The salsa dancing parallel reminds me of learning to snowboard - I signed up for a week long trip through a group at my school and took lessons the first day on

The salsa dancing parallel reminds me of learning to snowboard - I signed up for a week long trip through a group at my school and took lessons the first day on the mountain. Before embarking, I had read a bunch of articles on how to snowboard and tried to commit all the information to memory. So I got out there and tried to apply my knowledge to little avail. At the end of 5 days, my knees made the nurse in our group cringe. I was absolutely battered head to toe. Then I went home and read as much as I could find over the next year and went back. Much to my amazement, things came together; I was suddenly and surprisingly decent. I think this same kind of learning process applies to anything that you really have to understand to get good at. Many things have two levels of understanding: most people can drive, but who really understands how the transmission works? Those are the people that are able to truly control a vehicle, and they probably drive manuals.