Quote: (08-22-2014 10:28 AM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:
Okay, had my first Salsa lesson last night! It was fun, learned some of the basic steps, I've got homework to do. Need to take more compact steps (I was a soccer player, baseball player and runner, so I am used to longer strides). The dance studio is in a cool part of the city, not a bad commute since the lessons start after rush hour. Multiple groups taking lessons in the building at the same time. Definitely some talent, ALL of the instructors are 7+. Half, or maybe a little more than half of the students are guys, though. Mostly a 20s/30s crowd. There are 4 guys and 3 girls in my group, and 2 of them I think are couples.
My instructor is a 30-something Asian 7.5/8, nice firm body. I deliberately acted slightly beta during the lesson, asked her a few questions, then had her observe my turn move for a few minutes after everyone else had left. She was very friendly to me and helpful. I'm guessing banging an instructor with the game skill-set and Salsa skill-set I have now is a long-shot, but this is just the beginning!!! I'm going back for 3 more lessons over the next 3 weeks, will learn the basics, and try to make some friends/contacts. I might stick with this studio for a few months while I'm learning and breaking into the scene, it seems like a solid studio.
In the very beginning, you can learn salsa from almost anyone, and in my humble opinion, if you are taking classes only once a week, it will take you quite some time to build an internal vision of being a confident and competent leader (probably 6 months or more). In that regard, learning dance from a woman can be o.k. in the beginning, but really many times guy instructors are going to be much more competent in leading and giving some of the low down in leading... Additionally, you may need to read between the lines regarding what you are wanting to achieve in dance, but maybe won't really be discussed in open circles or within a class context.
Regarding some of the mechanics, yep, taking large steps is a very real tendency that guys have in the beginning to make them look and perform very beginner-ish and less smooth and more bouncy, etc. etc. But sometimes in order to get from point A to point B, you have to go through certain phases and to work on improving one thing at a time and as you get better you add the next personal item to the list that you want to improve.
So, for example, in the very beginning, I find the most important thing to be finding the beat and continuing to step no matter what in order to keep your body moving to the beat and then to count in your head. Some of this will become somewhat second nature, but you can practice some of this buy beginning to listen to more and more latin or salsa-like music and counting the beat in your head and then when you are on the floor continuing to maintain that beat in your head and stepping to the beat and certainly small steps and keeping to move. Probably the next important thing to begin to work on is keeping a decent connection with the girl and good posture and frame and basic moves to get her to follow with whatever direction that you go whether forward backward or side to side.. And sometimes merengue can be very helpful in practicing these kinds of leading/connection techniques or to incorporate your salsa moves into a moving lead.
I always attempted to spot certain areas that I specifically needed to work on, on a personal level, and maybe for you that is attempting to keep your step small-er- or small-ish... After you get used to being able to control the size of your step, then often you can learn to strategically re-employ large steps for stylistic reasons when you want to accomplish moving the girl in a large space in a short period of time (but that would be only after you are at a fairly high level of dance that you would maybe break some of the basic rules).
Personally, after about 5-6 months of dancing, I began to personally focus on ways in which I could incorporate more turns into my style, and I tend to specialize, somewhat in turns, its my own variation of a style that I have built over 12 years. Some other guys do NOT turn very much, and there certainly is NOTHING wrong with guys choosing styles that they feel works well for their own personal interests and/or tastes.
Regarding number of students and demographic make up of the ones that you are dancing in class. That sounds o.k, and you will find that attendance will likely vary from week to week, and you may want to continue to look around and ask around about ways that you can incorporate more ways to get exposure to different techniques (through other dance studios and maybe other salsa-related dance events that may occur in the future) so you may have some additions that you can use to spice up your learning 3-6 months down the road.... even going on some weekend "dance camp" get away can be very good for advancing your dance skills and experiences.
Regarding banging the instructor, to each his own. If you think that you are going to be able to achieve banging her, then good luck and no problem with the fact that you are able to accomplish it. On the other hand, I have had a lot of female dance instructors over the years, and I have NOT really considered them to be a bang objective of mine. Surely about 9 out of 10 of them were certainly bangable, and maybe even 3 out of 10 being super hot, but I did NOT consider them as bang objectives of mine, and I did NOT strive to work in any direction to attempt to bang them or to fetishize them in that way. Personally, I did NOT consider focusing on the instructors' bangability to be a good use of my energies or a good molding of my male psychology and the role that I want to play in my relationships with women.
Anyhow, BlackNWhiteSpade, I am glad that you are finding something that you feel works for you and that you are beginning to incorporate such learning into your schedule.