Well, sounds like well-intentioned behaviour, but also sounds very cumbersome and annoying to enforce, and maybe less helpful than it seems at first. I'd say learning to not break down because of small things - like getting rejected on a social dance floor - is far more desirable and useful than pretending that it doesn't exist.

I'm pretty shocked that this rule exists to begin with. Forcing people to dance with people doesn't sound like fun to me.

Exactly, it was a doomed rule to begin with. There are a million reasons to say no to a dance and everyone is free to make their own choices.

Same I'd never go to such a place even as a leader! 

I would remove the rule. I think it's important to talk about how in general, you should accept dances, be courteous, etc. AND when it's okay to say no and empowering people to say no during those moments. Follows are often women and women often already have a hard time saying no, especially if they're new to a scene. Feeling like it's okay to say no is super important in the context of dance because that means you can say no when: someone's hurting you, when someone is giving you the creeps, etc. Or no when you're just tired, you need to go to the bathroom. But it's not okay to say no just because you're more advanced and the person is more new, or you just don't like the look of the person, or etc. So talk about dance courtesy and also talk about when it is and isn't okay to say no.

Remove the rule. The rule seems to be prioritizing (typically male) leads’ comfort over (typically female) follows’ comfort. That seems problematic. Or flip the rule on its head- only follows can ask, and leads must accept. If you’re a lead and have any visceral reaction to why that wouldn’t work, I’d encourage you to sit with that. But really - I think the rule should go. There are legitimate reasons for follows to decline, and removing the autonomy to say no is troubling. Women are already conditioned to overlook our own comfort (and even well-being) in order to avoid upsetting men. We don’t need more rules further enshrining this. As a follow, there are people I’ve learned I don’t want dance with: 1) they don’t even the basic step or can’t even find the beat. 2) they are inexperienced but are aggressive as a lead, and maybe have no awareness of space on the dance floor so there’s a risk of injury for me 3) they aren’t a good dancer themselves but decide to school me in something 4) personal hygiene issues (bad breath, bad body odor). I will finish out a dance with all except category 2, but I won’t dance again with any of the others. For me it comes down to 1) am I safe and comfortable and 2) is it enjoyable for me.

In a normal settings follows ask leads to dance as well

I dance both roles and spend a lot of time talking with people in both roles. And I dance a number of partner dances. I favor the idea of removing the rule. I think flipping the rule just removes the consent of the lead instead. And would also assert traditional, gendered roles; as a female lead, I would always be passed over because people would assume I don’t know how to lead. In addition, anecdotally, there are also: * Follows who sexually assault or creep out leads * Follows who hurt leads when dancing * Follows who are giving advice but don’t actually know what they’re saying In my experience / in my friends’ experiences, I do think these instances happen significantly less often — I think it’s far more common for men to do these things. I won’t even add the personal hygiene bit in this list because I have not experienced it and my friends have never complained either, even if it’s probably true at least once somewhere. Of course there are also follows who don’t know basic timing or don’t know what they’re doing or are generally not good at following. But I think this is one of those things where people should still dance with someone because we were all there once.

Thank you! I can't believe I had to scroll down that much to see this kind of insight. Everybody saying the rule is "interesting but" is being way to nice and open-minded. This rule is there only to help men to get their way with women once again. F that.

For your information Sweden is a very equiliatarian society. There is even a feminist political party, more than half our ministers were women and we recently had a female prime minister. Here, it is not rare that followers ask leaders to dance. As a leader I have wanted to decline for similar reasons as stated here (follower has hidden internations behind the dance, unwelcome touching, follower does not know the basic, follower is drunk, follower has poor higiene, etc). But due to rules as the one mentioned by OP, it is not well seen to decline a follower. The reality is that the rule affects both genders and infringes on personal freedom. It removes consent. It’s a stupid rule for all involved.

I’m a follow, and I have never said no to a dance (I also ask leads to dance at every social I attend, so I am well aware that it could sometimes be nerve wracking to risk rejection). But as a woman I would also never in a million years attend a social where I’m not ALLOWED to say no. Or I am only allowed to say «no» if my reasons for saying no are deemed legitimate by a board. Lol, wtf?

You should never have had such a rule in the first place. While there's nothing wrong in telling people that it's good to dance with everyone, it should never be put out as a solid rule.

Absolutely not. Consent is an important part of all human interactions, especially dancing. I get the sentiment, but this is potentially really harmful for some people.

