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Double turns are one of a relatively small number of ways to put the spotlight on the Follow and make her stand out. This is important because only if the Lead manages to make the Follow do extraordinary things can he himself also do extraordinary things without stealing the show, as is, sadly to say, very common for Leads from Cuba.

Double turns are difficult. They are to Cuban Salsa what Body Rolls are to Bachata Sensual. There is no way of doing them with perfection without constant training and honing of the techniques necessary. Double turns on a curved line requires that the turns are a little more that 360 degrees. Most Followers can only do turns of a little more than 270 degrees and can for that reason not do double turns.

The poor turn techniques of most Follows have probably something to do with the heavy Macho nature of Cuban Salsa with little focus on the Follow. The Leads have for generations had focus on making themselves the Hero of the dance, reducing the Follow to an assistant, often just a half naked dance prop in High Heels.

We should promote Follow-Centric dancing with the Follow as center stage. A social dance should be about how well a Lead can make a Follow dance with him and about how well he can get the best out of the Follow.

Vacilala from Open Position

Vacilala Doble as handheld turns or as hand-free turns are normally started from the start position of Open Position, from Guapea or directly from Dile Que No. But there are many situations during a dance from where a double Vacilala can be started. In this tutorial we focus on Vacilala Doble from Rodeo.

Vacilala from Rodeo

Originally I used Balsero to start Vacilala Doble from Rodeo. Balsero is just a Rueda name for doing a cross handed Vacilala into Rodeo into Vacilala and then into the Sombrero stance. It is easy to see that instead of Sombrero we can add another turn.

In addition to the “Balsero method”, I now also use two other combinations for getting into the Rodeo pose making Vacilala Doble from Rodeo possible. The first is a cross handed Exhibela into Rodeo, the second is to use the Enchufla Sombrero, followed by a head turn and then into the Rodeo position.

From Rodeo one can start Vacilala on “1” the first time around, or we can continue for another count of eight or more before Vacilala is started. The ideal in most situations is to do two traveling Three Step Turns on a curved line. For a double Vacilala, I mostly to the first turn on “1-2-3” and the second turn on “3-5-6”, making step “3” both the last of the first turn and the first step of the second turn.

Stationary turns doesn’t exist in my Textbook except in certain situations and as Plan B. Traveling turns are difficult, we should always train them when given a chance.