I decided to start dancing Int. Latin about 8 months ago. I bought all the manuals and dvds and studied them in detail. Talked my smooth teacher into dancing Latin with me since there were no Int. Latin teachers in the area. I did about 20 lessons with her studying dvds and her trying to remember some of her past training. I had slowly worked through the details of all the syllabus patterns through gold--just to be familiar with the all the dances and figures. We did Jive, Rumba, Samba, and Cha Cha. Even took some more lessons from a new guy in town that has had some training.

My amateur partner and I just got back from a 9 hour round trip drive from a city nearby to take 3 Latin lessons from a high level Latin pro for a check up on how we were doing. My parnter danced Int. Latin about 20 years ago, but has forgotten most and the style has changed.

First, the new teacher demonstrated some basic Rumba movements which didn't look anything like what we had been doing. She did the same in Cha and Samba. Her basic movement looked beautiful and we demonstrated the way we danced. She stopped us quickly and spent all of our first hour on basic movements.

I was beginning to get depressed and overwhelmed thinking about how much time and money I a had spent and was doing most everything wrong. And how much of an effort it was going to be to learn Int. Latin with a long distance teacher. I could do most of the new things that she was showing us, but it would take quite awhile for me to put it into my dancing. We ended the lessons with her giving us some practice drills to do--no patterns or figures.

Oh well--back to the drawing board. I am now thinking what am I even trying to do Latin for? Maybe I should just stick with Smooth where I have a good teacher and partner. I have noticed now that there are lots of teachers and students doing Latin incorrectly.
Plus, a dvd and manual is somewhat worthless without a good teacher guiding you.

I figured that it will take me about 1 year of just doing the drills and basics for the dances to look anywhere near the correct form. That is with me making this 9 hour trip about every 1 1/2 months and then drilling myself correctly with the basic movement.
My amateur partner is the only person that I will be able to dance with--we had planned to compete in June--Ha!

Anonymous. I doubt if a person could ever learn Latin by DVD's or tapes alone.You must find a teacher who knows what they are talking about. Do they make you do Rumba Walks and Samba and Cha Cha around the hall with they leading.If not I would be very suspicious that they have been trained correctly themselves. I would be able to tell in an instant myself but that is only after seven years of being trained by a former top Latin Professional. It doesn't matter which country you go to Rumba Walks, hours of Rumba Walks, is the order of the day by all leading teachers. You seem very keen. Good Luck

After thinking about my latin lessons more and trying to practice what I was shown by the world class Latin Pro--I was starting to look on the bright side of things. I concluded 1. at least I have a great teacher now that we both respect 2. We are very familiar with the music and keep good timing 3. I do have some knowledge of what each syllabus looks like 4. And I do have a good collection of dvds and manuals to supplement our dances--she told us to review the toe heel movements in the manuals.

Now we need to reinvent the basic movement in each dance. Our teacher tells us that the figures are easy if you ever get your basic technique and movement down correctly. My partner made extensive notes after the lessons and we are going to drill together--I will do some taping on our next lesson.

She told us in order to lead Latin properly one needs to do the basic movements together or forget it..
She didn't want the guy leading much with his hands and arms--but with his body movement. Definitely no pushing or pullling. We did several Hocky Stick's and Alemana's with me doing this concept and it felt totally different. She wanted the man to let the lady dance her steps without much interference.

We did lots of basics, rumba walks, basic samba, volta's, bota fogo's,
foot placement, and specific movement for each dance.

Bottom line--find a good teacher. It makes it a lot easier and you will progress faster without having to erase bad mistakes. A good teacher in anything is worth their weight in gold.

Lots of dance teachers don't have much qualifications and are ok for maybe beginners or social dancing. But competition dancing is different. Our new found Latin teacher placed 15th at Blackpool with her partner 3 years ago.
She is Russian and has been dancing primarily Latin since she was 12. Plus, she has some great amateur students competing and winning.