How long have you considered yourself beginner/intermediate/advanced/other milestones

M

Morningstar

Hi all,

Just curious to know how long before you considered yourself an intermediate and then perhaps even an advanced Salsero? Any other particular milestones you considered significant when you archived?(like being able to dance to the beat or stopped having to think about you feet movement constantly etc)

Thanks,
 
In the school where I started they had Beginner I, II and III and same for Intermediate and Advanced. If you could progress reasonably well and took the courses without repetition or breaks you would progress after a year to Intermediate and after another year to Advanced.

I myself never thought about it this way, never called myself a certain level dancer. Now I would consider myself an advanced dancer but it still doesn't mean much since I know how much more there is still ahead of me. It only matters when I have to choose which level class/workshop to take.

As self-evaluation, I would rather think of what I can and cannot do. For example I can or cannot do a clean CBL, a clean double spin, contra body movement, rumba, keep my balance irrespective of the step length, insert styling on the fly and so on. It is much more useful to me since it gives me clear indication of what I should be proud of (positive) and what I should work on (direction).
 
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance" and only then can you really being learning. Basically at the point this happened, sometime last year, I became an advanced dancer in terms of other people's perceptions and labels, but in my own head and heart, I now know I am still really just at the beginning. And like SalsaGypsy says, it's now more useful to identify specific things to work on, especially as not every aspect of my dancing is at the same 'level'.

In no particular order:

I think one of the most important milestones for either followers or leaders is when they realise that salsa is only made up of about 8 to 10 moves, and all that differs is how they are executed and in what combination.

Another would be realising the importance of an excellent basic step with contra body motion.

Another is really starting to love and understand the music.

Then there are concepts like frame, connection, balance, grounding and so on. But I think you revisit these things frequently as your salsa journey progresses and each time learn something new that moves your dancing on.

But these are just the things that made the biggest difference to my dancing.

Regarding class titles, I was doing an Intermediate class after 3 months. Total BS, I was a beginner in every way.

At congresses I pick workshops based on who is teaching them rather than the level in many cases, as for example, a beginner shine class taught by Griselle is worth 1000x that of advanced shine class taught by teacherX who rattles through a long sequence teaching by 'monkey-see-monkey-do' method.
 
At 1 year I considered myself a competent Intermediate dancer
now (at 1.5 years) I consider myself to be a good intermediate dancer
In my scene I *believe* I am perceived as an advanced dancer.
 
7 Years, I still don't consider myself an advance dancer, just when I think I am in a good place, my eyes open and I realise there is a lot more to learn... But I guess this is all relative to your own perception of what a dancer is and how you gauge the levels.

In my scene I guess I am seen as a advance dancer...
 
Morningstar said:
Any other particular milestones you considered significant when you archived?
Thanks,
Click to expand...

My biggest milestone moment came to me one night when I was dancing socially and first discovered musicality. It forever changed my perception of dance. That's not to say I didn't express musicality in my dancing before that moment. More like I just wasn't aware of it. That awareness opened up a whole new world for me in terms of the way I approached dancing.
 
I considered myself advanced the day I set foot on a dancing floor.
I don't believe in "advancement" criteria; because definitions are not set and interpretations are different from one dancer to the other and one instructor to the other. So, my milestones are set where boundaries are overcome.

My most important milestones were:
1- When I asked someone to dance for the first time (he was really hot and made me really nervous, which is not something I am used to)
2- When I realized what I was doing wrong with my basic step and corrected it
3- When I let go and let myself be lead without inhibition
4- When I was praised by 3 of the most reputable instructors/directors on several different occasions.
 
I've been dancing for 2 years and I've been attencing advanced partnerwork classes for about a year I guess. So even though I can lead advanced routines, this is only my level of partnerwork. When it comes to body movement, spinning, footwork, musicality etc. I think I'm improver. I wish I could improve them parallel.

My milestones:
1- The day I went back to improver classes from intermediate and stayed there for 2 months.
2- The day I was sure I would survive if I do advanced classes (as a leader).
3- The day I was sure I would survive if I do advanced classes (as a follower).
4- The day I decided to post my videos here.
 
Good question really. I consider my self a beginning dancer after about three years. But my definition of dancer has changed *a lot* over the last three years. I really had no idea what dancing felt like when I started. Now I at least know what it feels like to dance and to lead.

Morningstar my suggestion is not to worry about labels or how long it takes to reach a certain level. Just enjoy the journey.

As to milestones, these were big for me..

