Where's the Payoff for the Learning?!

So it's no surprise to anyone who reads my blog or even skims it that I've taken up salsa. And I have no dance background at all. So it's hard. Ridiculously so. I've been doing it for like 6 months and I still feel uncomfortable when I'm out dancing. I worry that I'm offbeat, like my timing is shit. It's difficult to see the progress I've made and that's sort of frustrating. I can objectively see improvement, but when I step onto the dance floor in someplace other than the dance studio where I practice with my friends/co-learners, it's so damn hard. I'm embarrassed, I'm off-beat, I spin out of control on my spins sometimes (read: most of the time). I feel like I don't know a thing. But the truth is that sometimes I get it right. I get it wrong more than I get it right, mind you. But that shining moment when my feet happen (of their own free will) to land with a measure of elegance and my partner and I are dancing along to what feels like the beat, it's amazing. Just another of my incomplete ramblings on LEARNING. Learning is about getting better, about improving, not getting it perfect but trying to get better. Right? Then how come learning for it's own sake doesn't always have that magic twinkle, that bright shining moment where you feel like you've progressed. Because you haven't progressed enough and you're still terrible. And that's not terribly fun.