If you're a male salsa dancer, there are a few things you need to know not to do.
Number 1, in my book, is lecturing women. It's a particularly stupid thing to do if you're not the greatest of dancers anyway, but for some reason these are the guys who are most likely to do it. Case in point: the other night I complimented a woman in the class on being such a good follower. She wasn't an experienced dancer - in fact she didn't even know what I meant by the word 'following' - but she had ability and a great light style. What did I see later in the free dancing? A guy who couldn't dance in time telling her how to dance: not just quietly giving advice but barking out instructions like a PE teacher drilling a pupil. Unfortunately there's something about the leader/follower relationship that brings out the worst in some men's attitude to women. It's not big and it's not clever.
Even if you're an able dancer it's something to avoid. I encountered a very good woman dancer quietly fuming at the bar recently: she'd had a dance with someone who should have known better, and he'd criticised her dancing twice in one dance. As she said, he'd asked her for a dance, she hadn't asked him for a private lesson.
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