Do you believe anyone can dance...?

[azana]

So let's address some confounders:

What does "long term" mean -- for how many years are you following these kids? Are you following them for the same time period?

How exactly do you rate their initial talent? Or is it subjective? And if so, is it possible a different coach would rate their talent differently?

Are you objectively assessing their performance vs. each other and vs. their starting point over time, across different measures, or again is this all subjective perception?

As for how they compare against each other (the "more talented" vs. the "less talented") -- do they compete against each other on specific metrics, or is it just subjective perception? If yes, is it possible another coach would rate them differently?

Do you know for sure that what seems to be talent is not in fact prior experience/training you may not be aware of? What about accounting for parents/older siblings who might be giving them special training?

I can think of more data points but these are just a few that I think would really bias/confound your anecdotal data.

None of your arguments apply to what I've seen, and you're very colored by what you want to believe . With all due respect (and I have a huge amount of respect for you, your abilities and intellect and your strong convictions), you've always struggled to take on other opinions and compromise on your convictions / points of view . My observations - which you can call anecdotal if you wish, apply to years and years of real life experience. Both short and long term, confirmed by other coaches, applying to many sports and so forth. Please don't question my knowledge of my students and their experiences - you have no idea how much effort we put into knowing and understanding them. Your challenging of my conclusions in something I am experiencing in reality and you are not is actually rather offensive, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and overlook it (I mean, I really like you, when you're not proselytising about *^*&^$# kizomba!! ) There's no way the students who come in without talent but train a lot or "persevere" can compare in athletics and in the sports I coach to the students who have natural talent. In fact, I stock up my teams with talented sportsmen I've seen play other sports (e.g. I regularly poach our talented cricketers for my baseball teams), and they pick it up much, much more quickly than others and quickly become the better players.

However, I absolutely admit it applies to some sports more than others - I find talented students star in baseball regardless of training and experience more so than in hockey, and in athletics more so than in swimming. One of my hockey players who graduated last year and was trained by his brother (surprise, surprise, I am aware of this! My students and I do actually talk ) was a very good player. Not the best, but the results of the training were very clear. I posted an excellent article on a study on the difference talent makes to sporting prowess several years ago on this site, but I probably wouldn't be able to find where (and I don't think you'd be receptive to what it said anyway!) I also freely admit that sport and dance are a poor comparison. I think perseverance in dance probably makes more of a difference than that in sport. The issue with dancing is that I'm guessing that fewer people start / stick to it than play sports who don't feel it comes to them naturally or that they have the co-ordination, so we have fewer examples to work from.

Totally respect your conclusions and point of view, and especially Offbeat's opinion, due to his colossal amount of experience and exposure to different scenes. Just allow me to differ somewhat in my personal view

 

[azana]

So you think I am biased, that is the worst thing someone can say to me since I prize objectivity and usually examine all sides in great detail before forming an opinion -- and it is precisely why my opinions tend to be quite strong, because they have a strong analytical basis (and maybe that is why they appear biased to you, but a strong opinion does not automatically make it biased -- it depends on the thought process of the person behind the opinion) -- because I have already analyzed all the possible angles in my mind, based on the available data, rather than just basing my opinion on something from just my personal experience (as is often done here on the forum). And I am always open to evidence that could change my mind, but your unscientific anecdotal experience is not that

If we are to talk about biased beliefs, your experience with the kids is a lot smaller sample size and a lot more subject to confounding than the people that study this and write about it (and it is not just "the book" by the way). So it is in fact a lot more biased.

Further, even if this were true, it is not helpful for the original question/topic. It would mean that someone who is not immediately good when they start dancing should just give up practicing/do the bare minimum, because they will never be as good as someone who starts out with more talent -- and that is just not true based on all the research we have on this (talent vs. practice). Persistence will almost always trump talent.

But thinking talent trumps everything else can of course make some people feel better about their dance issues, because they can justify it by thinking "I just am not talented at dance". When in fact that is false and if they only engaged in some deliberate practice, they would improve. But it's easier to think "I'm just not talented" than to admit to yourself you're just not willing to put in the work.

