Growing up, I didn’t think about bachata as something to study or become good at. It was music in the background of life. People danced at family gatherings, somebody picked you up or pulled you into it, and you joined in. Long before I took a class, I had spent years around it.

Finding the social-dance world gave me another relationship with something I already knew. Classes, festivals and dancing with people from different places gave me more to notice, practice and enjoy. When I began thinking about teaching, I wanted to make some of that familiarity available to someone who hadn’t grown up with it, or who had always wanted to learn.

I kept coming back to one question: if I were starting again, what would be the clearest, most useful and most enjoyable way to learn?

I grew up playing baseball, and my degree is in architecture. Baseball gave me a relationship with practice: work on a skill, repeat it, then use it in a situation where you have to respond. Architecture gave me a way to think about design and how the pieces fit together. Both helped me build classes around the music and culture I wanted to share.

Where Dominican Life Happens

When I think about how I came to feel comfortable with bachata, I picture the people and gatherings that surrounded it. Those experiences became the reference for our four levels: a way to bring someone through movement, connection, expression and refinement using the familiarity of growing up.

Level 1: La Cocina — Being Carried Through the Rhythm

A baby is being held while a parent moves to the music. Before taking a step themselves, they’re part of what’s happening. That’s the feeling behind La Cocina: an introduction to bachata through rhythm and the basics. We work on moving our weight, finding our steps and getting comfortable with how the music feels in our own body.

Level 2: El Patio — A Child at the Family Party

Now you’re old enough to join in. An aunt, uncle, parent or grandparent gets you dancing, maybe letting you stand on their feet. You’re playing, watching the people around you and getting used to sharing the music. El Patio brings our basics into connection and partner work: how your movement communicates, what you feel from another person and how you begin moving together.

Level 3: La Calle — Going Out and Finding Your Style

As a teenager or young adult, the scene moves to house parties and clubs. You want to flirt, play and add a little more of yourself. La Calle expands what you can do through intermediate solo and partner work. We explore variations, turns, changes of direction and ways to give familiar movements more expression.

Level 4: La Sala — Returning to the Family Gathering

I picture the gathering coming around again, with the children from before now among the adults. You’re sitting with people you know, talking, singing along and getting up to dance. La Sala brings that ease into the movement. After expanding your options, you refine them: more control, more subtlety and a closer relationship with the music. A basic can say more because of how you use it. The dance becomes a conversation.

That progression guides what we do within a class. We learn a movement, bring it to a partner, explore what we can add and then refine how we use it. A beginner might stay with the basic while another dancer works on a variation or a smaller detail. Everyone has a way to work with the same material, and something to build toward.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

El Mangú and Los Tres Golpes give that learning two complementary forms. Their names come from a Dominican breakfast staple: mangú (mashed plantains), served with queso de freír, salchichón y huevo frito (fried cheese, fried salami and fried egg). Those accompaniments are los tres golpes. Mangú gives the plate its base; together, the parts make the breakfast. That same relationship carries into the classes.

Wednesday: El Mangú — Building the Foundation

El Mangú, on Wednesdays, builds the social dance foundation. Early in class, we dance with a partner using what we already know. I watch what’s happening and use that to help shape the work ahead. There’s a structure behind the class, but the combination takes shape together in the room. What I see students doing helps me choose the next movement or something we can work on. We go between individual technique and partner work so you can understand both the movement and how it communicates.

We also work on what happens between the movements. Where is your weight going? What direction are you already moving? What feels natural for your partner and the song? If a transition feels like you’re fighting yourself or each other, we can adjust, take a pause or choose another option. Repeating the combination gives us time to understand those connections.

Thursday: Los Tres Golpes — Exploring the Possibilities

Los Tres Golpes, on Thursdays, gives us more ways to use that foundation. We start with the combination we built together the day before, taking everyone through it so you can work with it whether or not you attended Wednesday. Then we explore what can change within it.

Through musicality, we take the movements into different songs and listen for different instruments. A change in energy, a phrase from the singer or something in the percussion can give you a reason to move differently. You begin finding choices within a step you already know.

Through connection, we pay closer attention to what those choices feel like between two people. As a lead, I want to follow what my partner is giving me as much as I ask them to follow an idea. Their movement, timing and response give me something to listen to through sight and feeling. We practice noticing those cues and letting them influence what happens next, so leading becomes a conversation both people contribute to.

