The bata de cola is a dress with a train, which can be worn in a number of dances but which demands its own unique style.  The long train is difficult to manoeuvre - more like a dance partner than a part of your costume!  And the bata de cola kick causes more trouble for dancers than any other aspect of handling it.

There are two situations where you need to kick the cola:

• when it's in front of you and you need to get it out of the way, and
• when you want to pick up the train and dance holding it in your hand.

First we need to look at bata de cola technique in general.

When choreographing for the bata de cola, it's important to leave extra time for the cola to complete its movement. You can't take an existing routine, choreographed wearing an ordinary costume, and expect to be able to dance it with a train. The bata de cola doesn't work like that! The cola is heavy and is almost always a beat or two behind the dancer. You have to give it time to catch up with you - in fact, it looks much more dramatic if you do.

For instance, you can still do fast turns at the same speed as before, because the cola will lift and fly around with you. But that means it builds up momentum, so when you stop, it will keep moving in the same direction. You need to let it come to rest before you take your next step - otherwise you're likely to get tangled.

The same principle - giving the cola its own time - applies when the train has landed in front of you, and you need to move it out of the way for your next step.

The reason many people find this "kick" difficult, is that they think they should be able to kick the train into position in one beat and step out on the next. To make a heavy train move that quickly, you'd need to give it a hefty kick with your whole body behind it, and that would look pretty ugly. However if you give yourself more time, you can use a smaller kick to start the movement, and then allow the train's momentum to carry it the rest of the way. The kick still needs to have force - it's important to engage all your hip and leg muscles for the kick, although most of the actual movement will be below the knee, usually in a semi-circular motion.

When you're starting out, it's always best to avoid letting the train wrap around you.  It takes real confidence to get yourself into a "merengue" and get out of it again without falling flat on your face:

The other solution, of course, is to choreograph your routine so that your train never lands in the wrong position - if it never falls in your way, you'll never have to kick it, will you? This is more achievable than it sounds and again, it's a case of using the movement of your body to create momentum in the cola, which will carry it through to the position you want. Using this strategy, the most you'll have to do is give the cola an extra nudge with your heel now and then as it passes your foot.

Now let's look at the other situation where you need a "bata de cola kick" - when you need to pick up the train and dance holding it in your hand. Basically, you kick up the cola with your heel in a semicircular movement (so you're kicking the train upwards and outwards), reaching down with your hand at the same time. Once again, this is difficult to teach and is a knack that you will only get through practice, practice, practice.

There are ways to avoid this kick altogether. If you can choreograph your routine so the cola is already in the air - such as at the end of a turn - you'll find it much easier to grab. Alternatively, you can stop and do a showy backbend, picking up the train before you straighten up. Or if you're dancing a more gitana style with deep forward bends, you could pick up the train on one of those.

Of course, it helps if you have a well-made dress. In the clip above, notice how the dancer is able to pick up her train without bending over at all, because the ruffles come so high. I'm not convinced it's the most elegant way to pick up a train, though!

Mastering the bata de cola takes patience, but do persevere - it can look fabulous when you do!

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Text copyright Marisa Wright. Photo thanks to Andrea Balducci.