a follow presents a set of challenges that are very different from teaching solo as a lead. That being said, there are some fantastic solo lady instructors out there, who’ve been working hard to present fantastic weekends/classes/etc. Philly has brought in two female instructors without partners- Brenda Collins and myself.

So why is it so rare? I suspect that there are a number of reasons. Partly personality- male instructors might just be more likely to approach a scene about doing a workshop. Part might be the fact that so many organizers are willing to sub-in a follow, while subbing in a leader can prove trickier. And part is that we’re still shaking off the old way of doing things.

Knoxville, despite a few very strong follows (both in dance skills and personality), used to be a scene where the leads taught, and the follows “just follow”. Mind you, this was in the days of pushing and pulling and cues instead of leads. And while most of us have moved on (Knoxville is now a scene of very strong follows), there are still some dancers out there who subscribe to that method.

That being said, on a national level, we’ve moved way past push-pull-this-means-you-do-this-move. Yet there are many, many more solo leads teaching than solo follows.

How about it, ladies? What’s holding us back?

-m.

I’m incredibly excited to hear that SBSB will be headed toward a mostly female lineup of instructors and DJs, and if the pictures on the main page are indicative of potential instructors, I’m going to be watching like crazy for updates.

Thanks for posting these videos with the names of the dancers. I’ve been struggling trying to remember, so thank you