Through creativity, we use games and exercises to change the order, interrupt a familiar pattern or try another response. The point is to get comfortable making choices without having to plan an entire dance in your head. You have material to work with, and opportunities to discover what you can do with it.

The Class: Room to Practice

Whether you’re a beginner or bring more experience, I meet you where you are and we build from there. Each day stands on its own, and together they give you more time to build the foundation and explore its possibilities.

Our classes are two hours long because I wanted that work to have room to breathe. As a student commuting into the city, going all that way for one hour could feel like a lot of effort for very little time. I also knew that adding time only helped if there was something worthwhile to do with it.

During class, I want students to try things before every detail feels settled. An attempt gives us something to work with. We might slow down and notice the weight in a foot, put a movement back together at speed, or find a reference in a sport or another movement you already know. If something feels off with a partner, we can talk through what each person felt and try an adjustment. Sometimes we deliberately change the expected response so we can practice adapting.

We spend 90 minutes in class, followed by an optional 30-minute práctica. You can stay to dance, ask questions, get feedback or learn by watching somebody else work through something. If you aren’t going to a social that week, this may be your opportunity to use the material with another person before the next class. I wanted that opportunity to be part of the time we already had together.

A Cycle You Can Build On

That same consideration shaped our four-week teaching cycle. I learned through fundamentals series and began teaching that way myself. A series gave the work direction, but committing to every week wasn’t always realistic. I wanted students to have flexibility without losing a sense of progression.

We return to four themes across four teaching weeks. You can join at any point and keep building as the cycle comes around again.

Week 1: Essentials

We establish a reference for what we’re learning through some of the best-known artists and songs, the basic movements and the feeling of the dance. It’s a place to ask what bachata is and what we mean by Dominican bachata in class. The music gives the steps a context from the beginning.

Week 2: Tradition

We spend time with earlier artists and sounds, often from before the 2000s. We listen for what gives those songs their character and explore how to respond to it. The guitar, percussion, rhythm and energy give us things to work with as we return to our movements. Learning who made the music and how people dance to it helps connect the practice to where it comes from.

Week 3: Evolution

We explore how bachata’s sound expanded and changed. Different songs can bring different phrasing, emotion and energy, giving familiar steps another feeling. We work on hearing those changes and finding what we want to respond to, while keeping our connection to the dance and to each other.

Week 4: Application

We bring that range together in social dancing. Songs and partners change, and we practice making decisions with what we’ve been developing. You can stay with something simple, draw on another option or adjust to the person in front of you. The work is to use what you know while the dance is happening.

When the cycle comes around again, we can build on the same material with more understanding. As students become comfortable, I can offer another detail, variation or question to work through. The themes return, but what you’re able to do with them can keep growing.

Beyond the Steps

As we work through the music, we also make room for conversations about its history and the life surrounding it. Bachata’s connections to bolero, Cuban son and merengue give us ways to explore Dominican culture within the wider Caribbean. I want students to have references beyond my own demonstration and understand more of the people and experiences behind what we’re learning.

For me, that also includes being born in New York to Dominican parents. Dominican life was part of my upbringing, alongside friendships and everyday experiences with people from many other backgrounds. Growing up here gave me more than one cultural reference to draw from. That openness to learning from the people around me is part of what I bring into class.

I want students to have places to keep making those connections, too. La Bandera Social offers a place outside class to dance with familiar people and become part of the wider community. Between classes, the online community offers recaps, playlists and learning resources, and I’m building more structured online lessons for people to use on their own time. These are different ways to keep participating, practicing and learning from one another.

What I Bring Back to Class

The way I bring this together comes from what I grew up with, the classes that helped me, my own practice and the people I’ve learned from in New York and at festivals around the world. Dancing with different partners has taught me to notice how people move, communicate and respond. I bring those experiences back to students who may have one evening a week to dance, so they have something useful to work with and room to develop their own way of using it.

That means teaching safety and comfort alongside the movement. You’re dancing with another person, and their response matters. If they seem unsure or uncomfortable, I want students to notice, check in and adjust what they’re doing. Knowing a movement includes knowing when to simplify it, give someone more space or let an idea go. Paying attention to a partner’s comfort and response should shape the choices we make together.

At the end of the day, connection matters to me more than anything else: connection to yourself, the music, your partner and the culture behind the dance. Those are the things I want students to have available when they step onto a social floor. Tres Golpes is my way of making that learning accessible to someone who didn’t grow up with it, with enough guidance to find their footing and enough room to make the dance their own.