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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 to do with a discotheque, but the face-to-face Sombrero does resemble a discus athlete preparing to throw a discus!

Everyone I have asked tells me that the face-to-face Sombrero looks like a Yoke, so that is what I call it, Yugo is Yoke in Spanish. Since we have both a Yugo and a Yugo Inverso, it is natural to call moves going from one to the other for Yugos. Whenever I start Yugos, I think of it as a Yoke to carry with a cheerful spirit, proud and with elegance.

Video Clip #1 is from a Practica Session with me and Mona, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022.

There are several ways to get into Yugos, directly from the start position of open position (Guapea) or e.g. when coming out of the Setenta Hammerlock. I always do both hands simultaneously but some Leads like to put the hands in place one by one in the middle of other moves.

Yugos is a nice social move: There are many ways to go from Yugo to Yugo Inverso and back, you can turn around one or many times, you can walk backward in the pose, you can combine it with the ordinary Sombrero, and there are many ways to exit Yugos.

Al Cuello de Yugo

One of the the nice applications of Yugo is to use it to start the Al Cuello (around the neck) move. I call this variation for Al Cuello de Yugo. I will make a tutorial about that move soon. It is similar to Al Cuello de Setenta but with a different handhold and a very different exit.