Male or Female Instructor for beginner lead?

T

tripleg

Changui
Hello,

I am new to these forums and to Salsa. I just started learning On2 NY Salsa. Never did any kind of dancing before, but played soccer my whole life (not that much help with dancing really). I am in NYC.

I have taken a few group classes and want to take privates as well. I know that ultimately I would want to take privates with various instructors both male and female, but my question is: what would benefit me at this very early stage in my development? Would I do better with a male or female private instruction as a beginner male lead?

My immediate goal is to get to the point where I feel somewhat comfortable going to a social and getting through a song with a girl.

Thanks very much.
 
Either is fine, as long as they're knowledgeable and good instructors - and both have their advantages. One can assist better with sensing your lead (female), the other can help better in other respects.
 
Before anyone tells me a male instructor can be just as good at sensing the lead as a female, I've never met one who is as easy to lead as a good female (including Oliver), however yes they probably exist, but it's not a high likely-hood.
 
Given your goal - I think you should go with a female. Given your location you should have no shortage of excellent instructors male or female. Have fun!
 
tripleg said:
Hello,

I am new to these forums and to Salsa. I just started learning On2 NY Salsa. Never did any kind of dancing before, but played soccer my whole life (not that much help with dancing really). I am in NYC.

I have taken a few group classes and want to take privates as well. I know that ultimately I would want to take privates with various instructors both male and female, but my question is: what would benefit me at this very early stage in my development? Would I do better with a male or female private instruction as a beginner male lead?

My immediate goal is to get to the point where I feel somewhat comfortable going to a social and getting through a song with a girl.

Thanks very much.
Click to expand...
I would advise you to find a good female teacher to teach you, because at the end of the day, you will be 'leading' a female and an experienced female instructor can show you how!
 
Winston said:
Why you'd like privates at such an early stage?
Click to expand...

Should I wait until I am a master? :) Just kidding.

I think privates can be valuable at any stage and more so in the early and intermediate stages. A good instructor will make sure you don't develop any bad habits. I mentioned above that I never did much dancing. This may seem like a disadvantage, but it has the advantage that I am in a sense a blank slate. I didn't build up any bad habits and don't have to spend time unlearning them.

In order to preserve this advantage it is critical to receive immediate feedback on my performance from a good instructor. Group classes offer some feedback from the instructor, but in a private lessons the instructor's attention is exclusively on you, so he/she is able to correct many more details in your movement.

This applies to many other disciplines outside of dancing as well. I am a very good amateur soccer player and I am very happy with my skills and I have competed in many tournaments with some success. However, I learned to play "in the streets" without any formal instruction. This resulted in my acquiring some bad habits. Probably many more than I know of. These bad habits are movement patterns that are inefficient or non-optimal for the goals of soccer.

Besides that I think privates are just a way to accelerate progress and I think they are worth the money. An experienced and intelligent Salsa dancer told me that in his estimation each private lesson = 4-5 group lessons in terms of progress one makes. And in fact private lessons cost 4 to 5 times what group lessons cost, at least here in NYC. So you are getting the same results for the same amount of money spent, but FASTER. Of course group sessions have their own advantages, so it's important to do both.

So in summary, I am taking privates at such an early stage in order to avoid accumulating bad habits and to accelerate my progress.
 
Thanks for the responses so far!

I am leaning toward a female instructor, and in fact I have someone in mind.

There is a thread on this forum that I found helpful in choosing a female instructor in NYC. Unfortunately I cannot post a url until I accumulate 10 posts - forum rules - spam protection. The title is "NY style instructor recommendation? (female, anywhere)."
 
Very good motivation Triple. That's a great start.
Ask her to lead you as well, so you can feel yourself what ladies like to feel from a good lead.


Wishing you well in your salsa endevours.
 
