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In this tutorial I will show five good ways to start “Bayamo Moves” and use Bayamo por Abajo as example. “Bayamo” is just a traditional name, used by a subset of dancers, for cross-Handed Rodeo Inverso variations. Rodeo Inverso figures are important to balance right turning motion, if we are going to fly on both wings.

The classic way to start Bayamo moves is “Rueda de Casino” style: A one handed Dedo Vacilala into a Half-Sombrero, next Rodeo Inverso and the core of the move, and very often Bayamo moves end with Enchufla and into Sombrero. This is exactly how Bayamo por Abajo is mostly done by beginners and at intermediate level.

In this tutorial and video, I show the traditional start once, I hardly use it anymore, and four other variations for how to start Bayamo moves giving us five good options, and there are many more:

1. Dedo Vacilala into Half-Sombrero
2. Exhíbela into Half-Sombrero
3. DQN Scoop into Rodeo Inverso
4. Lead’s Shadow (El Dos)
5. Cross-Handed Dile Que No

When it comes to “how to end or continue” Bayamo Moves, I hardly use the Enchufla-Sombrero any more. I prefer to use “Enchufla-Hook Turn” or Enchufla-Exhíbela because they create a better flow and make it easier to continue in many direction and I always try to be creative doing things a little differently each and every time or at least from last time.

Same video at YouTube

Bayamo moves

Bayamo moves come in two main categories, “por Abajo”, keping the left hand low, and “por Arriba” bringing both hands over to avoid a bind. The move called Bayamo por Abajo is a double “Abajo” in the sense that it not only keeps the left hand low at the start, it also continues “Down Under”.

Most “Bayamo” moves are of the “Cross-Handed Rodeo Inverso” type, but being the name of a popular city, “Bayamo” might be part of unrelated figur-names. The Bayamo moves uploaded to YouTube have the look and feel of moves made as couple moves in Rueda de Casino. That is, a Choreo, a hard-wired, self-contained mini-dance, with a start and ending, to be used exactly the same each time it is called in the Rueda.

If you have learned Cuban Salsa from dance schools using the “Rueda de Casino” model of fixed moves with no leading and following, no creativity and no musicality, your social dancing is likely one long up-hill battle: How to escape from the straight jacket of the Rueda de Casino Prison? How to set yourself free and start dancing on your own in a way that makes leading/following, creativity and musicality possible.

In my social dancing, moves doesn’t exist, only ever changing combinations of basic figures and variations.

Why Bayamo?

Bayamo is a popular city to visit if you live in Santiago de Cuba. The tradition of naming moves “A Bayamo” (Let’s go to Bayamo) probably comes from dancers in Santiago de Cuba. The oldest Bayamo move I have found is on the SALC DVD #2, Figure #17, shot on location in Santiago de Cube in the late 1990s.

As all sorts of Bayamo variations were developed some “idiot” started to call the same type of moves for “Matanzas”, another popular city close to Havana, resulting in confusion and a lot of overlap. Sorry, but Cuban figure-name-junk , is almost a signature feature of Salsa-Casino.

I recommend to use the “Bayamo” name in Rueda but more and more I prefer descriptive names that makes at least some sense, and I also prefer International names in English that more people are likely to understand and remember. Why not call Bayamo por Abajo for “Cross-Handed Rodeo Inverso Down Under” signaling not a choreographed mini-dance but a concept that can be executed with many variations as I show in the video?