I’m so excited to have the Sydney Bachateros experience Inaki’s style of Bachata. I’ve been telling all my students that I got inspired by his dancing, and I want them to experience the same!

No doubt it will be a success!

I’m thankful for all the Bachata instructors that are pushing the boundaries of Bachata, and Inaki is definitely one of them.

Hopefully we’ll meet one day, Lee!

I can totally relate to what you mentioned in your article about, feeling like you’d taken Bachata as far as could, once you’d learned the basic step, spins, and a few turn patterns….and each dance (irrespective of what style of Bachata track was playing), was being to feel a little restrictive, and overly-familiar

Then I became an Inaki Fernandez student (and i’m still one of his students here in London), and Inaki truly opened up the possibilities of dancing Bachata….as he has always said when dancing bachata:
“Why do i have to dance left-right/Forward-backward?….why can’t go in a different direction, if i want to?”…

And Inaki makes a point of teaching us:

Footwork (Inaki really pushes this aspect of his teaching, especially feeling the mood of the song…and changing the footwork accordingly)
Crosses on 1-2-3 (A basic foundation of Inaki’s style of Bachata….being able to move around the dance-floor with the partner, and move easily between the different crosses)
Turn/Spin patterns (Most moderna/traditional classes teach turn/spin patterns, although Inaki tries to teach it, to be able to lead in/out of footwork)
Styling (Accentuating close & open position movements)
Changing of the tempo (when the mood or tempo of the track changes, adjusting the moves or style to reflect the change in tempo)
Tango Steps/Styling (Not Bachatatango, but more due to Inaki’s background in tango, that makes basic moves look nicer)
Music Interpretation (This was probably the most recent thing Inaki was teaching us, before he & Vanessa went on their World Tour…understanding the music and interpreting this with the context of the Dance)

….And there is still a heck of a lot more that we need to learn from Inaki, every lesson seems to bring a new aspect of leading/following the dance….

And because of this, my dancing Bachata (and indeed my enjoyment of Bachata) has increased 10x… 

Admittedly a lot of the techniques above, largely require the partner to have a knowledge of the styles/techniques for me to lead most effectively, but when I do dance with a girl that is familiar with them….the dances feel truly amazing in a way I don’t quite get from dancing Salsa (no, offence to Salsa)…

I guess the point i’m making…is how much you get out of Bachata is relative to how much your prepared to put into it….as i see a lot of people in the clubs over here, having learnt the basics and a few moves. And then seeing no reason to continue pushing the boundaries of their Bachata dancing, and seem happy to remain at the same level (which is fine, as enjoying what you are doing is probably the most important aspect of the dance).

But thanks to Inaki…there are a small minority of us, that Bachata is our main Latin dance, and are constantly looking to push how far we can actually take the possibilities of our Bachata dancing..

You guys in Australia have Inaki & Vanessa for a Bachata workshop on Sat 11th Dec….having taken many of Inaki’s workshop’s in the past, you guys will have a fantastic Workshop!!

Juan: Having checked out loads of Videos of you dancing Bachata on the internet, and a big fan of your dancing….It would be great seeing as you’ll have Inaki over your side of the world….if we could have you come over here to London, and perform/do a workshop at some point in the near future??

Lee

Jhoan
Cali-Colombia
Melbourne-Australia

Cheers,
Melissa
SATX-USA