Most Leads find it difficult to add new moves to their repertoire. At intermediate level we hardly have enough figures for one dance. At advanced level we have more moves to choose from but most of us more or less still dance the same dance over and over again. Keeping a solid repertoire of moves alive is not easy. If
Read moreMany Leads in Cuban Salsa, X-Body Salsa, West Coast Swing, etc, get along well using the same handful of moves over and over again. If that is good enough for you, if you are that type of person, no offense, just do it your way. But some of us would like to get better, especially we would like to become
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Some dancers don’t care about keeping different dance styles apart, pure and original. They like to mix it all together and make up their own unique fusion style of anything they find interesting. Such “cherry picking” is ok and a valid approach for anyone to follow but I don’t like that approach personally. It is nice that we have both
Read moreThe challenge of rejection in social dancing is often downplayed to the extent that we almost lie about it. I’m not just talking about getting a no when asking for a dance but also about not being asked at all or so little that it is such a pain to go social dancing that you don’t go. Rejection is a
Read moreIt is no surprise that Abanico Complicado comes in several good versions, only the end of the move being different. Three of the versions deserve to be in the repertoire of a Salsero at advanced level. Nice that you can choose which ending to use, depending on music, your mood and on how well the Follow is doing. A closer
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“Salsafy Your Life”, Dancing Solutions to Energize Your Life, An A-Z Guide, is a cute little book, published 2018. Almost a “Salsa for Dummies for Children and Grown Ups”. Most pages have a headline with a picture of dancers often featuring the author, a short paragraph or two, a yellow post-it note, and a bulleted list with highlights. Almost a
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Laura Riva is in a class of her own. Her Canadian based dance blog, The Dancing Grapevine – All about the “Social” part of Dancing, is without doubt the mother of all dance blogs, when it comes to the social aspects of dancing. Laura has a formidable ability to generalize in the good sense, to always be spot on, to
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Siete (7), often called Panqué (Pancake) in Rueda de Casino, is a very important basic move of just one eight count. Siete is one of a small group of moves not done walking the partner circle. Siete is done on the Guapea line as if we are still doing Guapea. The following two videos give a good overall impression. The
Read moreI love to dance with people I haven’t danced with before, and I ask people I don’t know for a dance all the time. I seldom get a no. And if I do, I don’t get offended anymore. I have developed a strategy for no nos. I call it: “say no to yourself” in a positive, proactive manner. 1. Pain
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Abanico (Fan) is a great intermediate move and everybody seems to agree about the name and the basic figure. The short version of the move is not that interesting on its own but the extended version, sometimes called Abanico con Giro, is one of my favorites. The following is a tutorial about all you have ever wanted to know about
Read moreBeing a non-Spanish speakning social latin dancer is somehow a paradox. A Spanish speaking person will tell you that understanding the lyrics, singing along just a little, is a major part of the fun on the dance floor dancing Salsa and Bachata. More importantly, knowing the lyrics makes it easier to understand what the music expresses, to read the music,
Read moreWe are free to do our own fine tuning of well-known A Bayamo figures. If our variation is substantial, we should change the name accordingly. Often just adding the word “variation” to the figure name can be enough. Very often video variations of A Bayamo figures are really not variations, but flat wrong attempts to do one of the well-known
Read moreA Bayamo is a difficult figure but there is an easier version for the return walk of the Follow, normally just called A Bayamo “alternative version”. In order to distinguish the two versions, the easy one should have its own name. I call it A Bayamo Fácil (easy). A Bayamo and A Bayamo Fácil are identical except for the first
Read moreThe basic A Bayamo is a popular figure with many videos out there. It takes the Follow on a long walk, two eight-counts, around the Lead and then back again with two more eight-counts. The return trip comes in two versions, and the details at the end varies. For the end a full Sombrero is the most common. One can
Read moreThe easiest of all the moves in the A Bayamo family and very common. As in other moves, Abajo (down) indicates that the Lead somewhere in the sequence ducks under the Follow’s arm. Since the move is the easiest of the A Bayamo moves, it is a good way for a Lead to start with a new Follow. If she
Read moreSiete Complicado is most likely made by Gianfranco Bighi (Italy). This maestro of a Salsa instructor has many good videos. He is on my list, Gianfranco Bighi (Italy), over good video archives of Cuban Salsa moves. Siete Complicado is similar to Siete Loco except that the back-to-back turn (barrel turn) at the end is replaced by a rare two handed
Read moreSvetlana Ovchinina from the Danceliker Dance School in Moscow has made a series of 10 rather unique Bachata videos. She dances solo doing advanced footwork exercises. Great to practice at home to get a better feel for the music and the dance. Video lesson 10 is from February 2018. Bachata Sensual has reduced the complex footwork of Dominican Bachata to
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