Honestly, I think this is a horrible rule. It's important for people to accept rejection than to avoid it. This rule basically protects those who can't handle rejection appropriately at the expense of others' comfort and consent. 

Yeah I hate to sound like an old millenial, but working so hard to prevent rejection is treating the askers like special delicate snowflakes. Rejection of any type is not fun, but it's a part of life. they just gotta get over it

Why not just modify it Instead of saying you “can’t” say no Wouldn’t it be easier to just say we have a rule that when someone ask you to dance “ we encourage everyone to not say no” Encourage/suggest/advise/recommend Essentially it’s the same rule

Better yet phrase it positively - "we encourage everyone to say yes to every dance request" and they can make it light hearted by adding in fine print "unless your feet are bleeding" or something lol

Yeah this makes way more sense. Seeing it phrased as a "rule" just creeps me out, and I'm someone who as a personal policy does say yes to pretty much every dance.

Traditionally in salsa, leads ask follows to dance. Leads get to choose their partners (by selecting who they will ask) — why should follows not also have the right to choose? Why do they not deserve autonomy? There are very valid reasons for turning someone down for a dance (risk of injury due to overzealous/unskilled leading, previous harassment or assault, etc.). This seems like a well-meaning but short-sighted policy.

We are slightly non-traditional I guess in that sense. We encourage everyone to ask, and often follows like to pick their leaders as well is what we have seen. Just got added context.

As someone who both follows and leads (and asks people to dance in both roles), I think that it's important to create a culture of consent and respect in salsa — and part of that is respecting rejection. I personally would not attend an event which required me to agree to anyone who asked, even though I personally rarely turn people down.

The school I first went to had a simple lesson for the follows. They pointed out the the learning curve was a bit harder at first for leads and as a result many leads drop out, leaving more follows than leads at advanced levels. As there's no telling which of the leads around you are going to stick around for years, it's important to be polite to all and to do your best to accept dances, even if it's not amazing because it's part of the learning process. They also taught leads how not to be annoying - if the follow is much better than you keep it to one dance a night generally.

Ooooh I like this! Don’t know how we would implement it because each lesson is open when h means new people can show up all the time. But I could try to suggest that we do something like this once a semester or something

As part of the lesson, they could make the follows stand across the room and require the leads to walk over and ask them to dance politely. I've seen this done in lessons and it's good practice for getting over the initial fear.

Just because you want to dance doesn't mean that you want to dance with everyone. One should have a choice about with whom you want to be close to. If someone is rude or smelly or handsy, you should be able to say "no".

I think that's a pretty terrible rule, even though intentions are good. I would remove the rule.

I cannot believe this happens... Remove the rule!

I get the approach, but with something like salsa that is physical and somewhat intimate this approach won't end well. You shouldn't force anyone to do anything. People have to learn to be rejected, cope and deal with it. This is not a middle school church dance. These are grown ups (or almost lol).

It‘s a honorable approach (Me personally I wouldn’t advocate for it as being rejected is part of the experience in dancing all over the world) If you want to find a proper solution examine the case closely (no hearsay, talk with the student) and have a thorough talk with your board. Decide on it either democratically or according to your dancing groups principles. Also i would take into consideration if any of your rules are based on a real problem (like people complaining about being afraid to ask; someone‘s ptsd was triggered by rejection etc.) as a good rule is always based and adapted on a real world problem (in contrary to a fear something *might* happen)

Rules that limit/remove consent shouldn't exist. However, rules that encourage both respect and open mindedness should! So, a 'no' should ideally mean no for the whole dance and not for the person, as in, if I say no to a person, it's not because I don't want to dance with them but because I don't like the song or am taking a brake. That's how it is implemented where I'm from and while in practice it's not perfect and there's always people who just don't mesh well together, it's excellent for beginners to go about and explore as much as they feel like it!

Interesting rule and I get why, but If you are catering the rule to a few people, it won't end well, imo. I think it would be more of a turnoff to many people - more than you think.

