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If you are looking for somewhere to learn Salsa in Brentwood, you’ll be happy to know that there is an amazing place where you can take lessons with an expert teacher right on your doorstep.

Whether you are starting from scratch or picking up your beginner Salsa classes after a break, I’m sure you agree that the magical connection of partner dancing is the real goal.

But many new dancers are nervous about taking those crucial first steps, and a large percentage of those don’t make it beyond the first few weeks of lessons.

This usually happens because they suddenly realise how much there is to learn and get discouraged and overwhelmed. They don’t believe they have the time and energy it takes to get past the initial learning curve.

Some don’t even find the courage to start at all.

So if this is you – if you feel that starting Salsa is at all intimidating or scary,  this course will make it simple for you.

More Advanced Dancer But Feeling Stuck?

Do you feel that you aren’t learning anything new or valuable in your current club based classes?

Are you frustrated because the so-called intermediate or advanced class is full of people who do not have the skills to be there and can’t cope with the content?

Are you learning endless routines but nothing in your social dance experience seems to be improving?

When you have been doing the top level class in your local club for a while, you may not know that further improvement is possible beyond this.

And you may not have any idea how to go about it.

You KNOW you don’t look as good as the teachers, even if you can do the moves in class and make them work in freestyle.

You can’t put your finger on what it is that makes the difference.

It’s important to realise that levels are specific to the environment and an “advanced class” in one area or club is not necessarily the same standard as it is elsewhere.

If you really do want to get better at Salsa dancing, there are some universal problems which you’ll need to overcome:

 

Problems For Leads

Many guys struggle to remember moves and integrate them into their social dance repertoire.

They can’t make what they learn in class actually work on the dance floor.

One reason is because the music and counts in class are typically much slower than the music played by the DJs for social dancing so classes often give a false sense of accomplishment.

The other reason is that in class everyone knows what’s coming next – and this isn’t how it works on the dance floor.

Consequently the followers don’t always let the guys lead, and give them a hard time if they don’t do it perfectly first time.

Leads are often wrestling with combinations above their current level of technique and this results in rough, snatchy, panicky leading.

 

Problems For Followers

Ladies often find that as much of the teacher’s time is devoted to helping the leads, they don’t get enough help with their own footwork, technique and styling.

They can follow basic moves and combos reasonably well, and can add some simple styling, but don’t have the technique to follow more complex turn patterns.

And they sometimes get caught out if the lead gives them a new or creative twist on an old move, or goes “off-piste” in response to the music.

What they learn in class doesn’t seem to reflect or be relevant to what really happens in dance floor reality.

They end up learning organically on the dance floor, picking things up as they go, but then hit a wall as they realise they don’t have the structure or technique they need to improve further.

 

Are You Getting The Experience You Paid For?

Maybe you don’t get enough dances during the social to practice what you learn, and feel you get overlooked because of your age, size or lack of experience.

Maybe there are too many weeks where 22 women and 5 men turn up and you are waiting too long in between dances, both in lessons and social.

Or maybe the female demonstration partner isn’t actually a teacher, so you can’t assume that what she’s doing is actually correct.

Or even if she is, maybe she isn’t getting much opportunity to contribute and explain the ladies technique, footwork, body movement and styling.

All this can lead to boredom and frustration.

It creates an artificial “ceiling” on your true Salsa potential.

All because of one key fact – pre-choreographed routines do not teach the improvisation and musicality skills recreational social dancers need to get the most enjoyment from social dancing.

 

What The Teachers Don’t Tell You

If you watch the teachers and pros dance, you’ll realise that they link moves and create their own combinations in real time on the dance floor.

What they DON’T do is memorise a routine.

This doesn’t mean they don’t have structure – just that they know how all the main Salsa moves work together around the core framework of the Cross Body Lead.

They make up the dance as they go using these moves and variations of them.

They add their own style and personality into the mix.

This allows them to dance with more connection, musicality and freedom of expression.

If they mess up, they don’t beat themselves up. They just style it out and laugh it off.

 

Why Make Things More Difficult?

By forcing you to remember ever longer, chronological sequences in a precise order, the pressure on you to execute perfectly in a very limited time frame can create huge amounts of stress.

It can also disconnect you from your partner.

Leads aren’t really leading, and followers are anticipating or making assumptions about what’s going to happen next – which means they are not following in the true sense of the word.

And everyone wonders why it doesn’t work for real on the dance floor.

Why they stay stuck in the same level class for months or even years yet never feel like they are really improving.

Why they struggle in their social dances and nothing really flows.

We blame ourselves or our partner or feel bad that we can’t meet their expectations.

This is a shame, because for leads it’s actually MUCH EASIER and MUCH MORE FUN to dance spontaneously, creating variations around moves you already know, than remembering and perfecting a long sequence of new material in chronological order.

It also makes it much easier for you to feel that magical connection you crave.

With this approach you need a lot less moves as you learn to get more mileage from what you know and create new twists on old combos.

And followers will have even more enjoyable dances when they have good technique as this gives them freedom to style and play with the music – without disrupting connection and disrespecting the lead.

 

New Year, New App

One of my big missions over the last few years has been to create a resource for students which would give them everyting they needed to practice at home with ease:

• Video tutorials
• Full breakdown of moves/combos
• Follow along classes
• Easy access to suitable music
• Online support

I also wanted to make this a community where students could chat to each other, book classes, and generally hang out without using their data to feed big tech algorithms, bombarded with ads, spammed with irrelevant content or having their profile cloned or hacked.

Finally, after two years of planning, building and testing, the Salsa Intoxica app is now available to students.

It will be launched to the wider Salsa community later in the year.