Eighteen years. Wow. You are basically a professional dancer. Professional dancers should be able to 1) be able to perform or compete at a high level 2) teach and 3) dance socially.<p>One thing I left out in my earlier comments is the people who have been dancing for a long time can inadvertently intimidate newbies - particularly for ballroom - because at the dance club they see these really experienced dancers glide across the floor - and they think - how can I dance with these people who are so good and/or dance on the same floor. The nicer dancers will ask newbies to dance because they remember when they were starting out, in simultaneous awe and intimidation.<p>Another dance hack, especially for Latin dancing, is understanding the structure of the music so that you can predict changes in the music with good probability.<p>For example, in Salsa music, listen for a change in the music, count 8 measures and anticipate a break, and if there is no break, count another 8 (16 total) and anticipate the break. Sometimes it gets to 24 before there is a break and followers love it when you can predict these breaks (dance to the music).<p>It is actually a lot, lot harder to do this when you are social dancing and trying to protect your follower (crowded dance floor) - but it is doable.<p>The other part is tempo changes - vary the speed of your moves to the tempo and feel of the music. Slow things down, speed things up.