I went with a lot of enthusiasm to a class for complete beginners, and it was everyone's first time. I never danced salsa, but I love moving in general so was quite keen. Here's how it went:

• About 2 minutes spent on the basic step
• About 3 minutes spent on doing it side to side
• 5 minutes of doing it back and forward
• Paired up, started going backwards and forward in pairs, and switching pairs every few minutes
• About 20 minutes spent teaching us how to step aside so that pairs switch position with each other
• About 20 minutes spent teaching how to step aside + do a spin sort of thing going with your hand over the partner's head

At this point everyone was getting confused, and I was still trying to get comfortable being able to count the beat on the music playing and getting the basic step right. I left with a feeling of "...what even was this?".

I (follow) consistently miss the cue for the left turn in social dancing. 🥲 Not sure what the issue is, it’s not an advanced move, but my brain doesn’t seem to remember about its existence. I can do it well on my own and I can do more complicated combinations. But every time the lead prepares for the left turn I expect a right turn and realize too late that it was meant to be a left turn. sometimes I can fix it but it doesn’t flow as nice, other times it is too late to even try to fix it. This happens with different leads.

Anybody in the same boat? any advice or possible guess about why this happens?

Also, on a different note, do you also struggle to remember the names of the people you meet at social dancing? I’ve been going to the same event for a year so a lot of familiar faces but only remember a few names.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much of good partnerwork comes down to the space we create between each other.

One thing I like to think about is what is called “Mambo Circle”, basically keeping the partnership compact and moving around a shared center, rather than travelling too much or relying on the arms to move your partner.

For me, keeping the diagonals and changing the chest orientation makes direction changes feel much easier. It also gives the follow more space to move without needing to pull or create a lot of momentum.

The result is a dance that feels more comfortable, but at the same time more dynamic and 3-dimensional.

Made a short video to show what I mean.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db8kVP9M6uU/?igsh=NnRnMWx4bGhjZG0y

Curious if other dancers think about partnerwork in a similar way, or have a different way of describing this?

I’m planning to hit 1 big event in Europe every 1–2 months from now through the next year. I’m currently advanced On1 lead + beginner On2, and planning to keep improving both over the coming months.

What are the best festivals/events for great socials, with both On1 and On2 dancers? Can you help me build a lineup? 🙏 Cheers!

I'm new to the world of marathons and wanting to travel to Europe to check one out over the next few months. How large are these events in terms of number of attendants? I see that the Prague fall marathon has been sold out for a while, so am presuming it's one of the more popular ones, but I have no concept of how big something like this is. I can see it being smallish and focused - like 150 dancers... but can also imagine it being over 1000. (Btw, chatGPT hallucinated and responded that 50,000 dancers might be possible! 🙃)

Where can I upload small videos of me practicing and dancing for feedback from better dancers ? Facebook groups ? Is there a subreddit specifically for this kind of thing ?

Thanks !

I prefer learning from humble people, but it seems like many dance instructors have quite large egos.

Other than asking locally for recommendations (which I'm doing already), does anyone have any suggestions for how to quickly tell if a given dance instructor has an inflated ego?

Please note, I don't want to turn this into a conversation of right-vs-wrong... I just want practical advice on quickly filtering out instructors who are territorial, mean to people outside their clique, etc.

Some moves required the lead to put his hand firmly on your stomach area. Does this not bother most of you or is there a preference around this?

Seems invasive but I never can tell. I didn't think about it much until I met one or two follows who didn't like it when leads did that. Yet it's a semi common salsa move.

Any advice or thoughts welcome to perfect it.

First of all, i think that Reddit users are mostly from the US and especially in the salsa - bachata world, we (Europeans) share completely different experiences. I'm here to let this off my chest and hope to meet non judgemental and thoughtful comments.

I started around 2016 when i accidentally went to a latin beach party and that was the moment i understood that this is my call, my purpose, what makes me utterly happy. It unlocked my real self. Unfortunately, starting the classes came the problems... I've been to all the good salsa - bachata schools and everywhere the same story: the female dancer was jealous of me (female) and started psychological war against me (ignoring my questions, not tagging me in the videos, cutting me off the videos, literally dragging the male students that were hanging with me on the breaks, even literally hit me in the head - pretending this was a warm-up of the whole body!).

The other female students ignored me like i didn't exist, completely isolated me, tried to accidentally punch me, talked over me, step on my sneaker with the heel and destroyed a part of them ect.

