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If you are new to dancing, you have come to the right place. The more you understand the faster you will progress.

Two Left Feet

If you have two left feet, have no rhythm, cannot hear the beat of the music, and feel clumsy, have no worries. At one time, everyone had to start where you are. For some, granted, that might have been when they were two years old, but most of us learned to dance as adults, where you are now, or worse.

At Any Age

People of all ages, from children to ages 90+ have been in my dance sessions. Whatever your age, you can learn to dance.

Dancing Is Good for You

Dancing is good for your heart, mind, and spirit. You have fun, meet people, get out of the house, enjoy music, get exposed to culture, and the benefits go on and on. You need to get exercise every day. You might as well learn a skill at the same time. Hang in there. You will learn to dance.

Keep Going

There is only one thing you need to do to learn to dance. Keep going.

People go to dance classes with the hope of learning to dance. Yet, so many people quit, many the first day. You wonder, what do people expect? Would they expect to learn to play tennis the first day? The piano? Learn to speak a foreign language in one hour?

If you are new to dancing, go to Contra, English Country, and Square Dancing. These dances do not require footwork. All you have to do is follow directions, like circle left, circle right, and go forward and back. You can learn these dances more easily, without having to practice regularly. Go to these dances to experience how much fun dancing is. When you are ready, you can tackle dances that require a greater commitment.

Other dances require specific footwork in time to music. That is hard. These include dances such as Argentine tango, ballroom, folk, line dancing, salsa, swing, waltz, and the like. To be comfortable doing these dances, you must train your body to move properly to music. If you have never danced before, you may need about 50 hours to go from novice to beginner. That is once a week for one hour for one year if you do not miss weeks. To go from beginner to intermediate, say about 100 more hours. My cousin, who could not dance at all, went from novice to intermediate in a few months by dancing four nights a week. I took two years to get comfortable going twice a week.

The point is you must invest time to learn to dance. Do not judge how you are doing. When you go to dance class, do not think you are supposed to be learning faster than you are. You are sabotaging yourself. Nobody learns as fast as they think they should. Everyone, even the advanced dancers, are frustrated by their own progress.

No Pain, No Gain

The old saying, no pain, no gain, is as true of dancing as everything else; you get out what you put in.

The emotional pain you feel when learning to dance is a good thing. When you are asked to do something you cannot do, you struggle. That means you are learning something new. You are making new connections in your brain. Your mind, body, and soul are getting stronger.

Even after having taught a variety of social dancing for years, I was taking forever to learn to dance Argentine tango in close embrace. So much so, that one day Gordan said to me, "What is taking you so long?" I cannot tell you how often I wanted to quit. My own tango teacher wanted to give up on me. People who had only been dancing a couple of years were advancing faster than I was. Well, they had an advantage. They did not have to unlearn bad habits, but that is another topic.

Every level has their challenges. As a novice, you just want to be able to dance, but advanced dancers are also frustrated, because they cannot do the things they want to do. I regularly watch videos of myself and wonder when am I ever going to improve on the things I am working on. Bit by bit I see incremental improvement, two steps forward and one step back. Why cannot I get better all at once? Change requires training which takes time.

I know how it feels to feel like you will never get it. When my progress runs into a brick wall, I feel like I want to give up. Having been through this discouraging situation enough, having forged ahead, and having seen so many others, I know you will eventually learn to dance just like everyone else does. The only factor is time. No matter how good or bad you think you are, the only thing that matters is time. Keep going. You will learn. Everyone who keeps going learns to dance, everyone.

I see you finally got your tango posture. ~ Gordan, Argentine tango dancer

Yes, even I finally got my tango posture. Gordan lives in another city. I had not seen him for about a year. One day he was at our monthly milonga. He noticed I finally looked like a tango dancer. I said, "Yeah, eventually it was bound to happen."

Focus on Process, Not Outcome

Maybe you went to a dance class. Maybe you bought this book because you saw other people having so much fun dancing, you thought you would like to have that fun too. You will. Let nature take its course. Just keep going. Do not judge yourself. Do not put expectations on how you should be progressing. Leave that to your teacher. You paid good money to go to a dance class. Make your progress your teacher's responsibility. You paid good money to buy this book. Let me worry about your progress. Enjoy the experience. Embrace the process. Focus on doing what your teachers ask you to do. You will learn to dance. Just keep going.

One more thing, do not quit, keep going.

Learn a Dance

You will still need to learn whatever particular style of dance you choose. You will need to find dance classes for your chosen style. In my experience, all dance teachers are good. You can learn different things from different people. Find teachers that you enjoy learning from.

Practice

One tip, relentlessly practice the basic footwork for whatever type of dance you choose. Most dances have a basic rhythm with corresponding footwork. There is a count to that footwork that matches the music. Learn the count. Listen to the music. Count to the music. Practice the footwork every chance you get, wherever you are, in your kitchen, at the grocery store, and when taking a walk around your neighborhood. If you are standing, practice moving your feet to the music. If you are sitting, count to the music. Practice your footwork in your head. This exercise trains your body to move to the music for that dance. This frees you from the major source of your frustration which is matching your footwork to the music.

Learn More than One Dance If You Want

People ask if they are better off concentrating on one dance or learning multiple dances. You are better off learning multiple dances because you can dance more often. The more you dance, the faster you learn.

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