Thanks a TON Dana & Sue. I truly appreciate your advice. I will try the things that you both have suggested. Does anyone have any hints on how to remember the basic steps, besides actually doing it. There are a few dances that I do know the baisc steps to, but the other dances I do not. Like the cha-cha...UGH. I have some down time @ work & I would try to work it out in my head @ my desk.

How long does it take for a newbie to look relatively smooth?

The only method I have found to work, is physical repetition of the steps, technique or manuever, shortly after the lesson. We took lessons for over 5 years and would always practise what they showed us, within 1 or 2 days. If I was having trouble with a new step, like swing chasse, I would work on it for a few minutes every day until I got it down.

Now we use videos. I review that video and than we work on the new manuever or addition/change to an existing manuever. Since I dance with my wife and we learned together. We can do new steps at dances and can do all the manuevers we have learned a few times, each week when we go out dancing.

Keep working on basic steps until you can do them without thinking. I've been dancing for 4 years now and I remember feeling the exact same way. In fact, I still draw blanks. I can hear my instructor in my head saying "but you know this!". You've only had 12 lessons and you can't expect to retain everything you've been shown. Go to the parties, practice and have fun. It will all come together!

Dear Newbie and frustrated, I was exactly in your shoes one year ago. Practice,practice ,practice what you remember from class or your lesson. I learn a lot from the videos on ballroomdancers.com! Check them out. Persevere like never before. Dance whenever you can. It will come.Enjoy!Debbie

Take notes immediately after your lesson. Figure out a way to describe the steps so you'll understand later, either in words or diagrams. If you find you can't remember right after the lesson, it would be worth taking the last five minutes of the lesson to have your teacher review the steps while you take notes.

Practice every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. The sooner you get the patterns into your muscle memory, the sooner you can stop thinking about them!

You don't say how many dances you've learned in 12 lessons, but maybe it's too many. Consider whether you might want to focus on a couple dances for your next few lessons and get them down more solidly.

Tapes--or the videos on this site--are also a big help for reviewing steps you know (it's harder to learn new steps from a video, especially if you don't have a partner to do them with).

Have patience with yourself! It takes a while for dancing to become part of your muscle memory. Practice will help speed that process up.

Elizabeth.
Tell me and I will surely forget
Show me and I might remember
Make me do it and I will surely
understand.
Dance not to dance better than
anybody else.
Dance to dance better than yourself.
Consentrate on things you have
controll over and not things you have
no control over. You have no control
over people who may be watching, or
the music , or the floor. Consentrate
on what you are doing and are being
taught.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE SUGGESTIONS!!!!

I will let everyone know how I do. I will stay postive & keep my frame up, I mean chin. hee hee

Hi everyone.
I have not been frustrated as much as when I first posted. I have been practicing a tad when I don't have lessons and just relaxing when I do have my lessons.

Still anxious on remembering the steps. I am trying to learn the following: Rumba, Foxtrot, Salsa, Waltz,Tango, & Cha Cha.

Any suggestions?

Ellen has the answer. Take notes, write it down, and practice.

Making a notebook with descriptions of everything you have been taught is a tremendous help when first learning, and it is a good reference for later. This should be done immediately after the class. In the process of writing everything down you will be forced to review in you head everything you were just taught, and describe those actions. You will find yourself getting up and doing the step again and then writing it up. The writing process will firmly implant this information in your memory. You still need to practice it to firmly implant that information in your muscle memory. You will also discover that you will not be able to write it down if you don't understand it, or if you don't remember it from class. A portable tape recorder taken to class is a good way to quickly make notes to yourself. Use that when you do your write-up.

In this notebook you should have the name for the step. Break it up, maybe one line for each 3 steps. Include the timing as the first item, maybe QQS, or 12&3 or whatever is appropriate - then describe the step in as much information as you need. If you are a beginner you will be describing individual steps, where they go, what the timing is, what your partner is doing, for a man, how to do the lead, and for the lady how to recognize the lead. As you progress you won't need as much detail on the basics. You can describe a step as consisting of something you already know plus only any additional information that is new. Of course to describe a new step in terms of something you already know, you have to have a name for that step, so pay attention to the names of steps.

When you are doing this you will also discover errors in what you thought was correct. In other words if the timing didn't come out right on paper, then you didn't remember it correctly. So go thru it again and fix the error.

If you do this it will be a very big help in remembering and understanding how all this works.

Elizabeth Most people writting above are correct. I will add this to the list.
If after your lesson you don't run through the routine you have just learnt. Our brain has this natural ability to start throwing out what it thinks isn't important. That will include some of your dance steps. You must within a very short time space go through what you have just learnt, and write it down immediately. If you can just before you go to sleep run it through your mind. When you come to a bit that doesn't seem clear. In the morning look at your notes for that particular part. I am not trying to boast. but I can run through all of my routines mentaly with the timing and finishing to start again right on the correct bar of music. If I find I have arrived on bar 23 and it should be 24 I will go through it again untill I get it right. In class we each have to do this solo leading the class. We never know whos turn it might be this week. This is in Modern. All in the class are very experienced dancers.
Going down to the very beginners level do as above with the steps you are learning.
Latin is the same. In the Cha for instance. If you get to a part where you can't remember if there was two or three New York's and which direction the first one went. You should have it written down with the correct name for the step. At work you never file a letter away without a reference number, you would have difficulty finding it. Give your steps names and in your minds eye see every step. Then you will become crazy like the rest of us. Only kidding.Good luck