Apologies - I hadn't seen this post. It goes without saying I disagree and dislike how you project many of your character traits on to me (and others). I'm going to respectfully ask you to refrain from doing so in future. I'm also displeased with your rather nasty jabs using adjectives such as "unscientific". I'm sorry, but I think that needs to be said - I am not going to sit here quietly and be insulted. Once again, please allow people to have opinions that differ from your own and lay off the personal attacks if others dare to disagree with you.

Thank you.

 

[Offbeat]

Totally respect your conclusions and point of view, and especially Offbeat's opinion, due to his colossal amount of experience and exposure to different scenes. Just allow me to differ somewhat in my personal view

Sports is a very different animal. Natural talent and continuous training gives a huge advantage. Most of sports depend on physical ability and athleticism (depending on the sport). In my experience there are many people who don't have physical ability (for sports). That can't be overcome by a lot of training. Someone who lacks physical ability (by which I mean more than average talent), to play sport can't make up for it with hard work to break through the ranks.

Then the question is how do we compare who is good at sports. Sports generally is competitive and is a very steep pyramid to the top. When people play sports casually or for leisure, then too competitive element is a huge presence. Most other things in life are not as competitive as playing sports. At least that is my experience.

A less talented can put in work and persevere. By less talented I mean only in comparison to those naturally talented. So it is relative. Depending on the level it can only be matter of degrees in difference. Less talented doesn't mean no talent. People do truly have no talents for at least a few things/subjects, just as they have more talent in a few other things.

 

[azana]

Sports is a very different animal. Natural talent and continuous training gives a huge advantage. Most of sports depend on physical ability and athleticism (depending on the sport). In my experience there are many people who don't have physical ability (for sports). That can't be overcome by a lot of training. Someone who lacks physical ability (by which I mean more than average talent), to play sport can't make up for it with hard work to break through the ranks.

Then the question is how do we compare who is good at sports. Sports generally is competitive and is a very steep pyramid to the top. When people play sports casually or for leisure, then too competitive element is a huge presence. Most other things in life are not as competitive as playing sports. At least that is my experience.

A less talented can put in work and persevere. By less talented I mean only in comparison to those naturally talented. So it is relative. Depending on the level it can only be matter of degrees in difference. Less talented doesn't mean no talent. People do truly have no talents for at least a few things/subjects, just as they have more talent in a few other things.

You do make a lot of sense

 

[Deleted member 324432]

Some tangential thoughts on this topic:

• Regardless of how much of an actual influence talent has versus practice (and if you're not extremely limited for whatever reason), it's probably more helpful to believe that practice trumps talent.
• This needn't be purely between innate genetic talent and deliberate conscious practice -- I think there's a lot of unconscious "practice" going on, particularly in early life. E.g. you might more or less randomly arrive at some patterns of understanding the world and solving problems that reinforce themselves, which could later appear as various kinds of talentedness.
• I wonder about the "musical ear", the lack of which seems to be the largest obstacle for dance. There must be research into how far this can be learned "from zero" -- is anyone here aware of results there?

 

[Chris_Yannick]

wonder about the "musical ear", the lack of which seems to be the largest obstacle for dance. There must be research into how far this can be learned "from zero" -- is anyone here aware of results there?

I don’t think it is absolutely essential to have a musical ear for dancing in general. People can dance if they are above average at moving yet have a subpar musical ear.

However, I do think Salsa is unique because of the Music. It’s extremely difficult to dance to if you are starting from zero.

I found taking classes in other solo street styles to be way easier.

An uncoordinated person will struggle regardless of the style they choose to pursue, but add in the polyrhythms of Salsa and they are at a double disadvantage. Also the partner element does pose another challenge for certain people who don’t have great spatial awareness or feel awkward being physically connected to another person.

All of this can be overcome with practice but without perseverance, my answer would be “good luck”.