DJ Ara said:
I would advise you to find a good female teacher to teach you, because at the end of the day, you will be 'leading' a female and an experienced female instructor can show you how!
Click to expand...

and no instructor recommendation from Cali? I'm surprised :)
 
DJ Ara said:
I would advise you to find a good female teacher to teach you, because at the end of the day, you will be 'leading' a female and an experienced female instructor can show you how!
Click to expand...
I agree. My first teachers were a husband and wife team and I mentally give credit to her every time I get comments about the smoothness of my lead (by far the most common feed back I receive).
 
olamalam said:
and no instructor recommendation from Cali? I'm surprised :)
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It is difficult to recommend instructors from Cali to someone who is living in New York and the other problem is that there are just too many fantastic instructors in Cali to recommend. It will just take too long! :D
 
tripleg said:
Should I wait until I am a master? :) Just kidding.

I think privates can be valuable at any stage and more so in the early and intermediate stages. A good instructor will make sure you don't develop any bad habits. I mentioned above that I never did much dancing. This may seem like a disadvantage, but it has the advantage that I am in a sense a blank slate. I didn't build up any bad habits and don't have to spend time unlearning them.

In order to preserve this advantage it is critical to receive immediate feedback on my performance from a good instructor. Group classes offer some feedback from the instructor, but in a private lessons the instructor's attention is exclusively on you, so he/she is able to correct many more details in your movement.

This applies to many other disciplines outside of dancing as well. I am a very good amateur soccer player and I am very happy with my skills and I have competed in many tournaments with some success. However, I learned to play "in the streets" without any formal instruction. This resulted in my acquiring some bad habits. Probably many more than I know of. These bad habits are movement patterns that are inefficient or non-optimal for the goals of soccer.

Besides that I think privates are just a way to accelerate progress and I think they are worth the money. An experienced and intelligent Salsa dancer told me that in his estimation each private lesson = 4-5 group lessons in terms of progress one makes. And in fact private lessons cost 4 to 5 times what group lessons cost, at least here in NYC. So you are getting the same results for the same amount of money spent, but FASTER. Of course group sessions have their own advantages, so it's important to do both.

So in summary, I am taking privates at such an early stage in order to avoid accumulating bad habits and to accelerate my progress.
Click to expand...

According to my experiences, difference between privates and average group lesson were at least 20:1, however this depends on quality of the teacher ... so if the money isn't a problem, go for it. Avoiding getting bad habits from the very begining is very important, because getting rid of them is much harder - according to some researces, taking about 10x as much time. However, you can also take some group classes in parallel just to pick up a number of moves you will be using later

As about male or female instructor, if they are good, it isn't a big difference. My personal preference is male however. But more importan is that teacher is a kind of person you like to work with - I suppose not much different than relation with a coach in soccer, so I suppose you understand what I mean
 
I suggest taking a private lesson from an instructor that can both lead and follow. That way he or she can communicate how your lead feels and make corrections by demonstrating how to properly lead the figure in question. One of the most illuminating experiences I've had early in my dancing was in a private lesson where the instructor showed me how the lead for a right turn should feel by leading me through one.
 
I'm a male and a leader. I prefer to have a female teacher as my primary teacher. My instructor has made it a point of studying the lead.I think it's also very important that there be a good personality match. One thing that I need it to teacher is someone that has no problem saying "nope that's wrong" again and again and again and again and again. :p
 
Lawndart said:
IOne thing that I need it to teacher is someone that has no problem saying "nope that's wrong" again and again and again and again and again. :p
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I definitively don't like a teacher like that. Good teacher is able to teach and correct you with very little usage of words 'no', 'wrong' etc - those words are just spreading negative energy
 
A male lead may be better for body movement lessons. If you learn Rumba at some stage (for shines as you are a NY dancer) I would strongly recommend that.
 
That's a good point. Actually started attending another class that I just found with an emphasis on Rumba. Probably not as important in the beginning. Especially for me, when you consider how plank like I was.


MMaatttt said:
A male lead may be better for body movement lessons. If you learn Rumba at some stage (for shines as you are a NY dancer) I would strongly recommend that.
Click to expand...
 
DJ Ara said:
I would advise you to find a good female teacher to teach you, because at the end of the day, you will be 'leading' a female and an experienced female instructor can show you how!
Click to expand...

Wouldn't an experienced instructor be able to show how to lead irrespective of gender?
 
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