Emely and Michel taught the absolute beginners lesson. Rob and Velina taught the level 1 class and Evan and I taught the intermediate class. As usual everyone rose to the occasion regardless of the difficulty of the turn pattern.

The highlight of the evening was the Helper Performance Group’s choreographed routine. Caryl held a class in the fall for helpers only which focused on learning an intricate choreographed routine with the end goal of performing the routine. 5 couples debuted the performance in the iFreestyle Holiday Party on Dec 9th with great success. The other couples (6 in total) performed at Plaza at 11pm during the outing and it was a great performance. The choreography was excellent (gooooo Caryl!) and you can see the work put in by the performers. Here is a list of the couples that performed on both evenings:

iFreestyle Holiday Party
Nina and Tyrone
Velina and Alfred
Anna-Marie and John
Ildi and Manuel
Stella and Barry

Plaza Flamingo Holiday Party
Carolina and Mark
Kelly and Khemara
Stella and George
Pansy and Alex
Karina and Barry
David and Katie

We were very lucky to have plenty of photographers in the house. Shawn Jamali is a professional photographer and was interested in capturing dancers in motion. Avijit Bandyopadhyay who is a former TDS student, also wanted to capture the event. Caryl video-taped the performance and took plenty of photos. As soon as we get them all we will post them for you all to view.

Evan and I wanted to thank Caryl and everyone who participated in our Wedding Dance. Evan and I were married in St. Thomas 3 weeks ago and Caryl surprised us with a wedding dance after the performance…very similar to a birthday dance except both of us got a chance to dance with other partners. It was a lot of fun so thank you again for thinking of us and participating!

All the couples will be performing again at our first Montana’s outing at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb. We will announce the date soon!

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As you can see this is a generalization but after years of instructing thousands of students I can attest for the accuracy of the information. Take a look at the males’ line. Men tend to learn slowly but consistently. There is a little bit of improvement over a longer period of time and it is only after much time and practice that this curve starts to shoot up and can eventually overtake the average female’s learning curve. If you look at the females’ line, it is very diagonal and steady in it’s rise from the beginner to intermediate level and then can plateau.

So when women approach me and tell me that they are frustrated by the men in their level, this is why it is so. Women learn faster initially. However, many women get an over-inflated sense of confidence and stop attending classes, choosing instead to just dance in the clubs. However, once they reach an intermediate level they get stuck in a rut and feel frustrated by the decrease in progress in comparison to the first months of learning. I know I went through this process and it takes a lot of hard work to get off of the plateau. As suggested in the graph, ladies styling, performance groups and competitions help elevate the dancing at this point.

So if you are a female, please understand that men initially have a tougher learning curve to deal with but with patience and support they will be eventually get to your level…be patient! And men, if you are frustrated by your progress remember that it will come if you keep at it and eventually it will be fun, easy and free.

Let me know what you think of the chart – would love to hear some feedback!

The post The Learning Curve Chart appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.