Growing up, the difference between old and new bachata was mostly the difference between my music and my parents’ music. My father had his stack of CDs. I had the songs I listened to on my iPod. Aventura, Monchy y Alexandra, Prince Royce, and the older music my family played were all part of that world. Some songs belonged more to their generation, some to mine. To me, it was all bachata.

I didn’t start calling it Dominican bachata until I needed to explain which kind of dancing I was looking for. Before I entered that scene, I hadn’t heard of sensual bachata or realized there was a whole world of classes, socials, and festivals built around dancing. The more places I went, the more I understood how differently people were using a word I had known my whole life.

Once I entered the social-dance scene, I found that knowing the same song didn’t always mean another person and I expected the same dance. Sometimes they wanted to keep turning or move through patterns they had learned. I wanted to settle into the rhythm for a while. We could both be comfortable dancing and still have trouble finding each other in that song.

That difference made me start paying attention to something I had never needed to explain before: what was I actually enjoying when I danced bachata?

What I Recognized in the Music

Even when I found Dominican bachata parties I enjoyed, I sometimes spent the night waiting for familiar songs or artists that never came on. I was finding what I had been looking for and still discovering how much of it I didn’t know. Now that I choose music for my own socials, I understand that the songs I grew up with are one part of a much bigger picture.

Back then, I wasn’t separating the guitars from the bass or paying attention to what each instrument was doing. I was enjoying the whole song: the voice, the feeling, the energy it brought into the room.

Learning about the music has started to change that. It’s like enjoying a meal for years and then learning how to cook it. You begin noticing the ingredients and what each one adds to something you already liked. As I study the instruments and the music, I’m finding more to respond to in songs I thought I knew. Sometimes a guitar phrase catches my attention, or something in the bass or percussion changes how I want to move. I can keep dancing something familiar and find a different feeling inside it.

That’s part of why the idea that Dominican bachata is just footwork feels incomplete to me. I enjoy footwork. I practice it, and I teach it. But watching someone’s feet only shows you part of what they’re doing. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what they heard, why they stayed with a movement, or how the person in front of them changed their decision.

Those are the things that have become more interesting to me as I’ve learned.

Familiarity Was My Starting Point

Growing up around bachata gave me somewhere to begin. I knew songs, I could find the rhythm, and I was comfortable dancing at family parties and clubs. That was already something I enjoyed before I ever walked into a studio.

Studying it gave me more to enjoy.

It’s one of the reasons I like traveling to festivals where people have spent time learning this dance. I meet people who didn’t grow up the way I did but have developed an appreciation for the music and put real work into understanding how they move with it. Dancing with them gives me something to respond to. It makes me want to keep getting better, too.

I don’t want to lose the ease of the dancing I grew up with. I want to keep discovering what else is possible within it.

More Choices in the Same Movement

One of the things I work on in class is taking familiar movements through different songs. We repeat the movement, but the music gives us different decisions to make.

You might make it smaller, let it travel a little more, slide, or leave a pause. You might stay with the voice for a moment and then notice something else. The point is to become comfortable enough with what you’re doing that you have room to listen.

That changes what practice is for. Learning another move gives you another option. Getting to know a movement gives you choices inside that option—and helps you understand how it can connect to something else.

The same thing happens with a partner. I want to be able to spend time in a simple movement without feeling responsible for immediately replacing it. We can settle in, respond to each other, and let something develop. A dance can stay interesting without becoming a test of how many things we remember.

That’s the kind of depth I’m looking for when I study bachata, and it’s what I want students to begin discovering for themselves. My own practice was already happening before I started recording it. Sharing it became a way to bring other people into something I was going to keep doing anyway: learning, trying things, and getting better over time.

A Place to Begin

People come to Tres Golpes from different places. Some are Dominican and never learned to dance. Some have experience with other forms of bachata and want to understand this one. Others want to get comfortable moving to music they enjoy.

You don’t need to have grown up with bachata to begin. You can start with a few movements. As you get to know the music and the person dancing with you, those movements can give you more to work with than you first imagined.

What I can share is the music I care about, the things I’ve learned to notice, and ways to become more comfortable dancing with another person. That’s what I mean when I say I teach Dominican bachata at Tres Golpes. I want to make room for the simple enjoyment that brought me into it and the learning that keeps me here.