 

[Smejmoon]

Some tangential thoughts on this topic:

• Regardless of how much of an actual influence talent has versus practice (and if you're not extremely limited for whatever reason), it's probably more helpful to believe that practice trumps talent.
• This needn't be purely between innate genetic talent and deliberate conscious practice -- I think there's a lot of unconscious "practice" going on, particularly in early life. E.g. you might more or less randomly arrive at some patterns of understanding the world and solving problems that reinforce themselves, which could later appear as various kinds of talentedness.
• I wonder about the "musical ear", the lack of which seems to be the largest obstacle for dance. There must be research into how far this can be learned "from zero" -- is anyone here aware of results there?

You are on to something. Early stages of development (including prenatal) are super important in many of these matters.
I don't have exact citations, since I studied that a long time ago, but most people can achieve perfect pitch if they get trained very very early and very few (less than five percent) otherwise. Most people can achieve relative pitch. Most people have sense of rhythm (if you can walk straight, you have it), but it can be infinitely improved and needs to be maintained, because humans naturally have really bad sense of time.

 

[Offbeat]

• Regardless of how much of an actual influence talent has versus practice (and if you're not extremely limited for whatever reason), it's probably more helpful to believe that practice trumps talent.

Yes in general sense and there is enough data to prove that

[*]This needn't be purely between innate genetic talent and deliberate conscious practice -- I think there's a lot of unconscious "practice" going on, particularly in early life. E.g. you might more or less randomly arrive at some patterns of understanding the world and solving problems that reinforce themselves, which could later appear as various kinds of talentedness.

Once you get into genetics and epigenetic you are opening up a lot of variables that we don’t clearly understand yet. We should let innate talent be defined as something that comes easier, faster and better to someone than their peers. Whether that is due to “inborn”, “early childhood exposure”, “cross over advantage from some other skills”, etc has generally been very hard for researchers to parse.

[*]I wonder about the "musical ear", the lack of which seems to be the largest obstacle for dance. There must be research into how far this can be learned "from zero" -- is anyone here aware of results there?

You will have to define what is “musical ear” and what is “from zero”. If you can not quantify it, then you can’t measure it.

I have heard of number of studies about different types of “aptitude related to music”. For example there is a disorder where a person truly can’t recognize a rhythm. Then there is enough evidence to show that among those who can recognize rhythm, with training they get better and better.

Take example of an ear for perfect pitch. Some people without a lot of training just have an ear for perfect pitch. Others get there through lot of training. Most of us don’t have an ear for it

When it comes to dancing, having an ear for music is not enough. Otherwise excellent musicians won’t dance out of time and out of rhythm. Musicians not able to do so, is frequently pointed out in dance related discussions.

 

[Smejmoon]

Sports is a very different animal. Natural talent and continuous training gives a huge advantage. Most of sports depend on physical ability and athleticism (depending on the sport). In my experience there are many people who don't have physical ability (for sports). That can't be overcome by a lot of training. Someone who lacks physical ability (by which I mean more than average talent), to play sport can't make up for it with hard work to break through the ranks.

Then the question is how do we compare who is good at sports. Sports generally is competitive and is a very steep pyramid to the top. When people play sports casually or for leisure, then too competitive element is a huge presence. Most other things in life are not as competitive as playing sports. At least that is my experience.

A less talented can put in work and persevere. By less talented I mean only in comparison to those naturally talented. So it is relative. Depending on the level it can only be matter of degrees in difference. Less talented doesn't mean no talent. People do truly have no talents for at least a few things/subjects, just as they have more talent in a few other things.

Can you spell it out what are you contrasting physical ability with?

Physical ability is very tightly coupled with mental/neural ability and other way around. Even for most basic measures of physical fitness like muscular strength two main factors are diameter of muscles and ability to recruit them, where second is mental/neural skill.

Sports is good animal for this discussion, because there are measurable results. And if physical component seems distracting (though I don't believe the body/mind distinction makes sense), there are mental sports where some high achievers are in bad physical shape, like chess. Chess has game results and ratings. We can measure success.