Salsa is a dance, not a step
Salsa is a partner dance
Finding my CG
the first time I could truly lead a simple cross body lead.
salsa is only made up of about 8 to 10 moves
Being able to pick out different rhythm instruments in a Salsa song
 
I considered myself a beginner for about a year, then I considered myself intermediate for the next few months while I was taking an "advanced" class, then I stopped caring.

Milestones:

-Being able to do the basic step. I learned from a friend at first instead of in a class, so the weight transfer principles weren't explained so well to me.

-The "Matrix moment" as I call it where finally everything came together in my lead technique, things seemed to slow down, and I led a smooth dance while actually feeling competent. I call it the Matrix moment because I felt like when [SPOILER just in case]Neo stopped the bullets[/SPOILER].

-Doing a bodyroll in a live dance for the first time. This started me on the road to dancing with my whole body and being more musical in general.

-Making it through a full dance on2 (at first I would dance some of the song on2 and then quit and switch back to on1 haha)

-Making it through a full dance as a follower
 
Recently I think my milestones have been about:

  • stopped caring so much and just danced to have fun;
  • learning to smile, laugh and look at my dance partner a lot more;
  • taking lessons on things I thought I knew, but then realised my technique was actually dodgy;
  • learning to genuinely laugh off mistakes;
 
Morningstar said:
Just curious to know how long before you considered yourself an intermediate and then perhaps even an advanced Salsero? Any other particular milestones you considered significant when you archived?(like being able to dance to the beat or stopped having to think about you feet movement constantly etc)
Click to expand...

I think I've written something similar before, but I don't believe that the three levels beginner, intermediate and advanced are enough to categorize yourself. The three levels themself are present in each as there are beginner advanced as well as intermediate advanced and advanced advanced. And this assumes that you're really advanced in all aspects of the dance, but while you can be advanced in partnerwork, you might be intermediate in shines and a beginner when it comes to spins. What overall level does that make you? So I think the levels can only be an indicator when you're at congress and try to decide which workshop to take.

As for milestones, in no particular order, I can think of these:

  • Being confident enough to ask an instructor for a dance
  • Falling in love with the music after immersing myself in it a lot (with a special thanks to a certain DJ here. ;)
  • Learning to not be so concerned about how I look when I dance, but just enjoy the fun and the moment.
  • Recognizing that it's more important to slowly follow the path to become the best salsa dancer that I can be, then to rush something.
  • Experiencing for the first time flow in my dancing and not wanting the dance to end
 
Thanks everybody,

Today I had my first milestone, I asked a lady to dance after a bar lesson (she wasn't there during the lesson) and she told me afterwards she doesn't believe that I just started :)!

By the way, the Salsa community is truly so welcoming and friendly, I love it :)!
 
I was taking advanced level classes after three months so I thought I was advanced. At six months I took an advanced class in a different school and found out I wasn't anywhere near advanced.

After 8 years I don't really worry about classing my level.

Milestones:

- My first class with Supermario and Susana Montero. So many previously unexplained aspects of leading cleared up.
- An advanced dancer asking if I would be coming the next week after we had danced socially. She gave me such a huge confidence boost.
- My first congress. My eyes were opened to the salsa world. I felt a big change after that weekend.
- Dancing with professional contemporary dancers. They add so much to the experience.
 
Morningstar said:
Hi all,

Just curious to know how long before you considered yourself an intermediate and then perhaps even an advanced Salsero? Any other particular milestones you considered significant when you archived?(like being able to dance to the beat or stopped having to think about you feet movement constantly etc)

Thanks,
Click to expand...

The more you travel, the more you realize how less you know. It's the journey and one without an end. Though you can stop anywhere you wish.
 
Most of my own path has been very incremental, no "big breakthrough". Particularly my appreciation of salsa music has just been "hey I like this song, I'll ask the person playing it - teacher/DJ/whoever - what it is so I can listen. And before I realized it I found myself listening again and again to some songs to try and grasp details in them, watching videos, reading about music ...

I do have a few "big steps" though I guess...
- 1st class
- 1st "real leading" :teacher asked the guys to choose between the four moves we were learning in rotation. It was great!
- 1st "real dance" at the end of class. Messed it up: I froze as I had no inspiration and couldn't what to do next after three basic steps...
- 1st time out in a club with some pals from class
- 1st time invited someone I didn't know ...

