Three Step Turns use three steps to do a full 360 degree turn, composed of two half turns. 180 degree between step “1” and step “2” and another 180 degree between step “2” and step “3”. Three Step Turns are very versatile. A Follow can start a Three Step Turn both to the left and to the right, on any
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It makes sense sometimes to turn in the middle of a count of eight, between “3” and “5”, using a full pirouette as a Two Step Turn, turning 360 degrees on one foot, right or left. At least as a supplement to Three Step Turns and to Two Step Spiral Turns. As a turn technique, a full 360 degree Pirouette
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A dance can be likened to a pyramid in the sense that is should have a solid foundation on which to build. To me, the base of the dance, the baseline, is all important. To get the baseline of you dance right, tailored exactly to your talent, your abilities, priorities and age, and to constantly improve on and develop your
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The Two Step Spiral Turn is a common turn technique in Latin Ball Room, Latin Hustle, Salsa, Casino, Swing, Jazz, Country Two Step, etc. It is called “Two Step” because it takes two steps to complete a full 360 degree turn. The Two Step Spiral Turn is versatile: Equally good to the right and to the left, for the Follow
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Using four steps to walk a 360 degree turn is by far the most common way to turn in social dancing. This is surprising considering that Four Step Turns don’t count as a proper way to turn in any dance style, and they are not included in any textbook. There are three common ways to walk a 360 degree turn
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Three Step Turn is called Three Step because three steps are used to do a full 360 degree turn. 180 degree between each step. This gives us the natural option of turning on “1-2-3” and on “5-6-7”: The two halves of the eight count with a pause in between. Three Step Right Turn on “1-2-3” is the standard way to
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The basic figure called Dile Que No (“Say No to Her”) is one of several crazy figure names in Casino. It is rare to find a dance teacher that can explain the origin of the name. Why is it called Dile Que No? If you happen to know the answer, it makes sense, but if you don’t, the name is
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When dance students in Copenhagen are presented with a new ridiculous Cuban Salsa move, it is most likely a so-called Nudo (knot), and we all look at one another behind the teacher’s back and say: “Oh no, not again, one more Clutter Mother!”. “Clutter Mother” is the name of a children’s game in Denmark: One child is nominated Clutter Mother,
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The Setenta y Cinco (75) family of moves is great for social dancing, and I often use one of them as a contrast to my improvised flows of basic figures. “Casinando” is probably my favourite because it has a very long counter clock-wise sequence before it goes clock-wise again. If the Follow passes the “test” of the long sequence of
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This is a classic Rueda de Casino move made popular by “Salsa Lovers”, Miami, USA, 2000, DVD #2, but the move is likely much older. I have found more than 20 videos on YouTube using the version from “Salsa Lovers”. The meaning of the name is not exactly clear: Dedo (finger), Guarapo (sugarcane juice) , Bota (Boot). When called with
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Nowadays I seldom use named moves in my social dancing. I mostly regard moves as choreographed mini dances to be used in Rueda de Casino only and for training purposes. More and more my dancing is organised around a couple of improvised, 1-2 minutes long FLOWS of mostly basic figures of one count of Eight. We want as small building
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We can start Exhíbela from Paséala or directly from Caída start position (aka DQN start position). Exhíbela is a walking turn, uniquely Cuban, consisting of two 180 degree pivot half turns on “3-5” and “7-1”. That is, the Follow walks forward on “1-2-3”, turns right, and back again on “5-6-7” and turns right, etc. Extra turns can be added to
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In order to take social dancing to the next level, a Lead should reduce the use of named “Rueda” moves to a bare minimum and focus more and more on improvised, music driven flows of basic figures in ever changing combinations. Most basic figures are only one count of Eight and many of them have a second half with a
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The Saloneo basic figure is a walk in Caída position (aka Dile Que No start position). We have always had Leads walking around like that but mostly small time without really thinking about what they were doing. Yoel Marreo (MCC) generalised the Caída walk into a handful of solid basic figures. “Open Saloneo” is my contribution to the family, but
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The Three Step Pirouette Turn is not a professional turn technique like Three Step Chaîné and Three Step Pivot but it is an excellent all-round turn technique for social dancing, a social turn. A Pirouette Turn is to turn on one foot, 360 degree for a full pirouette or 180 degree for a half pirouette as in the Three Step
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The Ola (Wave) is an advanced level basic figure with a lot of charm and character. Leads that know Ola consider it “a must use in every dance”, if only the Follows were good enough. Ola is a classic, it is featured on the legendary SALC DVD 1, 1999, #18, “Paseo de Olas”. In recent years it has mostly been
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The move Nudo Más (More Knot), I have learned from a video of Ruben Rodriguez. He calls the move El Nudo (the Knot) and that is misleading because it is also a well-known name for a common Rueda type of Casino move. The move of Ruben Rodriguez starts like El Nudo for the first two counts of Eight but is