Natural ability seems to be incredibly important in chess. There are a lot of cases where reasonably talented people devote lifetime to the game and still won't be able to reach mastery. People train very hard, they have good understanding of how to train, what to train, they can train others to good level. But they are unable to achieve what comes easy to others. After 10 000 hours of deliberate practice. (I agree that Gladwell should not be taken too seriously, it's pseudo-scientific pop literature).
I've lived amongst intellectuals most of my life. Some achieve results by small talent and hard work. Many achieve results with big talent and little work. It's hard to measure, since these achievements often are unique. For example in scientific research, once someone has reached and proven the idea, it might seem obvious to you and me and we could repeat it. But we can't do it by ourselves. I've seen numerous examples where someone (with PhD, so obviously not a noob) spends weeks and months of hard work on a mathematical problem, where it takes hours of leisurely effort for others.

In summary I don't believe physical and mental domains are that separate and talent is significant in both.

And I will speculate this will become more obvious in near future when genetically engineered children will enter the competition of life. Current racism will be a joke compared to future when genetically modified humans will be better than natural humans in most significant aspects of life.

 

[Smejmoon]

Also I believe anyone can dance.

 

[Offbeat]

Can you spell it out what are you contrasting physical ability with?

Physical ability is very tightly coupled with mental/neural ability and other way around. Even for most basic measures of physical fitness like muscular strength two main factors are diameter of muscles and ability to recruit them, where second is mental/neural skill.

Sports is good animal for this discussion, because there are measurable results. And if physical component seems distracting (though I don't believe the body/mind distinction makes sense), there are mental sports where some high achievers are in bad physical shape, like chess. Chess has game results and ratings. We can measure success.

Natural ability seems to be incredibly important in chess. There are a lot of cases where reasonably talented people devote lifetime to the game and still won't be able to reach mastery. People train very hard, they have good understanding of how to train, what to train, they can train others to good level. But they are unable to achieve what comes easy to others. After 10 000 hours of deliberate practice. (I agree that Gladwell should not be taken too seriously, it's pseudo-scientific pop literature).
I've lived amongst intellectuals most of my life. Some achieve results by small talent and hard work. Many achieve results with big talent and little work. It's hard to measure, since these achievements often are unique. For example in scientific research, once someone has reached and proven the idea, it might seem obvious to you and me and we could repeat it. But we can't do it by ourselves. I've seen numerous examples where someone (with PhD, so obviously not a noob) spends weeks and months of hard work on a mathematical problem, where it takes hours of leisurely effort for others.

In summary I don't believe physical and mental domains are that separate and talent is significant in both.

And I will speculate this will become more obvious in near future when genetically engineered children will enter the competition of life. Current racism will be a joke compared to future when genetically modified humans will be better than natural humans in most significant aspects of life.

I am contrasting physical abilities in terms of athleticism and hand-eye or motor coordination required in sports, with most regular professions and callings.

I knew someone would bring in chess as a counter example of a sport where physical ability is non essential. A lot of people can improve in chess through practice. Once you get into realms of competitive sports breaking into masters and grandmasters is hard. You require ability to recognize a lot of pattens on the chess board. This is rather unique skills. I remember research that showed with more practice people can recognize more patterns. When they studied the grandmasters, their ability to remember pattens and recognize them far exceeds that of other chess players. Some of it is molded by practice and intense study of chess. You still need to have that mental ability to be able to store, recall, and recognize the patterns.

Intellectual pursuits you cited are a great example of perseverance and hard work compensation for the talent. In many aspects of life persevering and learning over comes deficient of talent. Again by deficient we should not mean zero aptitude or no talent. Vice versa, by talent we mean ability to do things a lot better than an average person in that particular area when starting out. For an excercise if we take all the Nobel prize winners, I am sure hard workers will be found more in its ranks than naturally talented like say Albert Einsteins.

The last thing that isn’t spoken about as much but has most significant impact is the environment around you and available resources. Whether is it academics, sports, or any other field. I think environment has biggest impact on birthing the winners. A talent may not be able to flourish in non-supportive environment and under-resourced conditions. A less talented will thrive in supportive environment and under more resourceful conditions with hard work.

 

[Smejmoon]

I am contrasting physical abilities in terms of athleticism and hand-eye or motor coordination required in sports, with most regular professions and callings.

