Is that what you would have told yourself?
I don't disagree with what your wrote. I just know the effort is worth whatever sorrow comes with it.
Beginner lead: confidence in the first few dances
- Thread starter martinim
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Is that what you would have told yourself?
I don't disagree with what your wrote. I just know the effort is worth whatever sorrow comes with it.
Bostontraitor
Son
First step: find a girl who actually likes you. Once she likes you, she won’t care if you mess up or aren’t great yet. That alone kills most of the anxiety.
Next, learn more moves and get comfortable with them. Practice mixing and matching them in different ways instead of running the same routine every time. Make sure you’ve got enough moves to last a solid 5 minutes of salsa.
After that, everything else just comes with time and experience. The more you dance, the better it gets.
Next, learn more moves and get comfortable with them. Practice mixing and matching them in different ways instead of running the same routine every time. Make sure you’ve got enough moves to last a solid 5 minutes of salsa.
After that, everything else just comes with time and experience. The more you dance, the better it gets.
Groove On
Son
I agree, but "latin dances" is too broad, perhaps limit it to linear salsa (on1/on2).
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Not sure.
People who dance bachata or sensual don’t take up salsa because they find it difficult.
Back in 2000s before bachata or other dances were a thing, no one said salsa was too difficult.
Which other dances. WCS is more difficult to learn than salsa is. If you dance fusion, it won’t help with salsa dancing. What else is left.
What you have written about WCS is not anything new. May be it is a new experience for you personally. I have written many times that in WCS you will find stars and high level dancers having no qualms in asking beginners or random strangers. I have been asked by some of them over the years. That is the culture and ethos of WCS. Each dance has its own. Tango is at opposite end. You can rarely expect a maestr@ level dancer to ask a random strangers. I haven’t seen it happen.
In salsa, as a leader you can ask so called stars (followers) and most of the time you will get a yes. As a follower you can ask a leader and I suppose a leader will usually say yes if asked. Terry gets asked all the time.
In salsa, I would say there is a time and place to ask a “celebrity” and get a yes. The major problem in salsa is getting opportunity to ask. As a leader, there are other leaders you are competing with for asking. There more good leaders than there are followers beyond a certain level. Therefore it kind of becomes leader heavy though overall floor might be balanced or follower heavy.
As for beginners, I don’t see any shortcuts. Instructors can make life a bit easier by arranging group to go collectively for socials. My experience was only half the group shows up for the socials. Strong local social scene is beneficial for beginner leaders. You have multiple socials to choose from.
Whether salsa or office or any another sphere of life insecure guy lacking self-confidence will always have difficult time interacting with women. It is just the way it is. You can’t force a woman to give him leeway when there are other guys in the line. Actually in my experience women are far kind to guys and give them a long rope. If I were a follower there are many guys I wouldn’t dance with. Nothing to do with skills but hygiene, being rough, treats follower like a rag doll when dancing, entitled attitude, etc.
Groove On
Son
Anecdotally, an abnormally long "beginner lead hell" seems to be more of a problem in modern linear salsa. Many linear leads still struggle after 1-2 years vs. 3-6 months in other dances like Cuban, Bachata, Merengue, WCS etc.
My personal pet theory, is that modern linear style has over-emphasized open-hold, to the point where closed-hold is only done in passing ... if ever! For beginner leads, true closed-hold dancing is one of the best ways to get "accurate" feedback on their lead-connection.
This is why so many people flock to sensual. Closed hold leading is normal in those dances. Salsa has a problem where people kind of expect you to do pattern after pattern, whether simple or complex, but done well and to the beat.
The only way to get over this hump is to become good at it and not to expect charity from other good dancers. Those who are successful have this internal drive to get better. In doing so, they will get more opportunities than the ones who don't have this drive.
If bad experiences can be used as fuel to propel that engine, then we're getting somewhere. Venting to the high heavens hoping things will change is likely going to result in more frustration and eventually, lead to quitting.
