[lief79]

As a swing dancer / salsa dancer, the best approach I found is to stick with one dance, and practice it repeatedly ... say every weekend for a month. You need to get to the point where you're not focused on your footwork in order to be able to focus on the arms/leading.

Also, find a place where the partners swap / dance around, ideally during the lessons as well, you'll learn more and won't feel like you're boring everyone. You'll also recognize more people and possibly be more willing to ask people to dance.

I did much better when sticking to one style, getting it down, then starting the next. I found that mixing them just got them muddled.

I also found I greatly preferred swing, both the music (former sax/clarinet player) and the crowds. Swing dancers seemed more focused on having fun and generally less snobby.

As for leading, I improved greatly when I: 1: found a few partners who could back lead to show me what I was doing wrong. Its generally poor technique, but it greatly helps with getting the strong connection needed to telegraph the moves. 2: Understood the connections and flow enough to vary the patterns on my own.

It's a great way to make up for all the time stuck sitting a computer.

[greggman3]

Thanks for the advice. I did stick to one style while learning. You say a month every weekend but that's just 4 lessons. I had 16 salsa lessons over 4-5 weeks and made no progress. The swing lessons were later.

That doesn't mean I won't try again though