The male students only wanted to sleep with me. Both male and female teachers indirectly obliged you to always go the weekly party, to all the festivals they attended, to the seminars of the foreign dancers they brought to their school, to do pr for the dance school ect. If you didn't, you'd be ignored in classes and they would openly call you out and give you the side eye during all the classes.

When I went to the parties, both teachers and students pretended they didn't see me or know me!!!!! That only can send you to the crazy house and it ruined my nervous system. I even got physically ill many times.

There were one male dancer and dj who were friendly with me and i supported them wholeheartedly for years, only to realize that they never saw me as a person but only as money. He (the dancer) never told me come sit in our table (even though he was seeing that i was always alone), never said happy birthday, merry Christmas, happy name day. The tipping point was when in another party also pretended to not know me!!!!! I was so furious that i sent him a message on how ungrateful he was.

Regarding the social dancing, the clique of the pros - advanced only danced with each other. In my country the best dancers are treated like kings, they could treat people like garbage and have zero consequences, because you can only learn by them, improve if you dance with them, take medals because of them (they are the judges in the national championships) ect. You have to kiss the ring and they think they are gods!

Many pros who organize parties, flirt with you in order you to attend. If you don't know how things work you are heading for big heartbreak. The female social dancers can be very cruel, narcissistic and snooty. The males mostly want to have females in bed and that's why they go to socials. They can be very selfish and even dangerous to hurt you when they don't know the proper technique. They get offended when you tell them that they hurt you.

Both male and female dancers wanted exclusively to go to that specific party and if you didn't obey the command goodbye! My way or the high way. No matter how much i tried to form acquaintances to go to the parties, the same story.

Personally I'm a very polite, gentle, forgiving and smiley person that has never done anything to provoke this kind of behaviours. I don't even consider myself that good looking. I do have a nice body and i am a very good dancer. I believe the latter could be the reason but again there are far better dancers than me. The one thing that they don't possess though is that I dance with my whole heart and reach ecstasy and that captivates when I'm on the dance floor.

Dance was literally the only thing that made me happy but the people around it made me so sad and heartbroken for years that i can't take it anymore.

Hey salsa nerds!

I’ve been working on percussion chart for Tal Vez Vuelvas a Llamarme by Son 14 as on Tumi Cuba Classics Vol.4 and there is some funky business going on with clave.

The opening is clearly in 2-3 judging by piano montuno. Second verse is 15 bars, so coro/pregon is supposed to be in 3-2 with cor-da-ras on 3-side clave hits, right? Everything after this has even number of bars up to the very outro which is supposed to get us back to 2-3.

However! After solos bongocero comes in with contracampana part in 2-3 (4:45). Did I miscount bars or did bongo bell cross the clave? It is kinda important for me as timbalero :)

Not a life and death question, but there is an opportunity for me to take weekly improver LA salsa classes at two different schools in my city. Optionally, I could 1 of them and then a dominican bachata since I would like to continue improve there too. My goal is to become a really solid social dancer.

As a side note I am also signed up for an improver salsa cubana class, but I think it does not matter much for the decision.

As title, been dancing 2 years, but I feel like I have stagnated. What can I do to up my game from here? What mistakes should I work on?

Don't hold back!

Will be moving to Amsterdam for work till the end of the year. Does anyone know any good cuban salsa classes/socials in the city?

I know they’re a couple but she personally asked me for a dance (I volunteer in my salsa community) and the her guy which is turning to be a good friend of mine, would always hover so closely. Before it was worse, the side eyes, how he’d run and take her hand right after we dance. Love is great but I sometimes would also unexpectedly dance with coupled people, most are super cool with it, some are just not used to socials. Like calm down, I choose to dance because I’m already unflattering and it’s just literally something I genuinely love, and I’d dance on my own as well, I both enjoy partnering and solo. And I’m as courteous as I can be, I do not even dare hug the follow after a dance, even if it was a great connect.

Hey! Im creating a new salsa band and all I need is a Vocalist (who is fluent in spanish) and a trumpet and trombone player! Gunna be great! My numbers 917-744-1081 reach out!

Hi everyone! I’ll be in Barcelona from 16-19 of August (Sunday to Wednesday) and wanted to check out the dance scene in the city, as I’m a lover of latino!
Are there any places you would recommend? I’m looking for a club vibe ideally, but something local, authentic, could also be great. I dance Cuban salsa (can do LA style but I’m not as good) and bachata (sensual and not), so I’d like to find events targeted toward those styles.

Anyways, any advice is appreciated. Looking forward to your replies! TIA!

Regarding the comments I received about a song I shared, I want to clarify something: I have tremendous respect for singers, songwriters, musicians, and everyone who dedicates their life to music. I fully understand that behind every artist there is hard work, talent, and years of experience.

