Due to my Dominican heritage and personal tastes in music, I used to not care too much about salsa.
Until I realized that most of the clubs that I was going to were not going to spend the entire night playing Dominican music, and I felt like a scrub having to go to the sidelines when the salsa came on, so in that sense, other guys were beating me, and I just couldn't take that anymore.
I believe I'm naturally I'm a very good dancer, so I looked up some youtube videos on the basic steps. The good thing about the basic steps is that you don't need a partner and you don't need a teacher. Do not pay someone to teach you the basic steps. Learn the basic steps in your own time and space, then when you're ready to learn how to do the stuff you'd need to learn with a partner, like turns, then it's time for lessons.
The good thing about lessons is that they are very accessible. You can find a teacher and do private lessons, but it's cheaper if you take a class. Where I live, a lot of the clubs offer lessons before their dance nights begin, most of the time those lessons are free. The problem is after the lesson, the beginners aren't actually ready to dance because they feel insecure being on the floor next to people to who really know how, so your ability to practice what you just learned is minimal -- girls who actually do know how to dance don't want to dance with guys who don't know how.
Westcoast has some great posts in this thread, but I disagree that bachata is a waste of time. It certainly is not in my part of the country. However, I will say that even here most girls don't know how to dance bachata correctly. They love the music, but they don't feel the music, so their timing is off. Plus they only know the basic steps and movement patterns so watching them dance, is incredibly boring for me. I have to go to Dominincan spots if I want to really get down with bachata.
Salsa is the master key to any type of latina. You can approach a Mexican, Cuban, Colombian, Puerto Rican, etc. to dance salsa with, so if you had to know one or the other, it's better to learn salsa because it's applicable to a wider range of latinas.
I used to date primarily Dominican and Puerto Rican girls, now I mostly date Colombians and Venezuelans, just because after I learned salsa, I was able to go non-Dominican clubs and kill it, which helped me meet different types of women in an easier manner -- to this day girls still look at me after I ask them to dance and ask "Can you dance salsa?", and I always reply, "I know a thing or two" and with a smile and she knows what time it is.
If you ever travel to Latin America, you owe it to yourself to take the time, to not just be real tight with basic spanish, but to also learn salsa. Taking lessons there is way cheaper than taking them here in the U.S., so it only makes sense to allot some of your time to learning that, then when you come back to the states, you can go to any latin club you want to and be a beast.
Until I realized that most of the clubs that I was going to were not going to spend the entire night playing Dominican music, and I felt like a scrub having to go to the sidelines when the salsa came on, so in that sense, other guys were beating me, and I just couldn't take that anymore.
I believe I'm naturally I'm a very good dancer, so I looked up some youtube videos on the basic steps. The good thing about the basic steps is that you don't need a partner and you don't need a teacher. Do not pay someone to teach you the basic steps. Learn the basic steps in your own time and space, then when you're ready to learn how to do the stuff you'd need to learn with a partner, like turns, then it's time for lessons.
The good thing about lessons is that they are very accessible. You can find a teacher and do private lessons, but it's cheaper if you take a class. Where I live, a lot of the clubs offer lessons before their dance nights begin, most of the time those lessons are free. The problem is after the lesson, the beginners aren't actually ready to dance because they feel insecure being on the floor next to people to who really know how, so your ability to practice what you just learned is minimal -- girls who actually do know how to dance don't want to dance with guys who don't know how.
Westcoast has some great posts in this thread, but I disagree that bachata is a waste of time. It certainly is not in my part of the country. However, I will say that even here most girls don't know how to dance bachata correctly. They love the music, but they don't feel the music, so their timing is off. Plus they only know the basic steps and movement patterns so watching them dance, is incredibly boring for me. I have to go to Dominincan spots if I want to really get down with bachata.
Salsa is the master key to any type of latina. You can approach a Mexican, Cuban, Colombian, Puerto Rican, etc. to dance salsa with, so if you had to know one or the other, it's better to learn salsa because it's applicable to a wider range of latinas.
I used to date primarily Dominican and Puerto Rican girls, now I mostly date Colombians and Venezuelans, just because after I learned salsa, I was able to go non-Dominican clubs and kill it, which helped me meet different types of women in an easier manner -- to this day girls still look at me after I ask them to dance and ask "Can you dance salsa?", and I always reply, "I know a thing or two" and with a smile and she knows what time it is.
If you ever travel to Latin America, you owe it to yourself to take the time, to not just be real tight with basic spanish, but to also learn salsa. Taking lessons there is way cheaper than taking them here in the U.S., so it only makes sense to allot some of your time to learning that, then when you come back to the states, you can go to any latin club you want to and be a beast.