At the time I was still in a school that didn't really teach good technique. Their marketing was excellent... It was more a "money factory" than anything else, with packed classes, teachers who didn't social dance much at all, ...
There were four levels, from 1 to 4. When I was pushed up from level2 to level3, the stuff we went on to couldn't possibly be done with the weak basic we had from level 1/2. This was when I realized how crappy this school was (I had no previous reference so I couldn't know ...)
I then proceeded to try out a dozen schools, until I found two of them with some interesting stuff, and enrolled into a few classes:
- musicality, with an actual salsa musician who had played and lived in many countries including NY, PR. He would show us some ways to listen to the music, with them basic examples and stuff, how to listen to the different parts, instruments, ... it was great
- basics class not for beginners. it was a supervised social dancing class with feedback. The teacher would give us exercises such as "dance only in closed hold", "only right to right", "only left to left", "only lead on the body, now on arms/hands", "girls, add some shines in the middle of the moves without disrupting lead" and so on, then run a song, watched us all. Lead/follows would make comments and teacher too. It could be "nice" stuff such as "off time", a bit less "rough lead", "follower backleading" go as far as "you're boring". The whole goal was to make a fun dance. It was the best class ever

At this point I had only learned cuban style salsa.
Then one day at a club, I saw a guy dancing differently. He was small, fat, ugly, yet he looked so awesome! I commented on him to my friends, and they told me he was dancing linear style.
Damn, I gotta learn that!!

So from there I practically dropped cuban, and started back from practically nothing (except knowing basic leading technique and on1 timing) into linear salsa. It was tough. In Paris, the linear scene is nothing like the cuban scene. Linear salsa is somehow considered like the "elite" scene, and there are quite a few show offs. But I loved the music and the dance so I plowed through. I found the only linear salsa night where there were beginners, as all the other beginner level places were cuban.
It was a huge modern jive social, with four rooms: jive, WCS, ballroom, and ... salsa/bachata. Because the dancers were already dancing linear, they naturally chose linear salsa, so I could practice my stuff there without boring anyone to death. I went there every Friday night for a few months, and I was starting to get comfortable with linear salsa.
At one point, I don't know exactly when, everything clicked. I was about 1 year in cuban + 6 months into linear.
From that day on I started going to other nights ...

Next milestone was my visit to London. I stayed at olamalam's place for a few days. It was awesome, I loved it. He introduced me to on2.

I guess there have been no big steps since, it's all been very incremental. I took some on2 lessons in Paris, started dancing on2 in socials, then spent another week in London where I danced a lot on2, and moved to Sydney... Now I happily dance all styles depending on who it's with and the music. My favourite is probably NY now, but I still like all of them.

I take "advanced" classes but I still feel like no more than intermediate. It may seem negative, and really I am enjoying the journey, but while my leading is all right (get compliments every time I go out), my body movement and footwork are still average at best. I still work a lot on every aspect including leading.

I'm guessing that the best thing would be performance classes, as I don't really need moves and stuff, but I really don't want to perform, it's not my thing...

For now I'm a bit poor so not taking lessons until May ...
 
This is a great story tresto. Very inspiring.

Je ne savais pas qu'il y avait des Francais sur le Forum. Salut.

My milestones? Very limited but that's my opinion. They are in no particular order.

Going to a club alone and asking two girls to dance and completely being off timing? Why is that a milestone? Because asking a stranger to dance would do that to you...haha.

Completing an entire song without stopping, this is great during the early months, years, whatever.

Making a girl smile. This is truly priceless.

From a technical standpoint. Completing a ladies broken left turn followed by a cross body lead. This was the first move that I actually felt as a sexy move.

Joining Salsaforums.com. This again may seem trivial but committing to becoming a better salsero by joining a forum to learn tips and other subtle things is priceless.

Thanks guys. This board is awesome.
 
I don't consider myself a beginner, an intermediate, advanced, pro, amateur anymore. This stopped, truly stopped, about a year ago. I consider myself "a dancer in the dance of life".;) I think that answers the questions asked at the beginning of the thread.

In the different styles of salsa you could probably peg me at different levels, and in different dance styles you could probbaly do the same, but what's the point? What matters is what you do with what you have. Can you enjoy dancing with others and using what you have? Do others have and want to dance with you?

My real break through in dance was a couple/5 maybe?...years ago, a while back, either via danceforums our sister forum, or here at salsaforums. Borikensalsero talked about dance as a spiritual/religious experience. The way he described being open when dancing is what I eventually got, about being vulnerable to the core of your soul.

Then I went to the NY salsa congress a few months later, had some really mixed experiences, came back and had some mixed experiences and then one night "it happened" - I danced from my soul. I let go and me and the music flowed. I didn't realize the night was over until the lights came on and then I knew what "boriken" talked about. And that has been my guiding principle in dance ever since.
 
I still consider myself a beginner. But then, in my case, it became irrelevant when I stopped caring about my level and started caring about having fun instead.
 
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