Sweetlead Salsa© and Kizomba
at North London Salsa Club, Finchley
Blog Post
Six reasons why dancing with beginners is actually good for you!
- By Heidi Ford
- •
- 27 Oct, 2017
I will start with a confession! There have been times in my less enlightened past where I have referred to a dance with a beginner as a ‘charity dance’. It took me a long time to realise that, far from it being a one way street, where all the benefits are greedily hoarded by the beginner, it is in fact a true transaction with value given and received on both sides.
I think the benefits to the beginner are what we most often think of:
- They get to be led or followed by someone who knows what they are doing – we hope ;-)
- They collect vital dancefloor experience – floor time is just gold dust when you are first starting your dancing journey.
- They get to feel included and part of the salsa community.
- They get a confidence boost as when they are in the hands of a competent leader or follower they realise they are capable of far more than they imagined!
However, the purpose of this blog is to demonstrate that there are also huge benefits available for the more experienced dancer too… if they are open to receiving them!
1. You get to practise adjusting your lead/ follow
One of the rarely mentioned, and often underrated, skills of a truly advanced dancer is the ability to adapt
to the level of the person you are dancing with so that the experience is enjoyable for both parties.
For example, the beginner’s lead may be a little hesitant or late which means as the more experienced follower you will have to react quickly (not anticipate) in order to help them execute their intended manoeuvre. Building your speed of reaction time is a skill that is worth developing as it is transferable to other situations with more advanced dancers.
As a leader, the best skill you can develop is establishing the level of your partner and dancing at the top end of her comfort zone. This is the sweet spot where you challenge her enough to make the dance interesting for you both
but you stay within her capabilities and are thus perceived as ‘easy to follow’.
2. You get to revisit the basics
I took my first teacher very seriously when she used to say ‘ you can never practice the basics too much’. Maybe I took it way too seriously because I stayed in beginners for months until I was forcibly ejected! However, I still maintain to this day that it is that unshakeable foundation
that has mostly contributed to the dancer I am today.
Unfortunately it takes many so called ‘advanced’ dancers a long time to realise that they are struggling with the more difficult stuff, not because it is more difficult, but because they never truly mastered
the simple stuff!
So a dance with a beginner presents the ‘advanced’ dancer with an amazing opportunity. You have the chance to strip away all the frills and go back to basics. That means leading and following simple steps with perfection. That also means paying attention to what you are doing and noticing where you could do it better because there is always room for improvement! Often we are better at noticing what others are doing wrong but the self aware dancer can question and check themselves – am I making that mistake too?
3. You get to work with a blank canvas
Beginners are fresh, new, and full of enthusiasm. For any advanced dancer who sometimes loses their salsa ‘mojo’ an open minded dance with a beginner can be just the tonic you need. That wide eyed delight as they lead something that actually works or as they follow something that they have never been led into before can be charming and heart warming.
Beginners are uncontaminated by salsa politics – which style is best, which school or teacher is best, which songs are not ‘cool’ to dance to etc. etc.
They can remind us of our prejudices and judgments and give us the opportunity to cast them off and be free again.
4. You get the opportunity to be nice
As fresh and enthusiastic as a beginner is, they are also full of fear and anxiety. We can all cast our minds back to the time that social dancing was a scary business, even though we know now that we can’t get enough of it!!!
Our attitude
towards beginners can literally be the difference between someone fallng in love with salsa and finding a lifelong hobby, or, them giving up and never venturing onto a dance floor again. I know which behaviour I would rather be responsible for influencing!
Science proves that acts of kindness and giving to others actually makes us happier. So even if you don’t do it for their benefit – do it for yours!!!
5. "Today's beginner could be tomorrow's favourite dancer"
When I heard Jeff Tarpinian
of Incognito Dance say this phrase once it stuck with me - "today's beginner could be tomorrow's favourite dancer". It really stuck with me!
Just remember that amongst those lovely beginners who might, right now, be awkward, unsure and stumbling, are some of the brightest dance gems
of the future. You could be rejecting a beginner now and in a couple of years time find that they become one of those dancers that always has a queue of people wanting to dance with them. If you were less than gracious with them when they were a beginner – guess where you will be in the queue!!.
Everybody has vivid early dance memories of the people who helped them and shaped their dance journeys and equally vivid ones of the people who ignored them or made them feel guilty when their only crime was to be a beginner.
That’s why I now consider dancing with beginners as a very wise investment for the future!
6. You get to be a dance god
Beginners tend to have a very binary view of the world. There are fellow beginners like them and then there is everyone else. In their minds ‘everyone else’ is a great dancer! If something goes wrong whilst you are dancing with a beginner they will automatically assume it was their fault. They are too busy concentrating on trying not to be rubbish that they don’t notice that you occasionally fall off the beat, or that you are still perfecting your spinning technique, or that your copas are a bit dodgy!. At the end of the dance they will offer you their unbridled, grateful thanks and their admiration and respect.
That’s got to feel better than the dance you just had with a so called advanced dancer that could not be bothered to raise a smile and looked bored the whole time!
In conclusion...
I’m not suggesting we all suddenly become the mother Theresa of salsa and selflessly give ourselves to beginners for the entire night. But just imagine this… If every intermediate/ advanced dancer in the room danced just one dance with a beginner every night… what an amazing environment that would be!
We do our very best to create that kind of environment at Sweetlead Salsa at the North London Salsa Club.