Hey there Mac,
So since I've danced with you a fair amount in the past seven months I do remember some things. I'll take up following first.
I think the biggest problem is that right now you're in the middle of a lot of things. You're light, not noticably so, but not heavy. Your responsive, but not super responsive, or unfocused. You're musical, but not super musical or passive. The balance is okay, but it's not great, but it's not bad. I could go on, but really I found you to be a very even dancer, someone early commented on you not having the edge, and Flujo offered up being more playful. My guess is this is kind've what they allude towards. This may be a result of A) learning to be a leader before you became a super good follower. This can hinder a person in the short term I think, but has long term benefits. B) Dancing so many different styles that you kind've got caught in the middle of style. I mean you don't dance like say, with a New York style infleuence that's noticable, but despite knowing cuban, I didn't notice a great deal of cuban flavor.
So of course, I don't particularly subscribe to associating with a particular style of dancing save ones own, however I think you need to seriously think about what type of dancer you really want to be, what you want to look like and see if you can coax that dancer to come out. Do you want to be super responsive? Do you want to be a I can follow every uber-complex pattern follower? Or maybe you just want to be the girl that can really make those simple dances a pleasure?
The list is is huge, some skill sets will overlap into other categories, while some are very specific to a technique.
So three things I recommend,
-pick like ten of your favorite songs, all time or current, turn them on and just start dancing to them, maybe imagine a partner with you, maybe just shining. If you're feeling technological record it and watch again.
-Next, identify followers, or if you can specifically identify the things a follow does that you like to see.
-Finally, think back of all the leaders you've danced with and see if you can figure which ones were the most you, not necessarily the "best dances" leaders, but the ones that you straight away identified with as a follower.
Now you don't have to do all that, you can go straight to just making a list of things you want to be good, that you want to be known for but make sure you're careful in selecting the attributes instead of just picking something, and then even if it's not working out trying to force yourself to be that way.
I'll tell you, be careful, when someone says practice the basic step, it's a super loaded idea. There are sixteen basic steps, one in each direction (eight) and with two different feet. So, yes, of course your basic step has to be good, you want to be able to dance well, with technique. In another way it's loaded because traditional basic steps can be different depending on the style. The cuban basic is back and then sort of in place, the standard slot basic is follow back right, forward left, rumba basic is to the side on each foot. If someone put a gun to my head, my standard basic would probably be the cumbia basic since to me it has always seemed the most dancy.
Here again we see a choice in deciding what you like the most. I really think figuring this out will help you, not only in breaking through your plateau but also in choosing what instructors you might want to study with during your travels (highly recommended). There's a lot of bad technique that can clear up when you are able to give yourself to the music and the dance, also a lot of bad techniques will fade under the light of learning really well a number of techniques that you really enjoy.
As far as the strengths I saw when we danced, the first thing I thought of is that there's no real back lead, I don't recall any times you would lead yourself into something completely different that what I intended, I could also see that you were having a great time, though I'm not sure if people less observant might notice that (again too close to being in the middle ground there), and also, despite some talk of leaning, you did have an above average frame in closed position.
Okay onto the leading, actually I found you to be a pretty good leader, this is more difficult to break down, since when I follow, I mostly have to devote my attention to it. Yours was a fairly light lead, fairly basic, though not too basic. Remember that I did email you about one particular move... My biggest problem was it isn't as clear as it could be, this is the one thing I definitely remember since when I followed you it took me awhile to warm up to following. Since you're lead is fairly light the thing I would look at doing is learning how to be more clear with what's coming on obvious moves. This will create a good trust between yourself and the following which will make it easier to do more complex things that aren't as easy to signal. Patterns were good, and interestingly, of course it could just be the leader/follower dynamic, the fun you were having showed more in your face when you were leading me, though maybe it's that strange kick people when they see men following.
All in all I think you're in a very good place, don't look at all that talk of middling as a bad thing, it just means that the road is wide open. I mean there really weren't any glaring weaknesses or holes in my view. You have a pretty good base to go from, I think it's just a matter of investing more thoughtfulness into your dancing and yes, also taking a few privates with the right instructors. For instance, you're learning pachanga, are you just checkign it out? Or are you really serious about incorporating those aspects? Here's the thing, you can learn a lot, you can dance a lot, but all that great knowledge and all those great experiences aren't in the forefront when you dance without a sense of purpose of your own dance. It's not the same thing, but you can see it's like happen to some performers who never establish any style rather than the one taught to them for performance, and it does show.
), and I think we've had prior posts/threads on this forum about how congresses are not a "normal" dancing environment. In some cases that's good, since you get to learn new things at workshops and find many people/friends with a similar dedication to Salsa dancing. However, the music overall is usually faster than a typical Salsa night at a club or social, plus dancers are often in "showoff" mode -- e.g., more spins, exaggerated styling, more complicated partnerwork, etc. In that environment, it would seem more difficult to work on the subtle aspects of fundamental body mechanics and personal connection with a partner, given that dancing at a congress is so much "bigger" than an average Salsa night.
But what I want to see happen to my dance is the connectedness, from the floor to the feet to the hips to the ribcage to the back/shoulders to the arms, to be a coherent whole, grounded and extending from the centre. At the moment I feel that my upper body's working much better than it used to, but it's kinda disconnected from the hips down.