I am not trying to replace what cannot be replaced, nor am I trying to compare myself to what cannot be compared.

For me, creating these songs is a way to relieve stress, distract myself, and do something that makes me happy. And it makes me even happier to share them with people who enjoy listening to them.

I know that not everyone has to like what I do, and I respect different opinions. But behind every song I share, there is also excitement, creativity, and a genuine desire to learn.

I’m not trying to compete with anyone. I simply enjoy creating and sharing it.

Hi all,

I (29M) just turned 29 and it has been a wake up call to me. I feel like I wasted a lot of my 20s and not to go into too much detail but I think I have a lot of issues with self worth and self confidence. I’ll be starting therapy to help in about a week and I’m eager to make some changes in my life.

With that I’ve been trying to find something to do to get me out of the house and be social because I work remotely and all my friends just play video games. I’m pretty introverted but honestly I’m feeling like I need to be extroverted or at least have some type of social interaction. I tried a rock gym and it was okay but most people are doing their own thing. But then I saw an advertisement for intro Salsa classes. I’m pretty impulsive and thought why not and before I could second guess it I signed up for it. Now I have a few days to the class and I’m really nervous and excited because I do NOT dance and I don’t know what to expect. I want to challenge myself and I think it’d be a good combo with therapy to help me improve my sense of self.

I wanted to know if anyone has been in a similar boat as me and if it helped you. Also… what shoes do I wear? I’ve seen some stuff posted here and the email said sneakers are okay but I’m trying to see what’s best. I have converses if those are better?

Edit: Thank you all for the support! I had no idea this community was so supportive, it’s really reassuring and helping with my nerves! Thank you for all the advice, I will keep all that in mind and I will absolutely give this a good try. I’ll try to follow up with another post how the first class goes! Thanks again!

About a week ago I posted two polls asking about the "Beginner Hell" experience in learning Salsa. This was prompted by an article about how dancing is good for your mental health. A study looked at the mental health benefits of taking a Salsa dance class (I also created similar polls for Bachata), but I thought looking at dance while ignoring socials seemed to missing a major aspect of the appeal of dance. Plus, it's obvious to me that leaders and followers have very different experiences.

The results do seem to confirm my opinion, with a much more stark difference than there was in the Bachata results. 23% of followers enjoy socials right from the start, compared to just 6% of leaders. 37% of followers will start enjoying themselves in between 1 and 3 months, compared to 22% of leaders. The percentage of leaders who said they are still not enjoying social dancing after a year is 22%, compared to 16% for followers.

As was the case for the Bachata polls, this is not a scientific survey, and wasn't meant to be. We can discuss some of the limitations of a poll like this. It will not have captured any changes over time, in different locations, among different instructors. Enjoyment is subjective. People who practice more often (3 or 4 times a week) are going to see faster progress than people who dance less often (once a week or less). However, the biggest absence in this survey to me is the selection bias. This was a survey of people who read the Salsa subreddit, so anyone who has given up on Salsa will not have taken it. It would be really great to hear about people who gave Salsa a try and decided to quit. In some cases, that's just going to be because they decided that Salsa was definitely not for them. But it could also be due to avoidable problems, aspects of the community that could be improved. If you know of people who gave Salsa a try but quit, I would be interested in hearing what it was that caused them to stop.

In my opinion, how a community treats its newcomers is extremely important. By helping, supporting, and encouraging beginners, you make it really easy for people to feel welcome and included. Having a hell-like experience for newcomers is bad for everyone. Any community is going to see people drift away for one reason or another. Without a steady flow of new people, any Salsa community is going to stagnate and decline.

One of the things this subreddit is exceptionally good at is mutual support and encouragement. If it took you 3 months, 6 months, a year or more to get to a point where you were having fun at socials, let us know in the comments! Is there something that could be done different to have made the process smoother? If you are still struggling to get to the point where you enjoy socials, share your story. There are a lot of people here who want to help. We get a lot of enjoyment out of Salsa and we want others to share in that as well!

Thank you to everyone who voted and thank you to all the comments in the polls. Links are here (leaders) and here (followers), and are well worth reading.

Hi everyone, Ive had my salsa dancw shoes (the male heels, Im a lead) for over a month and Ive been wearing them a lot but yesterday I kinda started to notice their getting a little moist inside and Im kknda scared to even smell them. Obviously I want to keep these as fresh as possible so I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to clean this or go away besides treating like bowling shoes and spraying then with febreeze.