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Salsa Dancing Beginner Keys to Success — Beginner’s Hell and Everything Else

The key is to start. Start small, start now.

Don’t worry about getting good or flexing from the get go. Learn to love the learning process. Practice your BASICS.

The BASIC step is the key to everything.

It’s difficult to find a teacher who teaches the basic properly but any salsa teacher worth his/her weight in gold will teach the basic for days, months, years on end and still reveal something new.

“The simple things are the most extraordinary, and only the wise can see them” — Paulo Coelho.

KEYS for both LEADS and FOLLOWS:

1. PRACTICE YOUR FUNDAMENTALS
2. BASIC STEP. BODY ISOLATIONS. TIMING. ELASTICITY. ETC It don’t matter how good you look if you’re always off time. It doesn’t matter how fancy you are if dancing with you is like trying to steer an 18-wheeler. Don’t worry if you’re either of these right now. You’ll get better!
3. TAKE SALSA CLASSES. Privates are the best bang for buck if you only care about skills, then Group classes. Be careful of “performance teams.”
4. Joining a performance team is fun but there is a DIFFERENCE between how good someone looks on stage and how good someone feels when you dance with them. Be wary of this. Long story short. If you want to dance socially then feel good first, look good second.
5. Understand that great performers have their FUNDAMENTALS AND BASICS down pat. Later on, performing is about learning and mastering sequences of choreography. Focus on the basics instead.
6. YOU NEED TO GO OUT AND SOCIAL DANCE. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SUCK AND YOU’RE NOT READY.
7. This is super critical because it’s the secret sauce. THE SECRET IS THIS: YOU’LL NEVER FEEL READY.
8. You’ll never feel ready to kiss the girl/boy (KISS HER ALREADY — within reason and social cues and don’t be a creep okay)
9. There’s never the perfect moment. GET DANCING.
10. EVERYBODY IS INSECURE. WE’RE ALL TOO FAT. TOO TALL. TOO SHORT. TOO SKINNY. TOO UNCOORDINATED. TOO UGLY. TOO BUFF. TOO PRETTY. TOO ATHLETIC. TOO RICH. TOO POOR. TOO BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH. We’re all in this together.
11. Give yourself permission to SUCK. Because YOU’LL SUCK.

1. EMBRACE THE SUCK.
2. People don’t care about you. Everyone’s too busy being insecure and concerned about themselves. Did they nail that double spin? How are their shines? They’re not concerned with you.
3. Do you look at the beginners or are your eyes drawn to the fancy advanced dancers at a party? Right? Perfect. This is wonderful. Being a beginner is great cause you master that stealth game. Get your come-up hustle on the low-low.
4. Dance for the music. Dance for each other. There’s nobody watching. You’re not dancing to perform. Share good vibes and energy. Resist the urge to judge your partner or yourself. Lose yourself in great music.

(Above is the Salsa Dance learning curve graph from The famous Salsa Hell dance graph aka BEGINNER’S HELL)

Salsa Dancing as a Lead:

1. Salsa life SUCKS IN THE BEGINNING.
2. You have so much EGO and INSECURITY. You want to get GOOD FAST and everything is all about looking GOOD and not FOOLISH and you have weird ideas of “masculinity” (at least I did).
3. I grew up in a culture (Asian background, conservative Christian parents) that discouraged partner dancing for straight males. STICK TO THE BASICS. TRUST THE PROCESS. Don’t get caught up in the social scene of girls girls girls. Please. Don’t. Unless that’s what you’re here for, then go do you.
4. If you honestly want to get GOOD at salsa. You have to invest in yourself. Invest in your skills. Your time will come. Just keep chugging away. Focus on the SIMPLE STUFF.
5. Number of turn patterns does NOT equal great dancing. Are you a turn-pattern machine or are you a dancer?
6. Timing + Musicality + Feeling + Good Vibes = Boss Dancer
7. Adjust to your follow. The follow determines the pace and difficulty of the dance. No point making her do a triple turn when she doesn’t have her basics right!
8. I’ve been rejected (I still get rejected!) by dancers all the time. Don’t take it personally. Maybe they’re having a bad day. Maybe your breath smells like onions. Keep dancing.
9. If you want to take your leading to another level. Learn how to follow.
10. Dancing is a conversation. Not a yelling match.
11. The best dancer is not the one with the most moves/technique/skill etc. The best dancer is the one having the most fun.

Dancing with crappy followers is a BLESSING. Why? The best way to measure the quality of your lead is how you manage to lead partners who JUST CAN’T FOLLOW.

