What Private Salsa Coaching With Me Is Really Like

What Sort of Person Gets Private Salsa Coaching?

 

The type of people who come to me for Salsa coaching are men and women who are in love with the idea of being able to dance Salsa freely and spontaneously

The thing that stops them is their inner struggle with confidence, body image and perfectionist tendencies.

They would love to be the cool guy or girl on the dance floor but don’t feel good enough to be centre of attention.

They are deep thinkers and open minded and they often have a sensitive or spiritual side.

But they also operate in the “real world” and like concrete facts and like to know the “why” and the “how” as well as the “what”.

They like to know they are doing things properly and aren’t happy just “muddling through” or “getting their feet round anyhow”

People who have been used to working with coaches or mentors in other fields – maybe sport or business – often love my approach because they understand how the process of learning a skill can be accelerated when you have a systematic approach, a repeatable “recipe” for success and someone who has been in the trenches, understands what you are facing, and can give you the right words at the right time.

 

The reasons people look for private Salsa coaching are varied but the common ones are:

People often feel intimidated by the big mainstream Salsa clubs and don’t feel comfortable in that environment.

They want to progress faster and get impatient if they are being held back.

They want a higher level of technical detail than is typically offered in group Salsa classes.

They want to be the best they possibly can.

Many of my private students are men who have high level professional or management positions in the public and private sector.

They work in a wide variety of industries: Finance, Travel, Healthcare, Academia.

They are CEOs, business owners, directors and tradespeople.

Typically they don’t find it easy to “let go” or “feel” the music.

This is because in the corporate and academic worlds, a left brain logical approach is instilled in people. This means that the creative and emotional centres of the right brain are often untapped and undeveloped.

When they first start Salsa they often feel like an alien, and the learning curve can feel stressful, but they love music and want to fulfil the internal drive they have to dance.

I help them to learn Salsa by giving them a progressive and logical pathway that teaches them how to do those things in a way they can relate to, helping their brain to understand what’s required and then get out of the way so their body can connect with the music on a deeper level.

They love my Salsa-Logica system because it is underpinned by neuroscience.

In layman’s language this means that the way I teach Salsa follows proven scientific principles which govern how the brain and body learn complex movement.

 

People often assume that just doing more social dancing or more classes will make them good. In my experience this just isn’t true.

They sometimes think because I’m female I’m not equipped to teach guys more than the basics, and they’ll end up looking too feminine if they are taught by a woman. The thing is many guys don’t understand what a woman actually wants to experience on the dance floor.

They become “Moves Monsters” constantly seeking the coolest and most complicated new combos they can find, and pushing and pulling their partners into submission and dropping them into back-breaking dips without realising that for her it’s not a comfortable or pleasant experience.

They assume a level of familiarity that hasn’t yet been earned, or a level of skill which she doesn’t yet have.

This is why learning with me gives them a huge advantage.

They get to learn how to lead in a way that guarantees women will enjoy dancing with them!

 

Good Dancers Don’t Automatically Make Good Teachers

One of the biggest misconceptions is that just because you can do it, you can teach it.

Teaching is a vocation in itself, and a large part of teaching skill is organising complex information and communicating it in a manner, and at a pace which is optimised for the student.

 

I Believe Anyone Can Dance IF They Really Want To.

People have everything they need to be able to dance easily and naturally, but the traditional model of Salsa teaching in mainstream clubs and big group classes is fatally flawed and not fit for purpose.

I believe it doesn’t give new dancers the tools or the skills to actually use the content they learn on the dance floor to any real effect.

The human brain learns and organises information in a very specific way so having random isolated pre-choreographed content thrown at it every week just doesn’t work (which is what happens in most classes)

In fact I believe it makes learning Salsa much slower and much more stressful than it needs to be and actually prevents the majority of guys from ever being able to improvise freely and fully connect with their partner.

I believe if people understood how their bodies and brains worked a bit better and worked with the principles of anatomy, physiology and physics, they would reach a level of dance that would make them happier and more fulfilled as people.

I believe you should always work from the music and develop individual movement skill as a thing in its own right as well as working with a partner.

My methodology simplifies everything as I believe the mechanics of Salsa can be boiled down to five principles of technique and 7 base moves

 

A real sense of achievement

I like students to feel accomplished after every studio session – that they can do something they couldn’t do before, and that they’ve connected what they learned in that lesson to what they already know, so they can actually recall it and use it on the dance floor.

I always relate what they are learning to stuff we have already done so they can see how that piece of the puzzle fits with everything else. They get tons of freestyle practice integrated into each session so every new move or technique is embedded into muscle memory and banked for future use.

My process  equips guys to improvise their dance in real time as the music plays. Although this is a steep learning curve, they are never left floundering with moves they can’t remember or that are too far beyond their current skill level.

This means they always feel like they are really leading and taking control of the dance, and that gives them the kudos and cool factor they are looking for.

 

I get their heads in the right place…

Many people experience high levels of stress and frustration in mainstream Salsa classes – this is especially true for guys – so my main aim is to make every studio session stress free and low pressure with a clear plan for each session and methods of evaluating progress.

Most of my Salsa coaching is done in the physical realm, however there are many mindset issues which come up during a person’s dance journey – progress can be massively accelerated by identifying what’s happening internally – and coming up with alternative ways of viewing the problem that help them to move forward.

This is one of the most important differences between me and the typical club based Salsa instructors whose sole focus is on teaching moves.

People often feel that because dance is essentially a leisure pastime it’s fun and frivolous and therefore not a high priority.

But learning to express yourself through dance is an act of self-definition and can be hugely transformational. So people need to know that it’s ok to want the things they want – one of the things I do is support them in those choices especially when they may get resistance from friends and family.

 

I make Salsa simpler without diluting the core essence

My system presents what is a very complex and technically difficult dance in a way that’s really simple – its base structure which consists of a very small number of moves and 3 frameworks.

This gives people huge relief because in this context Salsa dancing appears achievable in a way it hadn’t before – they get the “need to know” without all the fluff which can be layered in once they have the basic structure and moves down.

People get easily overwhelmed if teachers throw too much stuff at them so I give clear instructions on just two or three things I want them to practice at home, and one thing to focus on when they next go social dancing.

My creative tools teach guys to expand their repertoire of moves and develop their musicality in a way that’s fun and unique to them – the Moves Multiplier Matrix and the Musicality Matrix are a series of practical exercises that allows then to get into the “zone” in a way you can’t access by merely copying a routine.

 

What beginner students can expect when they get coached by me…

Beginners will be doing the Salsa basic step to music within 5 minutes of the start of first class – with zero technical instruction, just allowing the brain and body to do what they do naturally – if we get out of our own way for long enough.

In 12 weeks they will be dancing a simple, freestyle Salsa dance with the material they’ve learned without panic moments, meltdowns or memory blanks.

In 6-12 months they will be dancing freely and fluently, feeling confident, feeling the music and not having to think about what they are doing on the dance floor.

All my male students end up being known by the ladies as “good leads” – this is the holy grail for a male Salsa dancer as then you will never be left standing on the sidelines!