Tango is rarely brought up in a comparison to Salsa. I wonder why. My brief experience with Tango wasn't bad, even. But I didn't try to become good at it because I had Salsa.
Salsa can be forgiving but also all the bad things said about the scene is also true.
Celebrity culture in Salsa is just the worst and that prevailing attitude of 'I am better than you' is so ingrained in the scene. Everyone wants to impress everyone with their dancing. Beginners see this and also see how high a mountain they have to climb to get there. It's right in front of them. The environment is not conducive to peer mentoring, either. The frustrated get more frustrated. In the absence of having an outlet to express that frustration, they resort to posting about it online and that's what we're seeing now.
I don't see how any of this will change. But those of us who embrace the journey for what it is can enjoy it immensely. But how do you impart that feeling to beginners?
In my experience, you can't. They must figure it out. I remember that part being fun. Seeking out cool new teachers. Going out after class and picking the brains of my peers. Studying videos of professionals on Youtube, getting inspired. Training my basics and body movement at home. It was all just a lot of fun and still is.
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MokeTyson
Changui
I really like this theory! The first kizomba class I ever took taught me more about how to be sensitive to my partner’s weight/center of mass than a hundred hours of salsa lessons and social dancing had up to that point.
Even though we were technically in “open position,” palm to palm with both hands, the point of the exercise was both parties continuously listening to tactile feedback from the other—to the connection. And it was eye-opening because that wasn’t something I realized was even possible in salsa.
One of my criticisms of how salsa is taught is that many beginners end up forming a fixed “worldview” that connection exists in intervals, rather than continuously—that is, you only need to listen to your partner up until the move is initiated. Then, you “wait” for the move to finish, as if in a Pokémon battle, before you then cue up the next one.
Obviously, as people deepen their understanding, it can become clear that salsa can (and should) also have continuous connection, but my pet theory is that this “worldview” sticks with many dancers for the length of their dance life.
Honestly, that is news to me! From what I remember and have seen till recently the beginner leads who stick with salsa are able to not struggle as much after 6-8 months. That’s if they are dancing at least once or twice a week socially.
WCS is danced more open hold than salsa is. It is a more difficult dance to learn as a beginner. Yet you seem to admit that WCS beginners stop struggling after 6 months.
When you say modern linear salsa, how modern is it? Since early 1990s?
I think those who complain about struggling after 1-2 years are outliers. They will tend to complain in online forums. Most of the time the have stuck to classes and lacked social dancing. Opportunity to social dance on weekly basis and taking advantage of that opportunity is what perhaps they lack.
When all said and done salsa is 10x or 100x friendlier than tango. Let me give you an example. In salsa if you are a good or good enough dancer, you can walk into any social in any part of the world and can get dances. Not so in Tango. If you are unfamiliar face at a milonga (visitor), you are unlikely to get dances. This very well known and often debated topic. Compare to salsa, atmosphere at milonga is like that of a funeral
It doesn’t seem like people are there to have fun. Everyone seems cagey. Tango tends to be very cliquey. Salsa’s got nothing on that. “Celebrity” culture has always existed in Tango since its modern revival in late 1980s. It is not result of social media.
In tango it was common wisdom that you need to learn for a year or two before you are ready to dance in milonga. That’s only half true. Though tango has tradition of practicas which is more relax and where you go to sharpen your social dancing skills. Salsa or any other dance doesn’t have an equivalent.
Groove On
Son
For me modern linear Salsa is anything after the 2010s.
Groove On
Son
WCS is taught differently from Salsa. From the beginning, WCS follows are given active following techniques and the responsibility for finding, filling-in and dancing the connection. Add to that the push/pull connection and WCS leads get much more accurate feedback up front (even if there are a lot of open-hold figures).
But, you are right, not everybody needs to do Cuban or Dominican Bachata first, but there are people out there who could benefit from the round-about path.
It is too bad merengue is rarely taught anymore, it is such a good intro to Salsa, naturally complimenting the proper stepping, lead and connection used in Salsa. I honestly think if more teachers re-introduced merengue in the beginner classes, they could cut the "beginner lead hell" down to 3 months or less.
