Do you believe anyone can dance...?

[Offbeat]

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

I am one of those people who started from 0 for both music and dance late in adulthood. While prior music training can give certain advantage starting out, it only helps so much when it comes to dancing. That is because dancing and music are very different skills sets.

Counting honestly doesn’t help a lot with dancing. May be it helps musicians in training and playing music. I see a lot of detrimental effects of counting when dancing. If you are sitting down and practicing counting to the music you dance to, that is different. Trying to count while dancing is not something I would advise anyone. You got to reach a place where you semi-intuitively know which beat you are on when dancing without having to count.

Even if you are counting correctly, it doesn’t mean you are indeed stepping on the beat. That also requires training and practice. Beyond that is ability to play with the music or the beat. This is where you mean deliberately step before the best, on the beat, or after the beat. That depends on the music and how you are trying to interpret it.

 

[xoc123]

I am one of those people who started from 0 for both music and dance late in adulthood. While prior music training can give certain advantage starting out, it only helps so much when it comes to dancing. That is because dancing and music are very different skills sets.

Counting honestly doesn’t help a lot with dancing. May be it helps musicians in training and playing music. I see a lot of detrimental effects of counting when dancing. If you are sitting down and practicing counting to the music you dance to, that is different. Trying to count while dancing is not something I would advise anyone. You got to reach a place where you semi-intuitively know which beat you are on when dancing without having to count.

Even if you are counting correctly, it doesn’t mean you are indeed stepping on the beat. That also requires training and practice. Beyond that is ability to play with the music or the beat. This is where you mean deliberately step before the best, on the beat, or after the beat. That depends on the music and how you are trying to interpret it.

Yeah but for people can’t even count, they won’t even be able to step on the beat in the first place and need to be trained to get there first, before even get to play with it. That’s why I said it will get you (only) half way there.
However, if you think of it in order to play music on an instrument, one is also moving parts their body to the the rhythm music in order to play- correctly to create the rhythm itself, it’s just the muscles used might be only the arms or fingers. For me learning how to move with the music was implicit, sure it does take some time to get good at the salsa timings (which is a weird thing itself because as complex the music gets it does not usually go by how dancers count it), most of the learning to dance for me was on how to move it with. I am not saying it’s the same thing for playing music, but it is more interconnected than you think, especially when you get to the point when you are playing with things rather than just stepping on beats.
The concept of syncopation is well taught in music (and in salsa music I would say the musicians literally abuse syncopation, which is one of the reasons why salsa music is hard to dance to but so complex if you can use it), but the way dancer teach it is very vague (even “before or after the beat” is a better explanation than most teachers, you don’t normally find the explanation as clear as how musicians explain it, and written down on paper), I can see a musician will be able to pick it up much faster because of the existing knowledge. Playing with the music in dancing also required understanding of the music structure, whether it is consciously or unconsciously (when people say they just feel it)
And because it is not well taught in dancing, I can see people with musical ears will be in clear advantage. (Also including people were literally trained hours after hours to listen and play music to have that musical ear). But I think if you give the rest the right training in the music itself (which is almost never taught) , they might not become the most talented dancers but will at least get better than they were before

 

[WellHelloThere]

Most people could get to a not bad level if they really put the effort in.

0.01% or maybe slightly less are fubar

 

[SalsaNerd]

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.

Can this be overcome without a teacher that is specifically aware of these challenges?

I agree with everything said about practice and perseverance, but realistically speaking there has to be a specific strategy to overcome these things, especially when one is not a dancer by vocation.

I think there are "bailarines" (pro dancers) and "bailadores" (social dancers) and yet every time I go out it seems that everybody is some kind of pro.

Can somebody start from zero and attain a high level without making it their entire life or vocation?

Everything the original poster wrote is resonating with me at the moment after going to another social and being yet again by far the worst dancer there.

 

[Offbeat]

Can this be overcome with a teacher that is specifically aware of these challenges?

I agree with everything said about practice and perseverance, but realistically speaking there has to be a specific strategy to overcome these things, especially when one is not a dancer by vocation.

Yes in almost all cases this can be fixed by a right coach or teacher. The teacher should have capability to identify and then know how to fix. Some of it will require a special attention. Like privates. That then raises the question of economics. Is a student able to afford privates.

Can somebody start from zero and attain a high level without making it their entire life or vocation?

Yes. I see it all the time. The first and second negation high level dancers only used to do it as a hobby. Salsa started paying well only after 2010s. What do you mean by high level? Performance ability? That too can be attained. You don’t have to be a full time dancer or have dance background. Mostly it is younger dancers who have both time and drive to be high level in performances.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

Can this be overcome without a teacher that is specifically aware of these challenges?

I believe anything can be overcome with the right guidance/mentorship and of course perseverance.

