By Francisco De la Calleja

    I am often asked by students at the beginning of a class what it takes to become a good dancer. The answer is a very short list: To become a good dancer you need a clear objective, a competent teacher and time.

    People are often surprised by what is not on the list. They expect things like rhythm, coordination, a musical ear, a good partner and such to be essential to a dancer’s success. But what surprises them the most by its absence from the list is the concept of talent. They always ask about it, as if I had somehow overlooked a vital cog in the success machine.

    My answer to that is that in my classes, talent as most people understand it is optional. In fact, I usually add, I personally do not even believe in its existence!

    Talent in dancing is described by those who believe in its existence as the natural ability to dance well, especially without being taught. Some will go as far as calling it a god given gift. What kind of god would give a human being the desire to learn to dance without also providing it with the skills to actually do it is never explained.

    Personally, I am fortunate to have succeeded as a dancer despite, or perhaps because, a complete absence of what most people call talent. Most of my students find it hard to believe I am telling the truth when I explain to them how in my first salsa group classes I was always the guy the girls danced with only as a last resort or when prompted to do so by the instructor, so badly was I dancing at the time. Or that one of my first instructors once told a girl who wanted me as a partner that it would be better for her to find someone else, since, in his words: “This one is never going to get it”.

    But I did, eventually, get it. Not only did I become a proficient dancer, my interaction with all manner of teachers, -good, bad and useless-, motivated me to become a dance teacher and a dance teacher trainer.  Because I understood how powerful the effect of a competent teacher can be in the development of a dance student.

    For every instructor who rolled his eyes heavenward at my incompetence there was another one who zeroed in on whatever was right in my dancing and showed me how progress could be achieved from there.

    Objectively speaking, everyone alive has the ability to develop any set of skills they desire. The universal variable is the timeframe required to achieve the stated objective. But that is more dependent on the method of teaching and learning and especially on the structure of goal setting that on any other factor.

    To students worried about dance talent I ask: “The traditional definition of talent is the natural ability to do something well without being taught. Can you tell me of something you have a natural ability to do and that you were not taught?” Here there is usually a silent moment, while the beginner student frantically searches for something to say. “How about breathing? Or sleeping, walking, looking, dreaming or… the list goes on. Do you feel particularly gifted when you dream or breathe? Yet, by definition you are talented to do so.”

    The truth is that talent can’t be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, bought, borrowed, copied, broken, stolen, killed or destroyed. It belongs in the same group of concepts as luck, destiny or unicorns; it doesn’t exist!

    Luck is just another name for being trained, prepared and ready when random opportunity presents itself.

    Destiny is what people who believe they have no control of their lives call the phenomena by which someone who works at achieving his goals successfully reaches them.

    And unicorns were one of the most successful commercial scams ever run, with Viking traders buying narwhal tusks from Inuit hunters and selling them for their weight in gold to European medieval lords while inventing tales of mythical horned horses that could only be approached by virgins.

    So, if you insist on using the word, talent is just another name for the desire to learn and improve. And since everyone who wants to learn how to dance already has those, well, it’s easy for me as a teacher to ignore the word.

    Lack of talent as it is popularly understood is actually the great excuse used by those who lack the conviction to pursue their dreams. They can simply shrug and say “I did not have the talent for it, so I didn’t even try”.

    Those who try, even when they do not have what the world calls “the right stuff” have the desire, so inevitably they find the way. And every little success they achieve convinces them even more that their dreams are possible, that their desire is justified and that the rest of the world is wrong!

    There are two great advantages in not being talented:

    As I mentioned, talentless people always work from a position of no expectations, at least from the point of view of some of their partners and instructors. (Secretly they do have expectations sometimes great ones). They are therefore always successful. Since nothing is expected of them, every achievement surpasses the level of expectation. And there is nothing more motivating than success.

    Most importantly, since the talentless students do not fit into the mold of the ideal dancer, (whatever that may mean), mentally they have already a one-big-step advantage in the department of uniqueness and originality. Artistically, this is priceless.

    The appearance of a natural ability bordering on superpower will always mystify those who do not understand how dreams are achieved. The so-called talented are simply those who made the choice of acting upon their desire, their dream and ignored the naysayers and the prophets of doom and happily went about the task of achieving that which to others appears difficult or even impossible. They succeed because they enjoy their endeavour so much that they never stop to consider that they should be having a hard time doing what they do.

    That is why when people claim to “see” talent, they are only seeing the effects of desire, perseverance and love.