I envy people that can just dance on their own. I never could and tbh I don't believe this will change. Whenever I tried to learn from Youtube etc it didn't end well. I thought I was doing good but I didn't. I totally get that people keep asking about teachers and schools. I have a long list of "no go" if anyone asked and a very limited list of great teachers. At this moment I'm in the best course I've attended so far, the teacher spent a lot of hours just correcting my totally botched basics. Everyone is different, there are natural dancers, there are people not this great but willing to learn and improving, and then what I've seen in practically every class, people that are willing to learn, never skip a class but are totally immune to any sort of progress.
Learning and dancing are two completely different animals. The latter is application of the former. People learn in different ways (don’t know how many times I have used that line). They are related, there is cause and effect, but different. A good learner doesn’t make you a good dancer magically. Let’s separate how you learn from how you dance.
I agree with those who have said believe in yourself and not self-sabotage. Do you enjoy dancing? I am sure you do given all the time and commitment you are putting into learning. Are there dances when you feel things just worked or were effortless. To break that down I will describe that as
(a) mechanically you being on semi-autopilot. If you got a signal for an outside turn or CBL, you could just do it without consciously thinking “how” you were going to do it.
(b) dance with more free space in your head. That means for a follower you are not anxious about anticipating next, as a leader you are not in your head on what is next thing to lead.
(c) you are able to not just hear but also listen to what’s happening in the music. You may not yet have all the tools to do what you will like. But at least you are able to visualize where the music is going, anticipate the accents, hear and listen what’s happening in the musical rhythms and melody. Somewhere between passive and active listening. The more towards active side you can be the better. Again you will need to have more free space in your head to accommodate non-passive listening.
(d). As a follower can you recognize the type of the lead and adjust your dancing accordingly. You may like or not like particular style. But can you just follow as long as the leader is not doing some crazy stuff way beyond your capabilities.
(e) [on1/on2 specific] - are comfortable when dancing apart. Or do you feel anxious like that part end and leader will pick up back up.
Each of above you may be on different spectrum when dancing. The more dances you are having in an evening where you feel they all come together nicely the better. Sometimes you will have like close to perfect dance, everything just clicks.
When we tell people go out dancing more and have fun, it doesn’t mean have fun only when you can dance perfectly. It means be forgiving of your imperfections, accept that you will forever be imperfect, others are in the same boat as you, find joy in being able to dance the night away.
You can learn driving in a parking lot all you want and keep getting better. But you are still going in circles. Nothing prepares you for driving on the actual road conditions with the traffic, unless you do it.
People that don’t skip a class, willing to learn but not progress require individual attention on what is blocking the progress. I witness that in some form with the older beginners (40s/50s) and less with younger beginners (20s/30s). It is a different thread on why that might happen and how to fix it.
Learning from youtube. I will be surprised if anyone can unless they have reached a stage where they are highly self-aware of their own dance movements, can intuitively grasp the mechanics of movement breakdown, know how to fix themselves when the movement goes wrong, etc. Most average social dancers will be probably never get there. You have to be some kind of dance nerd and experienced dancer to be able to learn from youtube on your own. Most teachers are hardly capable of imparting teaching in person. Add remoteness and one way non-interactive nature of YouTube as a medium (where there is no feedback loop from the teacher), imagine why you would expect it to help? If teacher has thought of it and customize their methods for remote teaching then it could work but it still will not work for everyone. You may lack pre-requisites, you may not be able to adjust to receive learning, you may lack extra discipline needed, many factors come into play.
I totally agree with don’t self-sabotage. You will discover one day that your feet at just flowing. I had been dancing for about 11 months or so. I always found social dancing fun from the very first day though I was never a natural dancer. I was very self conscious Mr. Two left feet or so I thought. I would go out as much social dancing as I could. Two to four times a week. Mostly two. One night after a dance a very experienced and influential dancer grabs me says “congrats, man”. I was a bit bewildered what he meant. He says you are dancing in the flow. Next day he puts a big blog headlined “Congratulations to Offbeat, he has arrived” on the local scene website that everyone reads and participated on. Firstly it was embarrassing to be put in spotlight. Second, I am thinking I still dance offbeat, I still this, I still that. I didn’t dare ask the advance followers even when they were very friendly. Especially those who look good and stood apart due to their body movements.
maybe there is hope for me after all
