n00bdancer
Changui
I've been dancing salsa for about 3.5 months now, mostly focused on social dancing. At this point, I feel pretty comfortable at socials and can usually dance with followers of different levels in NYC. I still plan to keep taking classes for at least a few more months, but technically I could perhaps stop now and just enjoy social dancing.
The thing is, over the past month, my progress hasn’t felt as obvious. I’m probably improving in more subtle ways: better frame, smoother connection, clearer leading, slightly better musicality, etc. But in terms of repertoire, I don’t feel like I’ve added that much.
For shines/footwork, I feel pretty solid. I usually get 90–95% of the sequence in class, and I think I have a good grounding in the core On2 mambo steps. At this point, learning more steps sometimes feels more like choreography than something that will really change my social dancing. I think my bigger focus now should be body movement, quality of steps, and making everything look and feel better.
For partnerwork, Level 1 is "easy" for me in the sense that I can execute the sequences, though I still take those classes to refine fundamentals. In Level 2, I can usually do the sequence, but I’m selective about what I actually bring into socials. Some class combos feel a bit rushed for social dancing, so I’ll either simplify them or add space between moves.
In socials, I already use the all core salsa moves: right turns, left turns, inside/outside turns, enchuflas, copas, hammerlocks, crossed/parallel hand holds, double/single hand holds, etc. Partnerwork classes give me more variations, but I’m not convinced collecting more Level 2 combos is necessarily making me a better dancer. A lot of it is just new arm pathways or variations of things I already know.
Level 3+ partnerwork feels like a much bigger jump. I can understand the moves conceptually, but the speed, arm work, and lack of breakdown in class would probably be too much for me right now. I don’t see myself being ready for that for a while (probably not until I get to a year of dancing, at the minimum).
So I feel like I know how to improve the quality of my leading: better frame, smoother connection, better musicality, but I’m less sure how to improve my capacity as a lead. Maybe that’s okay, since a lot of great dancers and pros social dance with simpler moves anyway, and followers often care more about how the dance feels than how complex the moves are.
Has anyone else experienced this? Feeling like you can always improve the quality of your dancing, but you’ve hit a point where the marginal gains in repertoire/capacity are much less obvious?
The thing is, over the past month, my progress hasn’t felt as obvious. I’m probably improving in more subtle ways: better frame, smoother connection, clearer leading, slightly better musicality, etc. But in terms of repertoire, I don’t feel like I’ve added that much.
For shines/footwork, I feel pretty solid. I usually get 90–95% of the sequence in class, and I think I have a good grounding in the core On2 mambo steps. At this point, learning more steps sometimes feels more like choreography than something that will really change my social dancing. I think my bigger focus now should be body movement, quality of steps, and making everything look and feel better.
For partnerwork, Level 1 is "easy" for me in the sense that I can execute the sequences, though I still take those classes to refine fundamentals. In Level 2, I can usually do the sequence, but I’m selective about what I actually bring into socials. Some class combos feel a bit rushed for social dancing, so I’ll either simplify them or add space between moves.
In socials, I already use the all core salsa moves: right turns, left turns, inside/outside turns, enchuflas, copas, hammerlocks, crossed/parallel hand holds, double/single hand holds, etc. Partnerwork classes give me more variations, but I’m not convinced collecting more Level 2 combos is necessarily making me a better dancer. A lot of it is just new arm pathways or variations of things I already know.
Level 3+ partnerwork feels like a much bigger jump. I can understand the moves conceptually, but the speed, arm work, and lack of breakdown in class would probably be too much for me right now. I don’t see myself being ready for that for a while (probably not until I get to a year of dancing, at the minimum).
So I feel like I know how to improve the quality of my leading: better frame, smoother connection, better musicality, but I’m less sure how to improve my capacity as a lead. Maybe that’s okay, since a lot of great dancers and pros social dance with simpler moves anyway, and followers often care more about how the dance feels than how complex the moves are.
Has anyone else experienced this? Feeling like you can always improve the quality of your dancing, but you’ve hit a point where the marginal gains in repertoire/capacity are much less obvious?
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