For me this just illustrates that most people are reasonably bad at what they do, in sports it's visible, but in regular life it's mixed into details and mediocrity is a norm. Sports is better to understand processes, because competition makes people actually to try their best. And there are measurable results that we can use for our reasoning.

(Here you somehow tried to turn my words around to mean the opposite, but I will ignore that )

The last thing that isn’t spoken about as much but has most significant impact is the environment around you and available resources. Whether is it academics, sports, or any other field. I think environment has biggest impact on birthing the winners. A talent may not be able to flourish in non-supportive environment and under-resourced conditions. A less talented will thrive in supportive environment and under more resourceful conditions with hard work.

Yes, the factor that will best predict child's success in most paths of life is if they have wealthy parents who care about her. There is also research on this topic.

 

[Sabrosura]

I knew someone would bring in chess as a counter example of a sport where physical ability is non essential. A lot of people can improve in chess through practice. Once you get into realms of competitive sports breaking into masters and grandmasters is hard. You require ability to recognize a lot of pattens on the chess board. This is rather unique skills. I remember research that showed with more practice people can recognize more patterns. When they studied the grandmasters, their ability to remember pattens and recognize them far exceeds that of other chess players. Some of it is molded by practice and intense study of chess. You still need to have that mental ability to be able to store, recall, and recognize the patterns.

Yes, this was my experience. I played competitive chess from age 7 to 12, and up until then I easily won championships because I could just rely on my analytical & logical reasoning skills. I remember soon after I started, I could beat older kids and the instructor was pretty shocked (you could say I had "natural talent" at chess).

But once I advanced and got closer to master level, memorizing patterns became much more important. And that was not what I enjoyed about the game. What I enjoyed was the reasoning and figuring out the best solution. So I stopped competing once I realized I would have to spend a lot of my time memorizing openings, end-games etc. (plus I realized my working memory, especially for uninteresting details, was not one of my talents.)

 

[Offbeat]

For me this just illustrates that most people are reasonably bad at what they do, in sports it's visible, but in regular life it's mixed into details and mediocrity is a norm. Sports is better to understand processes, because competition makes people actually to try their best. And there are measurable results that we can use for our reasoning.

I agree. On the last line, I would hesitate to generalize the results across all other spheres of life. One primary reason being in certain fields it can be passion that drives people than competition. I don’t think I have to give an obvious example of one such A caveat - the mixture of passion and competitive spirit can also lead to a lot of toxicity.

(Here you somehow tried to turn my words around to mean the opposite, but I will ignore that )

I largely agreed with your original post, but wasn’t sure what you were concluding

 

[Smejmoon]

I largely agreed with your original post, but wasn’t sure what you were concluding

I believe in intellectual pursuits talent is even more significant. If you are slow you can still make same distance as faster walker eventually. But some intellectual tasks seem to be impossible to some and they won't be able to finish them ever.
Maybe it's about training regimen. You can increase weight gradually, but to grasp a concept an intellectual jump is needed. Makes sense? If we would know how to gradually increase difficulty of those tasks.?

But things like working memory and quality of it? Incredible mental superpower. How can we increase it? How can we handle complex thoughts without it?

 

[Dissonant Harmony]

There's a whole book that answers this question really well:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591842948/

Here is a summary, courtesy of AI:

"Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin is a book that challenges the idea that natural talent is the key to success. Colvin argues that deliberate practice is the primary factor that separates great performers from average ones.

The key insights of the book are:

1. Deliberate practice is the key to success: Colvin argues that natural talent is not as important as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a highly focused activity that requires feedback, repetition, and a goal of continuous improvement. It is not something that is enjoyable or easy, but it is what separates the best performers from the rest.

2. Practice should be challenging: Deliberate practice should be challenging and uncomfortable. It is only through pushing beyond one's comfort zone that one can improve. Colvin cites studies showing that the most successful performers spend much of their time working on their weaknesses, rather than simply polishing their strengths.

3. Talent is developed, not born: Colvin argues that talent is developed through deliberate practice. He cites numerous examples of successful people who were not born with exceptional abilities, but who developed them through years of practice.

