Confidence Missing?

[Mr_Gene]

To Anyone That Can Assist:

I recently returned to my level 2 class after completing my level 1 course in late June. To be fair, I missed the start of L2 because I was on vacation at the time and the G20 summit caused the next class to be cancelled.

For some reason when I entered the class last Friday I couldn't repeat any of the moves I was shown. I'm supposed to go left? I went right. To go right, I went left! This in turn caused much of my confidence to disappear when it came to performing any sort of combination.

Now I did go to the outing at Acrobat but again the same thing happened. I just couldn't pull myself to ask anyone to dance because I was afraid that I would mess up anything I attempted.

Is there any advice folks can recommend to help me with this? I've looked into signing up for Private Lessons but feel like I shouldn't wait longer than 2 weeks before I can get into a private lesson. And my schedule is constantly changing which makes it even more difficult to get in practice. I do want to improve but I'm not sure where I can begin.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gene

[Sharon]

Hi Gene!

How about picking up the DVD at any class that is on today or tomorrow and practicing at home. It will make you feel so much more confident.

It does take a couple of weeks to get back into the groove of things so take your time and don't be hard on yourself. Within a few weeks you will be glad to be back o the dance floor.

Hope that helps!
_________________
Sharon
Toronto Dance Salsa
http://www.torontodancesalsa.ca
Toronto Salsa Lessons / Toronto Salsa Classes

[roadee]

Hello Gene.

What you are experiencing is very common. The same thing happened to me when I first started learning how to dance. I would find that after a week I would forget a lot of the stuff that I had learned which was very frustrating at times.

However, be fair to yourself. You mentioned that you missed the start of Level 2 and often the classes build on stuff that was learned in previous classes. Anyone would feel overwhelmed.

There are two things that I would suggest.

The first would be to try not to miss any classes as it can be very stressful and overwhelming to try to catch up during class (or course sometimes this can't be helped). Schedule/take a make up class (you can do this via the website) so you aren't feeling overwhelmed when you make it back to class.

Also, take the time to practice the moves outside of class. I notice that if I spent the time to practice the moves a few times right after class to help solidify what I learned and then practiced it during the week that it made a HUGE difference! I don't know what days you have your class on, but if it's on Sundays then it would be a great opportunity to practice and reinforce the new steps after your class at the Sunday social.

In other classes that I took, a group of us would go to a salsa club right after class to practice the new moves we learned and that really helped us remember it for next week. Even going home and practicing it several times on your own within the first 24 hours would be helpful.

Hope that helps! Don't get discouraged and keep dancin'.