Salsa or bachata: which one to learn first

Bachata counts to four: three steps and a tap, usually side to side. You learn the basic step in one class, and that same night it is enough to dance a whole song with someone.

Salsa counts to eight, with two pauses inside it, and your weight changes more often in less time. The basic step is also explained in one class, but holding it when the music speeds up takes a few weeks.

That is the whole difference at the start: both are equally learnable, and one pays off sooner than the other.

Because the first result arrives quickly, and that is what decides who keeps showing up. Almost nobody quits because dancing seemed hard: they quit because the first night felt lost.

With bachata that first night goes better. You walk into a social knowing one step that works, and the rest you pick up by watching and dancing.

Salsa has far more vocabulary of turns and figures, so it takes much longer to run out. People who have danced for years tend to say they enjoyed bachata sooner and are still studying salsa.

And it teaches you to listen. In salsa you have to find the beat inside music with several layers of percussion, and that ear is worth having in any dance afterwards, bachata included.

If the goal is to dance for years rather than a season, salsa is the better investment. If the goal is to enjoy next Saturday, it is not.

Venues almost never programme a single thing. The usual shape is a class at nine and a social at eleven where both are played, plus kizomba or cuban salsa depending on the night.

So the real question is not which one to learn, but which one to begin with. The other will be playing on the same floor on the same night, and sooner or later you try it.

Go to a social before signing up for anything. An hour of watching tells you more than any description: what your city actually dances, how many people there are of each, and whether the room suits you.

Then take one drop-in class of each. Most schools let you try, and two classes cost less than a month of the wrong one.

Getting it wrong is cheap anyway: the footwork, the weight changes and the connection with your partner are the same, and what you learn in one shows up in the other from day one.