[genjuro]

(12-21-2012 08:02 AM)east and west Wrote:  

How many months it takes to learn salsa well?

This is really hard to say. It largely depends on the individual : how well he feels the rhythm and music, how comfortable he moves his body. Also it depends on the instructor a lot : many instructors would only teach you this combo, that combo, but not so much on how to execute the basic steps right and make it look nice and natural along with the music. In another word they teach you dancing mechanically, but not naturally.
If you got a good feel of the music and the instructor is good, and you take class and practice every week, I'd say 3 months you can be become decent.

The first thing is to find what is the most popular style in your city. There are many styles : NY style which is dance on 2 ( contra-tempo), as for on 1, LA style which is mostly for flashy performance and took a lot of elements from West Coast Swing and ballroom dancing, not my cup of tea for sure. Cuban Style can be danced on 1, actually most Cuban dancers I know dance on 1, also Puerto Rican style, Colombia style, mostly on one.
In different cities or even in different venues of the same city the popular styles can be different. E.g., pretty much nobody would dance LA style in Colombia or in Cuba, but in North America it's very popular. Before you go to a venue to dance make sure you know what style people dance there. Here in Toronto Cuban dancers rarely mix with LA style dancers and vice-versa. I myself don't mind either although I strongly perfer Cuban style and Afro-cuban Rumba simply because it's more fun and more playful.

My suggestion : find a good school or instructors, I personally prefer Latino instructors simply because they're more fun and it's much more enjoyable to learn dancing with them because they're more natural unlike many trained dancers. My current teachers are Cubano and a girl from Angola. They're infinitely better than those boring-ass Canadian instructors. Fuck, some of them are so dull to watch : I saw instructors move like a fucking truck, no body movement what-soever and they even teach?

Besides Salsa, other popular dancing you can learn : Bachata, Kizomba ( popular in Europe, not so much yet in Toronto. I'm gonna learn it after I move to Europe), Zouk ( it started getting popular in Toronto), reggaeton ( mostly solo dancing , body movement etc)

Dancing is fun regardless of the bonus of meeting women. I started it only because a female friend asked me to be her partner but now I truly enjoy it. It makes me happy to move with the music and I don't need a partner to enjoy it. The thing is that once you become good at it, you attract women easily. ( of course dress nice and having a fun personality won't hurt either). Nine out of 10 times when I go clubbing (not Salsa), I stand out from the crowds because average guys can't dance to save their lives. And women see it. Many times girls would come up to me, dancing with/grinding me without me approaching them.