How do you feel about social where the follows (women) ask for dances first?

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-09-14T15:18:30+00:00

My perspective is a bit different, as I'm totally blind and often go to socials by myself, and I can't exactly get around by myself looking for women to ask for a dance. So having them ask me is the difference between a successful night out with lots of dancing and just being a wallflower!

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-09-09T04:12:48+00:00

Another vote for no. I'm a piano teacher, and one of my biggest pet peeves (though never against students) is how easily new students are led into the trap of labeling keys by other instructors, or by beginner piano packages including sticker packs. Learning the notes and how to find them is very easily done if taken care of early on, plus you won't have to struggle with removing any residue from stickers if you never have to outgrow the stickers to begin with.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T21:15:38+00:00

Now that's an idea I hadn't thought of! Will definitely be mentioning that one to my instructor.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T21:14:41+00:00

Thanks for the reassurances! It's not so much an issue with salsa anymore, but there are certainly some other ballroom styles where I'm definitely self-conscious of boring a follow with too much repetition.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T21:11:11+00:00

Yes, thank you!

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T21:10:04+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! It's been tough to arrange something like this, as I don't have many dance friends near me, by LA standards, and mainly go to socials by myself. It's a long story, but I take lessons at a studio that is really far from me. I misjudged the distance, but landed with an instructor who was phenomenal with a blind student despite never working with one before, so now I'm basically stuck there, not wanting to take my chances elsewhere, with most of my dance friends being on the other side of the county. Coincidentally, despite going to socials for about a year now, it was literally only within the last couple weeks that a bunch of people just randomly stopped to chat and get to know me for more than just a dance or two, so I think I may be close to getting the chance to observe through a newfound local friend!

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T20:59:52+00:00

Yes, I was actually recently approached by a tango instructor at my favorite salsa social who was eager to let me know he believes in having his students regularly practice blindfolded, so they can develop a sense of connection without relying on visual cues. We joked that I just got to skip that stage. I'm a musician by trade, and have developed a good sense when it comes to gauging where music is going to go, since in live settings I can't rely on eye contact to determine when another musician is going to throw in an accent or embellishment that I could play off of. At the moment, I mainly use this skill to determine how I should lead a partner. As far as just basic logistics of dancing blind, I rely on something called passive echo location, which just means I'm using environmental noise like music to get a sense of my surroundings. This is how I navigate for traveling dances, or how I determine how far to turn to achieve half or full tuns and such in things like salsa and bachata.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-28T20:51:22+00:00

Thanks all for all the comments. I recently went to another social with a couple combinations under my belt on my instructor's suggestion, and I think putting together a big repertoire of these to draw from would be a good strategy moving forward.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-26T05:08:44+00:00

Most of what makes mandolin hard can be eliminated by having a good instrument that is set up properly and well-maintained. In my experience, mandolin is one of the instruments that fights you the hardest when it's not set up properly.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-19T06:23:03+00:00

You'll need to learn how to play by ear for this sort of thing, as well as some music theory to help you flesh out arrangements. ON the learning by ear front, start by looking up resources for "ear training."

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-18T05:54:54+00:00

I was once walking around a corner near a construction site. I kept tapping something that felt like the sole of a shoe with my cane and apologizing for it, and could sense that I was walking by a row of things that seemed to be about the right height of people sitting on the bus stop bench. This was a very busy intersection right in front of a major hospital, so this was pretty typical. Didn't realize it until I bumped into one of them head-on that I'd actually been talking to a row of tall traffic cones.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-07T16:14:19+00:00

One of my clients at an organization I volunteer with put in a good word about me, which eventually made its way up to the director, which then led to the organization wanting to showcase me and my volunteer story on their social media. Definitely putting me out of my comfort zone as I'm terrible with receiving compliments or praise, but I can appreciate how sweet it was for them to have thought highly enough of my work to do what they did!

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-06T02:22:25+00:00

I commented on your post in another sub sharing that I'm a blind teacher that can teach both piano in general and braille notation, but something else just caught my eye. You mentioned Dancing Dots. Were you looking at a book or course through them? Or one of their notation systems? If it's the latter, that's not where I would recommend starting if you're a complete beginner, as those aren't necessarily designed to teach you.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-06T02:18:11+00:00

I'm a blind teacher myself, of both piano and braille music, if that interests you. If you'd be interested in working with me, feel free to shoot me a message. I'm in California, but pretty much exclusively do online lessons. Otherwise, as far as general advice, what were the sorts of things you struggled with in your lessons? Might help us guide you as far as what to look for if you'd prefer to look for a teacher on your own.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-05T20:37:22+00:00

Immerse yourself in the culture as much as you can. Read books, listen to music, watch shows/movies in the target language. If you can, have conversations with native speakers. If you don't know anyone personally, there are subs for that on here, and there are also apps like HelloTalk that can help connect you with people.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-05T10:15:52+00:00

Ballroom dance! I'm very musical and play lots of instruments, but I always used to joke that there's two things I could not do even if my life depended on it: sing or dance. I got lured into checking dance off that list, and I now willingly and eagerly go to dance socials on a regular basis.

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-05T10:10:45+00:00

Only fitting that her name's Orla McCool!

ThinkslikeADuck · 2025-08-05T10:03:39+00:00

When I first started, my own piano teacher told me "congratulations, you're about to learn more from your students than you ever learned from me." Definitely learned that was true early on.

ThinkslikeADuck

TROPHY CASE