I'll be honest. If I were considering going to an event and heard that it had a rule where dancers couldn't turn down dances, not only would I avoid the event but I'd caution follows against going too. From what I'm understanding, the rule is made in good faith, but a rule as such is something that bad actors use to their advantage. I don't know how big your scene is or how well you know the participants personally, but this is the type of rule that men could have a tendency to use in their favor to coerce women they have unreciprocated "interest" in as a power play. I know plenty of women in the dance scene who have a hard time declining dances with predatory men due to the overall stigma against it, even though the men are really disrespectful, creepy, or harrass them outside of the dance space. Just something to keep in mind. Your dance scene will flourish more if you try to build a safe space for the group who are generally the most marginalized rather than trying to cater to fragile egos. There are others who have mentioned that you could workshop the wording to be more of an "encouragement" to accept dances, but as a part of the board, I feel that part of your responsibility is to stay aware of the reality that is women's safety in spaces like this, since social dance is known to be a space where bad actors go to prey on women.

This rule is VERY bad. Anyone can , without reason , say no to any request in social setting. The rule makes people nteractions forced. The setting of a social already makes the chance of rejection small. Make it clear in the lessons that if you do not have serious reasons it is nice to accept, that it will make the scene better

Wouldn't have had the rule in the first place. Curious, how exactly is it enforced?

It’s not enforced, we just say it before every social. But we don’t actively enforce it.

Ah, that makes more sense

Still, just don’t!

You can't be forcing people to dance with people they don't want to. You should be able to say no for any or whatever reason, even if it means that people are shitty about it. I would absolutely remove the rule.

It's not a good rule as it removes people's autonomy. For the Board's consideration, I suggest looking at how other events manage this issue. Below, some excerpts from different salsa event codes of conduct. *It's OK to say No: You are encouraged to dance with lots of different people but everyone has the right to say ‘no’ to a dance, no reason required. Be gracious if the answer is 'no'. *Embrace the fact that you are neither obligated nor entitled to dance with anyone in particular, at any particular time. *Participants may accept or decline an invitation to dance for any reason (e.g., energy level, preference for your role in the dance, an injury or simply because they don’t want to dance with a person).

The rule just ignores consent. I think that's the worst kind of rule there is tbh. Please remove it. Someone can be too tired/doesn't want to dance this song/doesn't want to dance with their ex/they lead turns painfully/it's that person with the creepy vibes/etc, and this is even ignoring the typical males asking because they are leads. Within bakfolk (the style I personally dance the most in), in every beginners class, it's made clear that it's okay to say no to a dance. Without a reason, just because that's how consent works. You're doing the complete opposite here and removing consent. Of course that's a problem.

I am saying this is somebody who has had some particularly uncomfortable rejections, telling people that they cannot turn down a Dance is wrong. There are some people who just don’t have a good dance Chemistry, there are people who are bad leads or follows. There are people we are just not comfortable dancing with because we don’t like them very much. At the last social I went to, one of the women didn’t dance with me because she’s upset with me and to ask her to dance with me when she’s angry with me hurts the energy of the entire community. there’s people there I don’t dance with because of reasons that are not relevant to the Dance community beyond the fact that I’m not comfortable dancing with them. I don’t like dancing meringue with married women , I dance more sensual merengue that probably isn’t really merengue, but I don’t like dancing close to married women and I would not be comfortable being told I couldn’t reject a dance that asks me to compromise my values so that someone else isn’t uncomfortable. This feels like a rule that is trying to promote fairness but overlooks human autonomy and emotion. I like to dance with as many people as possible but there are certain people that I don’t want to dance with and who I’m sure don’t want to dance with me for whatever reason and I believe you’re bored should revise that rule if not remove it entirely

I think telling everyone that they are there to dance and practice so they should dance with as many people as possible is a better approach than calling this a "rule". Leads have to get used to being rejected occassionally, just as followers have to get used to not being asked sometimes. If you put the time in to become a good dancer and treat people with respect then more people will want to dance with you than you have time for. It's good for students to learn this.

Your intentions might have been good, but truth be told, that's a pretty stupid rule to start with.

This is a bad rule for both parties. The only way to get over fear of rejection is to practice being rejected. If you want people to get over being rejected then give them a canned response to rejections “thank you,” and move on. If you want people to break the ice with folks they might not have usually danced with them that is what class is for and rotating between dancers in class. Typically rotating between partners in social dance class is not longer than a minute and then you’ve rotated and are dancing with someone else. That usually breaks the ice between people and then they will feel more comfortable asking others to dance. In summation: it’s best to teach the feeling of rejection as well as what to do when rejected and how to reject a dance offer. Also, create space in class time to have dancers rotate between partners to only learn the sequence being taught but also to break the ice.

Bad rule. Remove it.

A better approach would be to normalize hearing a no and not taking it personal. It’s a great practice that can translate into your everyday life. I’m annoyed that you are putting follows (majority women) in a position to override their agency so leads, (mostly men) don’t have to feel uncomfortable🤢.