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In my observation, I'm seeing time to competency on average increasing. But my sample size is out of whack since my local scene sucks and there are no fast learners and definitely no prodigies. 1-2 years seems reasonable now to remain a beginner.
In scenes with reasonably good schools, 1-2 years should be enough time to get out of beginner hell. But how many of those scenes exist?
That's the difference right there. 'Common wisdom' says something that isn't at odds with the reality. I'm guessing teaochers aren't telling their students that Tango is a fun, easy going dance?
In Salsa, people expect to be able to dance after their first class and that idea is also reinforced by teachers. The cognitive dissonance being generated by salsa teachers is at an extraordinarily high level.
Students get this reality check when they go out into the wild and see all the great dancers. No one prepared them for it.
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This is what people dislike about Salsa when they go social dancing. People say things like 'most people in Salsa are friendly and will dance with you' 'Actual advanced dancers aren't going to turn you down' Yada yada yada.
Then beginners go out and get turned down in the most brutal way. As a beginner, you have no idea how to tell who is actually 'advanced' in Salsa.
And MANY advanced salsa dancers are snobs and turn people down for stupid reasons just to satisfy their ego.
So why are we telling people Salsa is composed mainly of people who just want to dance, not hook up, and who are otherwise very friendly people? It's a perfect recipe for how to become a wildly deluded beginner. There's only one way out of this cycle of 'no one wants to dance with me because I'm bad', which is to become good yourself.
As a beginner, the safest thing to do is to stick with other beginners, mostly in class. But if you really want to become a good dancer, you must also dance with good dancers. Leads can take advantage of this if they can click off that voice inside their head where they think they're going to be rejected.
That's another psychological issue leads have to deal with. Heck, I still deal with it, but I don't tell anyone that I'm not as confident as I appear to be. While I'm dancing, I am confident, but asking total strangers to dance? Still not big on the idea. If I need to do it, I can, but I'd rather just dance with the people I know.
And the scene isn't friendly to people coming back from hiatus, either. It's friendly to people who show up week after week, grinding it out on the dance floor (lol), rubbing shoulders with everyone, building up their network, and becoming better dancers. So in order to have a good time, requires a good chunk of time investment and socialization.
This is also required of good dancers too because they will have a better time surrounded by their adoring fans. And the socialites for sure require the presence of their clique to have a good time.
Okay, there's always the subset of people who say they don't need anyone and like to go out lone-wolfing it. But I've done both and it's always better when you have fans who come up to you without you having to lift a finger.
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So it must be hell. But actually fits to the depressive music they play. I visited a well-established milonga in Buenos Aires and it felt morbid like "Death in venice". To each their own. I choose salsa.
I always shake my head when I hear salsa teachers say to beginner class "Go out dancing!" - the beginner leads just crash and burn there: no mercy to expect from most salsa women. The social floor is not really for exercising.
But hey, we are all one family, only fun and no rejections.
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It does sound completely absurd how welcoming a community can be after coming from a different community like Salsa. I've tasted a bit of the WCS scene and a lot of the Latin Hustle scene where there is overlap so I am aware of the differences.
One thing I didn't notice is whether there are DJ booth dancers in WCS. It seemed the focus was on the dancing itself and not on where people were positioned. But I haven't been to enough WCS events to know whether that is truly the case.
And of course, the fashion police didn't show itself in WCS. Even in those Jack & Jill videos, most people I see are dancing in quite casual wear. No one is competing for who can show the most skin like you have in Latin dancing.
WCS has a secret dress code about using black wide trousers and not much colours in general, but everything is decent. Status hierarchies are at least not obvious.
In salsa celeb guys dress like rock stars and women have their sexyness competition - such environment enforces status hierarchies which naturally are unfriendly for beginners. But dressing sharp when goint out is latino culture and is hard to overcome (and not wanted by many to overcome - some people like status signs). But at afternoon socials where the dresscode is casual you can feel the difference in behaviour.
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