No sooner had I stepped foot into the dance club when a smiling young man asked me to dance.
"Sure." I replied. He guided me by my hand to an uncrowded corner, embraced me in dance position and we began dancing. Less than a minute into the song, it happened...
He fell off time.
I scanned his face to see if he was aware of it. Unfazed and smiling, he continued dancing completely unaware that he was no longer dancing to the beats of music.
In the grand scheme of life, this isn't a big deal. But on the Salsa dance floor, it is.
Timing is EVERYTHING!
If you don't know what beats you're dancing to, how can you expect your partner to follow you? Dancing with you becomes a frustrating experience because your partner can't coordinate her steps with yours. All she can do is guess which beat you plan to take your next step on. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the dance, she has to be constantly alert to avoid a bruised toe or losing balance from a spin that is lead on the wrong count.
What a bummer! The dance quickly goes from fun to frustrating.
If you struggle with dancing on time, don't despair. There are ways to practice hearing the beats of the music so that you can dance to those beats. This course teaches just that:
Dance With Feeling: Stop Counting And Start Dancing
From my observations, some dancers are completely unaware of the relevance and importance of timing, or that it even exists. This is ignorance. Other dancers are aware that timing exists. They may simply struggle to dance consistently on the correct beats of music. I can tolerate these dancers much more than ignorant dancers because they at least make an attempt to stay on time and correct themselves when they realize they've fallen off time.
Ignorant dancers simply don't realize the frustration, and even danger, they cause their partner. If you're going to learn to Salsa dance, the least you can do is learn the rules of the game. You do have another person to take into account when it comes to partner dancing.
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