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This is a unique Cuban Salsa figure, the Follow walks clock-wise as she turns counter-clockwise. It is for social dancing but can be adapted for Rueda de Casino. Superficially it looks like a sequence of “stirring the pot” spin turns but but it is a travelling figure, a sequence of 180 degree Enchufla turns with a step in between each
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I love to do Paseala walks, continue into Exhibela, back into Paseala and more Exhibela, adding Rodeo etc, back into Paseala and more Exhibela, etc. This makes for great dynamic social dancing. Then one day I realised that I can do more or less the same combining Dile Que No, Coca-Cola and Exhibela, Rodeo, Reína, etc. More dynamic social dancing
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We have Rodeo Largo, the long Rodeo of two counts of Eight, we have the normal Rodeo of one count of Eight, and we have Rodeo Poco (little) of only a half count of Eight done twice. All three Rodeos can also be done the other way around, Inverso. This tutorial is about the least known of these basic figures,
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La Paloma (The Pigeon), or the “Pigeon Walk”, I have learned from a video of a workshop by Ruben Rodriguez. It took me and my partner a training session to learn the move and to get a good feel for it, and another training session to modified it to suit our own style of dancing. The original “Ruben” video is
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The Follow’s short Paséala walk in front of the Lead, pivoting around in the corners on “3-4” and “7-8”, is normally done a couple of times before the Lead goes on with Exhibela or some other move. “Small time” continuation is so to speak part of Paséala. What I call Paséala Continuado is when the Lead doubles down and uses
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Probably more than half of all Leads never use left turns, so-called Coca-Cola turns (I have done some statistics). They can get away with “no Coca-Cola” because Enchufla half left turns are so common in Cuban Salsa, often used more than once in many moves. Of the Leads using Coca-Cola left turns on “5-6-7”, typically as last part of Dile
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In this tutorial I present two good FIRST CLASS social moves, a Cásate (“get married”) variation (I have not decided on a name yet), followed by Enchufla Continuado. I will make separate tutorials about these two social moves soon. Sometimes it is inspiring to see a continuing flow of two or more good social moves instead of having the dance
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The most common Coca-Cola al Revés (“the other way around”) is called Setenta y Uno al Revés. Very many of the best Leads use Coca-Cola al Revés, and it can be started directly from Caída position (start position of Dile Que No and many other figures, moves and walks). We don’t need Setenta. My video archive for Coca-Cola al Revés
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The move Exhibela Largo Continuado is another social move I naively believe I have invented or at least I have identified it as a move and given it a name. We often do Exhibela 2-3 times in a row in Rueda de Casino as well as in social dancing, but mostly “on the spot” without changing direction. Then one day
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The move Rodeo Continuado is another move, I naively believe I have “created”, but of cause we have many Leads doing two or more Rodeos in a row. My contribution is to clearly identify this continuation as a move in its own right and to call it Rodeo Continuado. I often do it five times in a row or more,
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This is an old move, at least it is documented on the legendary ¡Salsa a la Cubana! DVD (Salsaville.com), #3, where it is part of move #10 called 70 con Crúzate, Santiago de Cuba, 1999. But they don’t give the face-to-face Sombrero a name. I have found Mexican and Argentinian videos calling it “Disco”. I don’t see it has anything
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Rodeo Inverso Continuado with right-2-right handhold is another figure I naively boast that I have “invented”. This is of cause not true since many Leads like to do Rodeo Inverso two or more times in a row. What I have done is to declare Rodeo Inverso Continuado for a social move that can be done two or more times (I
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This is one of my favourite social moves, and the first move I naively believe that I have “invented”. Of cause many Leads over the years have done something similar, prolonging Balsero with one or two additional counts of eight but it is rare to see it done 5-6 times or more. One day I said to myself, YES, this
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What does it mean to step forward by default? It means that unless a Follow is led to step back, she should step forward. Whenever a Follow senses she has the choice between stepping forward or back, she should step forward. In practical terms, stepping forward by default is about step “1” and step “5”. Back steps are common in
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Left turns are relatively rare in Cuban Salsa and for some reason, we are going to look into that later, they are almost universally called for “Coca-Cola”. In more than half of all social dances (I have done some statistics), the Coca-Cola left turn is not used! Many Leads never or rarely use left turns but we also have many
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Demo dance videos are often of limited value because they are not realistic for social dancing. Often the videos are heavily choreographed and too much of a show to be useful for average social dancers in need of inspiration. So-called artistic Cuban salsa dance videos are often the most disappointing. Lisandra García is good for many such Cuban Salsa videos