Guys who experience higher learning difficulties in the beginning (which is usually related to coordination or difficulties hearing the rhythm) progress slower but growth spurts can happen. It just might take a little longer to reach proficiency than you expected. I know it’s hard but try not to compare your learning curve with someone else’s. You don’t know what advantages others have that contribute to their fast growth. But I’ve seen even slow learners have exponential growth curves after seeing things click.

If your goal is just to be a proficient social dancer, then it’s definitely achievable.

Can somebody start from zero and attain a high level without making it their entire life or vocation?

So if your goal is to get to a high level, then you definitely need perseverance and a willingness to put in the hard work. High level social dancing can be considered like going pro since they put in the hours on the dance floor.

If you aren’t willing to put in the time, then don’t even think about becoming high level. During the period of high growth, you are putting in many hours of dancing which can not be avoided. Those are just facts. But don’t let the idea of coming from zero be a deterrent because it has little to no bearing on success.

Everyone who is high level loves Salsa dancing. It just becomes part of their lifestyle. So yes they made it their entire life but it doesn’t feel like sacrifice. None of us think like that. It’s just love.

 

[bailar y tocar]

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.

Based on what I read somewhere (but do not remember where), the terms "talent" and "practice" are misleading or incomplete. The third factor that overrides all others is age.

There is an ideal age to learn something or apply a talent if present. That age may be different for different activities. Even within sports it is well established that there is an age in which a person has to start to become very good at it or else they have no chance to catch up. For languages, the age is well documented and clearly evident. One can become a native speaker of a language if learned before age 16. After age 16, one can still learn to speak perfectly but one is not going to be a native speaker.

For team sports like football, basketball etc. the age to start is somewhere between 6 and 12 years old. Kids who start later than that have no chance at becoming "great" as adults regardless of their talent or practice.

My guess is that there are activities that defy this rule. Dance is very likely one of them. Social dancing with a partner is definitely one of them in my opinion. It transcends physical ability alone. One has to understand and feel what your dance partner is doing. Kids will not have that ability, they simply do not have enough life experience to match what adults know..... but .... dancing a partner dance to complex rhythms .... it is goinng to be beneficial to have been exposed to complex rhythmic music as a child. So even then when it is a apparent level field, some people do have an advantage.

 

[bailar y tocar]

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.

There are versions of dances that do that for you by presenting a syllabus of common moves that everyone should know. Cuban salsa is like that.

 

[Al Israel]

Here's my manifesto about dancing, improving, and talent vs skill as relates to practice:

When I say dancer below I mean in terms of self-dancing, not leading and following.


Every person has a certain level of grace in their movement. I've seen people dancing a week that look better than I do after fifteen years. ANd others dancing for decades with jerky hoppy nervous movement.

People with less grace have to train themselves to dance not awkwardly. For example, I did jumpy steps and had to practice dancing with a book on my head to correct that.

Therefore, a person with less inherent talent in controlling their body can spend many hours going from bad to boring, but transitioning from boring to good is quite quite difficult and from good to artist level virtually impossible.

So 10,000 hours *won't* make an awkward person an amazing dancer, or even a good one, but they can be mediocre with strong leading and following skills.

 

[WellHelloThere]

Most people could get good if they put the time and effort in. That probability is not that high.

I swear there is a roughly 0.001% that will simply never get if no matter how many lessons they take.

 

[bailar y tocar]

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.

This is a big deal. The best coaches typically were not the best players when they played the sport at a younger age. Conversely, it is very rare that a top tier player can become a top tier coach.

A coach who worked very hard to achieve professional athlete status knows very well what it took to get there even though they were never good enough to get to the top.

Conversely, an athlete who made it to the top of their game does not know what aspect of their success was natural ability and what was acquired skill - hence they cannot apply that to people who are starting out.

 

[Offbeat]

This is a big deal. The best coaches typically were not the best players when they played the sport at a younger age. Conversely, it is very rare that a top tier player can become a top tier coach.

A coach who worked very hard to achieve professional athlete status knows very well what it took to get there even though they were never good enough to get to the top.

Conversely, an athlete who made it to the top of their game does not know what aspect of their success was natural ability and what was acquired skill - hence they cannot apply that to people who are starting out.

Well put.

This aspect has been said here and elsewhere often. Performance at anything (at work, sports, dancing, arts, etc) is completely different skill than teaching. Most of us realize first time in the college. We all know of at least one brilliant professor in a subject but a terrible teacher relatively. Those who don’t, probably can’t tell the difference between a good teacher and a bad one

I think the sports is perhaps the only discipline where people are hired and paid for their teaching/coaching ability. The former top performers are quickly shown the door.

In other areas of the life, that distinction is ignored. A good engineer is turned into bad manager. Countless such examples. May be we need to teach this distinction to the people when they are in middle and primary school. Will help a lot of people to be conscious of it in later life and save them from falling for the fallacy. Isn’t it the same that people think someone they can enjoy a drink with will be a good coworker or a president