Funky Dance - Locking
That's not to say not to use videos. Just try and combine it with a teacher as well. Ok?
How long might this take? It might take a year or it might take many years for you to actually begin to get to a decent standard.
The good news though is that you can start developing your style once you know some locking and are moving forward with it.
You don't necessarily have to wait until you are the best locker in town before starting out on that. Otherwise you will never begin dancing in your own style!
The truth is that as you are learning locking and new steps, you will develop ideas about different ways that you can do things. So you may well have these ideas from an early stage.
If you stick with locking and keep on dancing, you should find that developing your own style sort of just happens naturally after a certain period of time.
You might need some additional help for example mirrors to see what you look like when you are dancing. If you learn inside a dance class then there is a good chance that you will have mirrors there to help you and it is taken care of.
With the mirrors you will actually be able to see what you're doing so you can see if it's any good. Some of that stuff that you do you will want to throw away! Other things you'll be happy with as it is.
When developing your own style just go with your instincts, no one can tell you how to come up with your own style otherwise you will end up doing their style!
At best a teacher can only guide you into developing your own style, in a similar way to what I am doing here. I'm just kind of steering you in the right direction and giving you some tips to help you on your way.