Dips play a major role in many social dance styles as well as in Latin Ball Room as the classic way to end a dance with style. The dip is the perfect last period at the end of a successful dance. In modern social dances like Brazilian Zouk and Bachata Sensual, dips play a major part combined with body rolls
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When the the Leader and Follower walk side-by-side, it is called a Caminando Walk, at least in my dance terminology. The Cásate, Arm-in-Arm Walk is an example of a Caminando Walk. The most common Caminando is the “Half-Sombrero Caminando Walk” often started as a full Enchufla Sombrero bringing the Follower to the Leader’s left side and then lifting the right
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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
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The most common Coca-Cola turn is done as last part of Dile Que No around the Leader on “5-6-7”. “Coca-Cola” is a nickname for a traveling left turn most often stepped as a Three Step Turn of two times 180 degrees. Coca-Cola “Around the Lead” is so common that if a video is named “Coca-Cola”, we can be pretty sure
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The “Contra Vacilala” has been around for a long time but we only have a few tutorials, and they are often badly named and too often the Follow steps private, homegrown, random junk. I know of four different “Contra Vacilala” figures (there are probably more). They all start from a two handed wrapped position making it possible to unwrap the
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Down-Under figures are prolific in Cuban Casino, that is figures where the Leader ducks under one or two arms. “Down-under” figures as well as “stepping up over” the arms are part and parcel of the Cuban (juvenile) Nudo (junk) tradition that has given Casino a bad name of being awkward and clumsy non-dancing. But some of these figures are too
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This is one of my favorite social moves because it is both advanced and easy. It works with a surprising success rate with a broad spectrum of Followers and it creates good flow and momentum. A good Follower can turn left or right, 360 degree, starting on any step, but it is a tradition to mostly start on “2”, “5”
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Bayamo moves are just combos of crossed two handed figures taking the Follower around the Leader with Rodeo Inverso as the central figure. They are a good way to get more left turning circular motion into the dance. I know more than 10 such common moves with many examples uploaded to YouTube. They don’t exist in the Miami Rueda Tradition:
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Kentucky is a popular move, hundreds of dance instructors have uploaded it to YouTube. It works equally well for Rueda de Casino and in one-on-one social dancing. As is so often the case, nobody remembers the origin of it or the reason for the name. It is not in the DVD collections of “Salsa a la Cubana”, “Salsa Lovers” or
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I hardly use named moves any more, small mini-dances, couple choreographies made for Rueda de Casina mostly. The reason is obvious. If we want playful, inspired dancing, if we want creative and music driven dancing, the dancers must be able to catch the moment, to modify, change and develop their dance step by step. That is, we must mostly use
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