This chart is very encouraging to me, a salsa novice. It wasn’t until I started taking lessons with my wife that I realized how awful I was as a leader. I have gone from being unconsciously incompetent (really bad and I don’t know how really bad) to consciously incompetent (still real bad, but now know how bad, and am willing to do something about it). The chart helps me see that I just need to be patient, deal with rejection, work really hard and give my skills a chance to grow. So there’s hope for the Gringo.

Thank you for this site. Every Dante needs a Virgil to guide him out of Salsa Hell. The videos have really helped me (and my wife).

Let me know your thoughts!

How can you compare two different things, namely leading and following? It doesn’t make sense to say - certainly at the end - that leaders eventually become much better dancers than followers. They simply have a different role. In any case, irrespective of that, if one checks out youtube and sees the complete body control of the good female dancers, one knows enough.

Anyway, there should be something different on the Y-axis.

My suggestion to men and woman (especially) is be patient with lesser dancers we were all rubbish at some stage.

I’ve just begun to delve into leading slot-style, as well, at my dance team practices. The mind-bending is palpable but it’s fun, and once again, the change in perspective is great for getting insight into even the things I thought I was comfortable with/good at before.

Timing:

One of the best way to improve your dancing (when your salsahell is already a distant memory), is to change roles in the dancing. Men learn the how to follow, and ladies learn to lead. This is especially true for women that dance On2, because they never have to switch the orientation of their dance step (in other words, ladies On2 always go forward with the left on the 2, never on the 6). Guys that dance On2 always change orientation because men learn shines On2 going forward on the 2, but then have to change orientation when they dance with a lady on the floor. Men can change more easily between going forward on the 6 or the 2. Ladies brains don’t have to do this little exercise often. You would be surprise how many women feel like they are dancing our of beat just because they find themselves breaking forward on the 6 when the music changes. My point? Changing roles helps to constantly climb that graph.

In another point, the guys’ job is a little tougher at the beginning because they are in charge or keeping time, dancing on beat, leading the movement, smiling, thinking about the next move, getting the phone number etc etc. Moreover, initially they guys has to learn so many basic steps, steps which are seldom performed by women (i.e. open breaks, hook turns, axle turns, spot turns, fake pivots, hook turns into open breaks, axle turns in to hook turns, 360 cross body leads, etc etc. That’s why there is such a steep learning curve for the guy.

A woman can learn to follow crossbody leads, crossbody leads with inside turns, crossbody leads w/ inside turn-check, and the famous prep for the quick right, and she is ready to dance with the instructors at full speed.

And where does learning how to take on the opposite dance gender roles come into play on the graph?

I’m halfway up the females’ line, yaaay for me =)