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The Columbian Cuban Salsa dance school, “Son de Habana” in Bogatá, has many good YouTube dance videos. In Columbia they dance their own Columbian salsa, called Cali style, but these videos are genuine Cuban Salsa with the personal touch of the Lead and Follow, Alexander Barreto and Susana Osorio. Many of their moves are legacy Cuban Salsa moves, that is,
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Definitely not, speaking in general. And there are absolutely no objective benefits from dancing the first part of a dance on “two” instead of on “one”. The only argument for doing it: that it happens to be your personal preference, or that you like to do it for a change. The OBJECTIVE disadvandtages, on the other hand, are legio for
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The basic figure I call Enchufla Simple is called Ven y Vira (“come and return”) by some dance schools, and a few call it Lazo. I prefer easy to understand common sense names. And if a dancer can guess what a figure or move might look like just by knowing the name, the better. Enchufla Simple is the easiest of
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The Exhibela “turn” is one of the most misunderstood basic figures in Cuban Salsa. It is not a turn but a walk to exhibit the Follow, “show her to the world”. A walk with two half turns of 180 degrees, and both happens just by walking and pivoting around. There is no 360 degrees turn but two half turns far
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I call my Private Cuban Salsa Practica for my daily social workout. I train with one of several dance partners at all levels in parks and on public dance platform or in private homes. Your own Practica, where Lead and Follow decide date, time and place, the music, what and how to train, is to me social dancing at a
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Very often when doing Dile Que No, the Lead wants to lead the Follow around him behind his back doing Rodeo Inverso type of figures like the Bayamo family of moves and the Setenta y Cinco family of moves, or just leading her around using Paseala moves. This is impossible using DQN because if both the Lead and the Follow
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We can easily have several DQNs in a ow, one after the other. The first DQN changes the motion on the Partner Circle from right to left, from clock-wise to counter clock-wise. All additional DQNs start from an already established left turning motion. The Follow’s steps for the first and the additional DQNs are the same. The Lead uses two
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The Panqué (Pancake) figure, also called Siete (7) in the Miami Rueda tradition of “Salsa Racing” and “Salsa Lovers”, is a unique basic figure of one count of eight. It is unique in the sense that it has its own set of steps we don’t see in any other basic figure, and it is unique because it doesn’t fit in
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It’s a big misunderstanding to believe that so-called “Casino” moves used in Rueda de Casino actually comes from social 1-on-1 couple dancing. As a rule of thumb but with many exceptions, they don’t! On the contrary: “Casino” moves used in Rueda de Casino were made to be used in Rueda de Casino. The exceptions include basic figures like Enchufla and
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I have been wondering for a long time, why so many classic Rueda moves have number names like Setenta, 71, 72, 75, Ochenta y Quatro (84), Noventa (90), Siete (7), El Uno (1), El Dos (2), etc. We have more than fifty moves with number names, if we include Complicado versions and variations. Most likely Setenta was the first such
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The Cuban Vuelta (Habanero) is the twin sister of Vacilala. The steps are like for Vacilala except that the two half counts of eight are flipped: the Follow steps forward on “1”, she continues forward on “2-3” and turns, still walking forward, most often on a curved line, on “5-6-7”. The Cuban Vuelta is not as prominent as Vacilala (hand-held
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We have three good versions of the basic Setenta (70) move, and it is confusing to use the same name for all of them. In order to make things easier, especially if we want to call the move in Rueda de Casino, where we would like synchronisation of all the couples, it is nice to use three names for the
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The big Setenta family of moves starts with the Hammerlock, the first count of eight. Since Setenta moves are popular, the Hammerlock is likely to take place several times in each and every dance, and for that reason, it is an important basic figure to get right. We have three options for the Hammerlock: Vacilala Steps: Turning on 1-2-3, walking
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The move Ochenta y Quatro is a classic Cuban Salsa move, but it is so often used also in Rueda de Casino, that “Rueda.Casino.com”, the former “Norwegian Rueda Standard Organisation”, has included it in its Rueda de Casino Syllabus. On YouTube I have found surprisingly many videos showing Ochenta y Quatro, and many variations. It is a very popular move.
Read moreIf you are already an accomplished social dancer as a Lead or as a Follow, it might be the time to learn the other role. I have wanted to learn to dance as a Follow for a long time, and I have now started the process, and I want to share my experience. I believe in the benefits of switching
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Para Abajo, “toward down”, often just called Abajo (Abajo has several meanings in Cuban Salsa). The move is also sometimes called Llévela para Abajo or Llévala pa’bajo for short. It translates to something like “take her down”. Abajo is a basic figure that overlaps with the figure Paséala en Frente (“take her for a walk in front of you”), often
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