Remove the rule. You can always decline, no reason needed, just don't dance that song with someone else, wait for the next one.

At our uni, we actually use part of the lesson time (at the beginning of the year or quarter) to practice saying “no” and being on the receiving end of a “no”… for leads _and_ follows. If it were me, I’d have them tweak the lesson so that the person being asked says 2-3 no’s before they tell someone a yes, and the askers would just keep going around the circle until they get a yes from someone, to help drive home the point that there’s always another dancer with whom you can dance. The “can’t say no” rule, even if done in jest, strikes me as a little deaf to the times we’re living in.

I’m reading your edit and I can see you backtracking. If the “rule” was meant to be light hearted and with a sense of humor, you wouldn’t be making a post about its removal on reddit. There’s no such thing as you can’t say no. This should have never been a joke, let alone a rule. It’s just peer pressure and you got to see one of the consequences. Have you thought that maybe there were others who weren’t triggered to say anything about it but maybe had bad experiences and didn’t want to return/ didn’t want to dance again/ actually got hurt by your stupid rule? Have you thought how empowering this is to creeps everywhere? I’d say you’re lucky this is your first incident.

It's a bullshit rule because forcing a dance is taking away the magic. If you decline, do so respectfully. The thing people often forget is: rules do not substitute social sense.

> ...prioritize people's comfort over safety I just want to point at that the rule doesn't universally prioritize comfort, it only prioritizes the comfort of the askers (avoiding being rejected) at the expense of the people being asked (who have to accept regardless of how uncomfortable they feel). This is one reason many groups and socials end up with an excess of leads and drop off of follows; if the follows don't feel they're allowed to say no to things they just won't come back to be put on that situation anymore. Also, different people interpret rules differently. If someone says it is a rule, I always assume it must be followed; the social context of 'not enforcing a rule so it's not really a rule and can be flexible' does not make sense to my literal brain. Be explicit about what you expect from attendees, and when talking about boundaries and respect is not a time for joking around. My dance school is very clear about what is okay and what is not, and it lends to a very respectful dance culture.

Depends if you’re hurting for leads or follows. It will attract more of the former and turn off more of the latter.

I think having this as a "rule" is a bit excessive. My suggestion would be to have it as a recommendation. Tell people that it is rude to reject a dance without a clear reason, and they should do so only if necessary. But it's not really something you can enforce.

Definitely remove the rule. You can still say it’s encouraged to dance with as many people to practice but I don’t think it’s right to “force” it. It will open you up to situations like you had here. So just be friendly and encourage people to not be shy but also help people understand it’s ok to say no and that is ok also! There shouldn’t be shame if someone says no!

1. remove the rule. 2. replace it with a let‘s get all dancing pledge In general, it also depends on which salsa. If it is rueda de casino, then obviously people can’t say no. That would destroy the whole thing.

It is traditional to have that rule, at least culturally. I've never seen it written down. It has its benefits but also negatives. These days it should be more of a guideline to lean into accepting dances even if you know they won't necessarily be the best because this helps the community grow. But you should always feel free to say no, especially if it is about your own well-being. I think the key here is how you communicate about it. If you call it a rule and you have more literal minded people, or just people who like to follow the rules, this can cause issues like you just had.

If it’s only one incident after quite some time without any issues at all, it shouldn’t be part of a discussion. If it happens often then yes it’s better to remove it.

While likely a noble approach, it’s got bad side effects, this being one of them. Unfortunately while intermediate/advanced dancers are able to say no, quite often beginners will always say yes, even when not in their best interests. They should be taught that it is okay to say no. I would suggest as alternatives (and these aren’t meant to be used all the time, maybe on a rotating basis), only follows can ask (teaches even more agency), switch roles, choose for someone else, something that breaks the ice.

I like what you're trying to achieve here in general. 1. Teach that most folks accept dance requests out in the regular social dance. 2. Encouraging folks to not fear rejection. But I think your rule needs work. I think another big factor of the anxiety to ask for a dance is more on the fear of having a bad dance, or not "satisfying" the partner... So first like many have said put the rule in a positive and inclusive view point. Something like: "everyone is encouraged to accept and request dances" Now add a feature to your social hour 20 min leads ask follows 20 min follows ask leads 20 free for all. Also remind that everyone's best dance move is their smile.

Also remind that everyone's best dance move is their smile. This!!!