Salsa Dancing as a Follow:

1. Life is pretty awesome in the beginning. You have access to a lot of great leads who can make you dance like a freaking goddess.
2. That being said, don’t be so concerned about appearances. I know ya`ll love the heels. I get it. You want to flex. You want to show off the look.
3. Don`t worry about ladies styling because it`s not that important in the grand scheme of things. Be humble. That guy you reject cause he`s no good right now? Soon he’s going to kill it and he’ll REMEMBER YOUR REJECTION FOREVER BWAHHAHA.
4. Stay humble. I get it. Lots of guys are creepy. I get it. Please don’t DESTROY A PERSON’S SELF WORTH, if you reject someone. do it with respect. Unless they’re really REALLY a dick and then go all krav maga on their ass.
5. We (leads) remember who was kind to us and who didn’t give us the time of day in the beginning. We have long memories ;)
6. The KEY to being an amazing follow is learning surrender. Surrender to the music. Surrender to your partner. Surrender to the moment. It’s very liberating.
7. The follower is ACTUALLY the leader of the dance. This is very Taoist/Zen/Counter-intuitive. It’ll make sense in due time.
8. Dancing is a conversation, not a yelling match.
9. Don’t get complacent. Look at the Beginner Hell curve above. Unless you consistently work on your fundamentals and basics, the leaders you dance with will soon surpass you (if they put in the work). If you want to take you following to another level, learn how to lead.

Dancing with crappy leaders is a BLESSING. Why? The best way to measure the quality of your following is how you manage to follow partners who JUST CAN’T LEAD.

PS I highly recommend learning how to both Lead and Follow. You’ll gain appreciation for both roles. You’ll have canned heat bursting out your heels.

***SECRET BONUS PRO TIP***

TOP LEADER COMPLAINTS

• “She styles too much!”
• “She’s NOT FOLLOWING.”
• “She’s NOT ENJOYING THE DANCE SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE WANTS TO BE ANYWHERE BUT HERE UGH BAD VIBES.”

TOP FOLLOW COMPLAINTS

• “He’s OFF-TIME”
• “HE’S FUCKING OFF TIME”
• “HE’S TOO ROUGH, TOO MANY MOVES TOO MANY… HE’S GODDAMN OFF TIME.”

The Process is Everything

1. BE HUMBLE AND KEEP LEARNING.
2. The better you get the more you’ll think that you can flex on beginners. We all say we’ll never do it. We all end up doing it.
3. We were all beginners once. Remember that before you think beginners are beneath you.
4. Beginners fuel the salsa dance scene and keep it alive. Without them, THERE IS NO PARTY, NO DANCE.
5. You are NEVER a master. There is always something more to learn.
6. Once you get damn good you can DARE TO BE SIMPLE.
7. It’s all about good vibes. Jeez, it’s just dance! Don’t get sucked into dance school politics and the shallow side of dancing (who’s hot, who’s not).
8. Stick to the realness.
9. Remember WHY you started dancing. Was it to improve your health? Social life? Find a romantic partner? Get in touch with music? Whatever it is. FIND YOUR WHY AND HARNESS IT.
10. Remember that how somebody LOOKS and how somebody FEELS on the dance floor can be very different.
11. Don’t judge someone by how they dress or how they look at face value. You never know if you could be in for the dance of your life. The car engine is more important than its exterior.

That’s it for now. Feel free to hit me up whenever.

Good luck and keep dancing, feel free to share this with EVERY HUMAN BEING YOU KNOW BECAUSE YOU KNOW THEY ALL GOTTA DANCE.

(PPS I’ve got more KEYS TO SUCCESS but ya’ll gotta hit me up to get access to the goodies. ;) )

MORE JUICE:

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1. MUSIC IS KING
2. THEN YOUR PARTNER
3. THERE IS NO AUDIENCE. SCREW THEM. JUST MUSIC. YOUR PARTNER. GOOD VIBES.

Build the COMMUNITY. Learn from OG HIP-HOP culture. It’s about the COMMUNITY. Pay respect where respect is due. Learn the history. Appreciate the people. FUCK POLITICS. Enjoy dancing. Spread good energy always.

Listen to the music all the time. SALSA IS DEEP. the rabbit hole can get REALLY FREAKING DEEP I mean just off the top of my mind the kind of influences and styles that you get into when you go down the rabbit hole are…

• Salsa Dura
• Salsa Romantica
• Timba
• Cuban Rumba (Yambu, Guaguanco, Columbia)
• Guajira
• Cha-Cha
• Cuban Son
• Danzon
• Pachanga
• Mambo
• Son Montuno
• Guaracha

and we haven’t even gotten into all the different things you can do with the DANCE yet

• On 1 Style
• On 2 Style
• Cuban style (Casino)
• Cali style (Colombia)

Writing this is getting me FIRED UP.

Let’s dance!!!