To acquire a skill, any skill, one that involves body coordination, whether it is to play golf, tennis, bowling, soccer or dancing requires practice, practice and more practice.

As a ballroom dance instructor expert, I know for a fact that you can achieve different levels depending on the time you commit to the craft.You will learn faster by getting coached.The process of getting coached assures that you learn your patterns and technique correctly. With technique you develop a good foundation and you start learning faster and easier.

If you wish to simply learn for your wedding from scratch, it will take you anywhere from 2 to 3 months to be fluid for your First Dance. More specifically, you will have to put in a minimum of 15 to 20 hrs of coaching and 15 hrs of practice.Some people require more time.

If you wish to be a good social dancer, it will take you at least 1000 hrs and about 5000 hrs to achieve mastery.

Do you have a skill that you are presently learning? How long do you think it will take you to get real good at it?

About the author: David James is an instructor and a coach at www.dancechelsea.com (the studio that teaches beginners free of charge)

Before the waltz, there was the landler – a dance characterized by heavy hopping and jumping movements. It was danced by the peasants of those times. It was eventually replaced by the Waltz. The name of the Waltz is taken from the Italian ‘volver’ - to turn, or revolve. It was danced in three-quarter time, and characterized with more polished and graceful gliding.

In 1800, the Waltz originally was decidedly lowbrow and provincial by high society. By contrast the rural lads and lasses of those times found the whirling steps of that dance very appealing.

A first-hand account of a village dance in the latter part of the eighteenth century read “The men dancers held up the dresses of their partners very high so that they should not trail and be stepped on, wrapped themselves both tightly in the covering, bringing their bodies as closely together as possible, and thus whirling about went on in the most indecent positions.
Imagine how shocking that was at first for the proper aristocrats to witness with envy (one can imagine) the eroticism of this dance in which a lady clung to her partner, closed her eyes as in a happy dream, and glided off as if the world had disappeared. The new Waltz melodies overflowed with longing, desire and tenderness...
That was the first dance that was danced in an embrace with close contact with one’s partners body- and for high society, there was something unsavory about a woman being gripped in a man’s embrace while whirling in a frenzy around the dance floor. Further more, that new dance contrasted sharply with the stately dances of the aristocracy - the minuets, polonaises, and quadrilles.

For those reasons, the Waltz was banned in the ballrooms of high society.
History teaches us that change is inevitable. - Eventually the scandalized upper classes could not endure to have the lower classes having all the fun, and so, in time, the waltz finally achieved a degree of legitimacy - it was finally accepted as a proper dance form.

H.L.Menken wrote: “The waltz never quite goes out of fashion; it is always just around the corner; every now and then it returns with a bang . . . It is sneaking, insidious, disarming, lovely . . . The waltz, in fact, is magnificently improper-the art of tone turned lubricious . . . There is something about a waltz that is irresistible. Try it on the fattest and sedates or even on the thinnest and most acidulous of women, and she will be ready, in ten minutes, for a stealthy smack behind the door-nay, she will forthwith impart the embarrassing news that her husband misunderstands her and drinks too much.
To me I agree with someone else who said, the waltz is irresistible-and exceptionally durable”

Today both the faster Viennese Waltz, made forever popular by the Strauss family, and the slower American and International style waltzes are extremely popular today with dancers of all ages.

About the author- http//: www.dancechelsea.com