Bachata for programmers

You’re probably someone who likes efficiency. Well, as weird as it sounds, dancing Bachata is the most efficient hobby a programmer could have.

It ticks so many of the important boxes that many of us are missing in life. It’s social. It’s active. It’s physical. It’s super fun. It’s sexy. You can keep getting better at it, so it never gets boring.

It’s basically the antidote to your day job.

Know yourself, grow yourself

Bachata dance teaches you to be more in touch with your own body. Then it teaches you how to be aware of your partner’s body.

It pushes you gently to the edges of your comfort zone, while always keeping you in a perfectly safe environment.

For me personally, Bachata has helped me face a personal fear of taking up space and being seen. I wasn’t even aware of how strong this fear was until a Bachata teacher had me do some dramatic moves. This is a silly and stifling fear, but Bachata invited me to explore it and gradually chip away at it.

One easy hack to make friends as an adult!

Dancers are 99% nice and chill people, so it’s super easy to make friends. Plus, the whole environment of social Bachata is that everyone dances with everyone, which makes it easy to break the ice.

It’s mixed gender, so unlike something like sports and martial arts, which typically split genders, you make friends with both men and women!

And Bachata dance is popular and growing. If you move to a new city, or go traveling, all you need to do is find the local Bachata dance scene and your social needs are met!

Romance

It’s good for your love life too, can’t forget that. Not just because being good at dancing is really sexy (it is), but it teaches you some of the subtler points of romance.

For a man, it teaches you how to lead boldly while still being gentle and fully respectful. I can’t speak confidently to what it teaches women about romance, since I’m not one. But I know it teaches both men and women how to glide between pulling and pushing, intensity and relaxation. That’s the good stuff.

Wholesome Connection

But it’s not all about sexy romance. I’ve made far more platonic friendships through dance than romantic ones, and that’s awesome! One of the nice things about Bachata is that you can share a level of trust and intimacy with people who you value as friends, but who you don’t necessarily want to be sexually involved with.

Unlike a typical nightclub dance floor, there’s not so many “hidden agendas” at play. On a Bachata dance floor, everyone is there for the love of the dance more than anything else.

So Bachata dance creates a safe space for a form of connection which is amazingly fulfilling and wholesome, but which can rarely be found in other contexts.

What more can you ask for?

Bachata might not make you wildly rich. But it can help you with everything else that makes life sweet. If you haven’t yet found a hobby that you’d be happy to spend the rest of your life with, I recommend giving it a try.