u/queer_bachata_mcr

About a week ago I posted two polls asking about the "Beginner Hell" experience in learning Salsa. This was prompted by an article about how dancing is good for your mental health. A study looked at the mental health benefits of taking a Salsa dance class (I also created similar polls for Bachata), but I thought looking at dance while ignoring socials seemed to missing a major aspect of the appeal of dance. Plus, it's obvious to me that leaders and followers have very different experiences.

The results do seem to confirm my opinion, with a much more stark difference than there was in the Bachata results. 23% of followers enjoy socials right from the start, compared to just 6% of leaders. 37% of followers will start enjoying themselves in between 1 and 3 months, compared to 22% of leaders. The percentage of leaders who said they are still not enjoying social dancing after a year is 22%, compared to 16% for followers.

As was the case for the Bachata polls, this is not a scientific survey, and wasn't meant to be. We can discuss some of the limitations of a poll like this. It will not have captured any changes over time, in different locations, among different instructors. Enjoyment is subjective. People who practice more often (3 or 4 times a week) are going to see faster progress than people who dance less often (once a week or less). However, the biggest absence in this survey to me is the selection bias. This was a survey of people who read the Salsa subreddit, so anyone who has given up on Salsa will not have taken it. It would be really great to hear about people who gave Salsa a try and decided to quit. In some cases, that's just going to be because they decided that Salsa was definitely not for them. But it could also be due to avoidable problems, aspects of the community that could be improved. If you know of people who gave Salsa a try but quit, I would be interested in hearing what it was that caused them to stop.

In my opinion, how a community treats its newcomers is extremely important. By helping, supporting, and encouraging beginners, you make it really easy for people to feel welcome and included. Having a hell-like experience for newcomers is bad for everyone. Any community is going to see people drift away for one reason or another. Without a steady flow of new people, any Salsa community is going to stagnate and decline.

One of the things this subreddit is exceptionally good at is mutual support and encouragement. If it took you 3 months, 6 months, a year or more to get to a point where you were having fun at socials, let us know in the comments! Is there something that could be done different to have made the process smoother? If you are still struggling to get to the point where you enjoy socials, share your story. There are a lot of people here who want to help. We get a lot of enjoyment out of Salsa and we want others to share in that as well!

Thank you to everyone who voted and thank you to all the comments in the polls. Links are here (leaders) and here (followers), and are well worth reading.

About a week ago I posted two polls asking about the "Beginner Hell" experience in learning Bachata. This was prompted by an article about how dancing is good for your mental health. A study looked at the mental health benefits of taking a dance class (Salsa rather than Bachata!), but I thought looking at dance while ignoring socials seemed to missing a major aspect of the appeal of dance. Plus, it's obvious to me that leaders and followers have very different experiences.

The results do seem to confirm that. 28% of followers enjoy social dancing from the start compared to just 11% of leaders. I was surprised that the "Still not there yet" figures were so close and so high! More than 1 in 5 dancers are not having an enjoyable time at socials despite putting more than a year's effort in, regardless of role!

This is not a scientific survey, and wasn't meant to be. We can discuss some of the limitations of a poll like this. It will not have captured any changes over time, in different locations, among different instructors. Enjoyment is subjective. People who practice more often (3 or 4 times a week) are going to see faster progress than people who dance less often (once a week or less). However, the biggest absence in this survey to me is the selection bias. This was a survey of people who read the Bachata subreddit, so anyone who has given up on Bachata will not have taken it. It would be really great to hear from people who gave Bachata a try and decided to quit. In some cases, that's just going to be because they decided that Bachata was definitely not for them. But it could also be due to avoidable problems, aspects of the community that could be improved. If you know of people who gave Bachata a try but quit, I would be interested in hearing what it was that caused them to stop.

In my opinion, how a community treats its newcomers is extremely important. By helping, supporting, and encouraging beginners, you make it really easy for people to feel welcome and included. Having a hell-like experience for newcomers is bad for everyone. Any community is going to see people drift away for one reason or another. Without a steady flow of new people, any Bachata community is going to stagnate and decline.

One of the things this subreddit is exceptionally good at is mutual support and encouragement. If it took you 3 months, 6 months, a year or more to get to a point where you were having fun at socials, let us know in the comments! Is there something that could be done different to have made the process smoother? If you are still struggling to get to the point where you enjoy socials, share your story. There are a lot of people here who want to help. We get a lot of enjoyment out of Bachata and we want others to share in that as well!

Edit: Links to original polls: leaders and followers