For beginners only (others welcomed too)

A

Alice.W

Member
I am a beginner ballroom dancer (2+ months), some of you may remember me from my recent "frustrations" post. Anyways... I thought, maybe beginner dancers can post under this thread about their frustrations and struggles as beginners... Maybe more experienced dancers can also check in give us advice.

What to you find most frustarting thing as a beginner dancer?

BTW, on average, after how many months (years?) of practice someone could no longer be called a beginner?
 
Floorcraft was one of the frustrating things for me. I was so focused on other things, floorcraft was really difficult. FADS started us with rumba and what they called push-pull ( open version of single time swing ). That approached minimized frustration, because both were easy to make progress in and gain confidence. Other than the floorcraft frustration, our beginning was pretty upbeat, with our confidence and desire to dance growing steadily.

For us, key point in each dance was when we felt we were really doing swing, chacha, waltz etc.. Even though we were still in beginner level, we felt like we were dancing the particular dance and we started to enjoy that dance. Time to reach that point, varied with each dance.
 
It usually takes about 50 hours, in my opinion, for the average dancer to get over the beginner hump :) Things start falling into place a little better and there's more of an understanding of what you're really trying to do. On the other hand, I've been dancing over 25 years, and sometimes still feel like a beginner when I'm watching the world's best.
 
Most frustrating thing for me was to build a large enough knowledge-base to keep the dance going. I felt really bad for the followers who had to endure my routine of: basic - basic - pattern 1 - basic - basic - basic - pattern 2... It didn't help that I had bad leading and timing issues.

It took me about one year before I was able to feel comfortable on the social floor and to be able to dance with the advanced social followers.
 
I think it would have helped me when I was a beginner to know that frustration is just part of the process and in fact probably a good part of it...in that, if you aren't constantly being introduced to something that you don't own and can't do...you probably aren't getting the most for your money unless your goal is primarily fun...and this is about when it occurred to me that "frustration is just progress in incubation"
 
love your sig btw....yours and dancer on ice's...(which I would adopt if she hadn't created it)...okay BOT unhighjack
 
<hijack>
fascination said:
love your sig btw....yours and dancer on ice's...(which I would adopt if she hadn't created it)...okay BOT unhighjack
Click to expand...

Thank you!</hijack>


When I started, I probably could have cared more abaout technique, but I really just wanted to learn steps at first. Thus, technique classes frequently felt like a bore. Don't underestimate those classes! Had I taken them more seriously, my alemanas might not be so shaky now . . .
 
It seemed to me that it took me longer than anybody else in a class to learn a step. When my teacher would choreograph a few steps together, demo it and then ask us to dance it, my usual reaction was "What the #@&% ???" It was worse when I'd be paired with a more advanced follow and she'd breeze through something.

If not for some very positive reinforcement from my instructors and some other dancers, I probably would have chucked the whole thing.

I'm at a point now where I'm challenging myself to do things correctly instead of worrying about what anybody else thinks.
 
We've been dancing a year now (we're social dancers) and still feel like beginners. We can actually dance now and I totally love it, but now that we know a bit about dancing we realize there's so much more we don't know. I wish we had realized at the beginning that there's a different learning curve for the lead and follow - was frustrating for us both but especially for DH. We kept going tho, and he's becoming a good lead and fun to dance with.
 
I've been dancing a year and a half now and sometimes I still feel like a beginner in many things. The hardest thing for me to break through and I'm still working on it is floorcraft and dynamic. As a girl, I think it's much easier to break out of the beginner mold because as long as the girl has a good lead to follow she learns and progresses quickly. The guys have it much harder because they have so many things to worry about in addition to dancing well.
 
As a couple we have been dancing for 2 1/2 years at a social level, I don't know if it will ever go beyond that, time is a huge issue, but the competitive side of us wants, that each time we go on the dance floor we look and do our very best. I found that once you learnt the language of dance, it makes dancing much easier ie. Alamana, basic, fall away, chasse, cucarachas etc. as then if you don’t know the dance if someone calls the movement you can at least progress through the dance, especially if you partner is not that good in leading an art in itself.

It takes time and if you do anything regularly and with passion it can only get better. Keep on Dancing!
 
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