4. Feedback is essential: Feedback is a crucial component of deliberate practice. Colvin argues that without feedback, it is impossible to know what needs to be improved. The best performers seek out feedback, even if it is critical, and use it to make improvements.

5. Practice makes perfect, but only if it's deliberate: Colvin emphasizes that not all practice is created equal. Mindless repetition is not enough. Deliberate practice is focused, challenging, and goal-oriented. It requires intense concentration and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Overall, the book's main message is that talent is not innate but developed through deliberate practice. Colvin argues that anyone can become an expert in their field, regardless of their starting point, as long as they are willing to put in the effort and engage in deliberate practice.

I think it depends quite a lot on the definition of "being an expert" at something.

Some fields are dominated by practitioners who are hard working, but also highly resourceful and extremely "genetically fit" to the task.

 

[xoc123]

I think knowing what to practice on and how to pick what to focus on is itself a talent, which is separated from the talent one has for a particular subject. People with that particular skill would be able to get better quicker because they are more “skilled” at practicing, and maybe they also enjoy that more because they are good at getting better.
I also think this also separate good teachers, from the artists who are good themselves can only show but not able to help others actually get better - most congress artists are this type it’s more of a show off than teaching, or that they can’t be bothered to teach big classes. There are ways to train for the actual dancing skills, and it is going be sweat and pain like sports, but most salsa dance teachers won’t teach these, only the ‘fun’ part not the hard part, and you never get there to be as good as professional dancers who has been through proper trainings doing their classes. Social dancing is fun, but dance trainings are not.
Also there might be a link that people are better at getting better is able to become the top. But might not be definitive like if they have a coach who they relied on/being push to do things, or just they are too naturally talented

 

[matty]

I would say everyone should be able to learn to dance to a degree, but there are upper limits.
just like with playing an instrument or drawing and painting or anything!

some people seem to have real difficulty with rhythm, like rhythm blindness.
so this kind of condition is a huge obstacle.

some people have really bad body coordination too, and despite their efforts, they seem to be just all over the place.

my difficulty is learning and remembering moves, im atrocious at it.
So that puts me at a disadvantage.
it's like i need to develop a memory strategy to commit the move into my long-term memory and keep it there. someone once told me if you learn a new move in a class, you should practice it again exactly 3 days later , and that does the trick, but i haven't really put this to the test.

 

[xoc123]

You will have to define what is “musical ear” and what is “from zero”. If you can not quantify it, then you can’t measure it.

I have heard of number of studies about different types of “aptitude related to music”. For example there is a disorder where a person truly can’t recognize a rhythm. Then there is enough evidence to show that among those who can recognize rhythm, with training they get better and better.

Take example of an ear for perfect pitch. Some people without a lot of training just have an ear for perfect pitch. Others get there through lot of training. Most of us don’t have an ear for it

When it comes to dancing, having an ear for music is not enough. Otherwise excellent musicians won’t dance out of time and out of rhythm. Musicians not able to do so, is frequently pointed out in dance related discussions.

As someone who studied music and instruments from the age of 3-18, there is music theory and music trainings, yes there are natural talents but it’s something you can learn, it doesn’t matter how good you are naturally most people, if they have ever studied enough should be able to get at least a pass in a theoretical exam, which mean they will be able to identify pitch, count the beats at least from 1-8 in a song etc, even some school exams will test this doesn’t need to be professional extracurricular ones. Becoming talented musicians, on the other hand is a completely different subject. “Starting from 0” means people with 0 music background, they will have to start to learn at least counting the beat first, from scratch. Even for me with music trainings in my belt, salsa music are not easy to count! So I can imagine how hard it is for someone who don’t have any trainings, then natural talent will have to come into play. And of course being able to understand music is only part of the game in dancing, but people with existing music trainings are at least half way there in the counting

 

[Bostontraitor]

Well, if you don't have legs, or deaf and blind the same time... Maybe you can't. But I danced with a deaf girl before, she followed well. and she could feel the rhythm by watching others.