Having the right gear is essential regardless if you dance competitively or for fun. If you’ve been wearing walking shoes at social dance events all this time, you’re probably putting too much effort into the spinning and turning simply because these shoes are not meant to be worn while dancing.
A good pair of Latin dance shoes will make a world of difference to your performance. You’ll find how amazing it feels to twirl, glide, slide, and spin without putting too much work into it when you’re wearing the right shoes.
If you’ve never thought about investing in a couple of social dance shoes before, now’s the best time to do it. With more and more dance studios opening up, it’s only a matter of time before your social calendar is filled with social dance events, dance classes, and rehearsals; you need to be ready!
But if you need more convincing, here are some of the reasons why you should ditch your old walking shoes and start wearing Latin dance shoes for dancing:
There are a lot of questions and myths out there around the difference between salsa on 1 and on 2, so we’ve collected the facts here for you.
We hope this article will allow you to have more educated conversations on salsa timing, and help you decide which timing you enjoy more. It’s OK to love both!
Before we dive in, here’s some quick background…
On1 salsa timing is commonly known as LA style salsa, which was developed by the Vazquez brothers focusing on sharp hits in the music, flashy moves and acrobatics.
On2 salsa timing is commonly known as New York style salsa. There are a few different ways to dance On2. Most notably there is the original mambo timing from the Paladium era 2-3-4, 6-7-8 (known as “contratiempo” in Spanish), as well as dancing to beats 1-2-3, 5-6-7 (known as “a tiempo” in Spanish). Dancing On2 to 1-2-3, 5-6-7 was popularized by Eddie Torres. The common denominator between all ways to dance On2 is that your break steps are on 2 and 6.
Let’s dig in and find out why these timings look and feel different.
At a basic level, this is your ability to dance on beat so you can communicate with your partner and execute movements on time. As you improve your ability to recognize rhythms, instruments, and song structure you’ll find yourself able to start reflecting that expression in your dancing and be more playful. In essence, timing is a foundational element of being able dance with a partner and musicality is what brings that dance to life. If you struggle with finding the beat and dancing on time, I created a helpful resource just for you: How to Find the Beat in Salsa Music. It’s a four-part video course that will help you improve your ability to find and dance on beat within 30 days, so go check it out.
2) Mastering Your Basic Steps
This is like learning to walk. These are the foundational steps to everything in salsa. You can never practice your basics enough. So get crackin’ and make sure you evaluate yourself along the way. make sure you can…
Do your salsa basics on time
Do you basics in all directions (front/back, side to side, diagnolly, crossing over to the front and the back)
Switch between each basic step without hesitation
Stylize your basics with taps and touches
3) Shines
Shines are the footwork that you use beyond just your basic steps. And practicing footwork will help you refine your timing, stepping, and pivoting techniques. Since there are only so many ways you can move your feet, the same steps you learn solo will often appear in your partner work. That means the more shines you know and get comfortable with, the more you’ll start feeling better both dancing solo and with a partner. Through working on shines, you’ll also learn how to step to different rhythms beyond the basic timing. This helps expand your awareness and understanding of the dance and your skills overall
4) Body Movement
This is really where the magic happens. Let’s take a look at some basics. (Refering to 2:58 in the above video) So here’s a basic with no body movement. Now here’s a basic with some body movement and now here’s a basic with serious body movement. There’s not much else to say. Body movement is that wow factor, that secret sauce, that flavor that makes dance so amazing to watch. When I started to improve my body movement, I really started having so much more fun. I felt way more connected to the music because I was able to express myself to it. Now, body movement is still one of my greatest weaknesses but it’s definitely my focus right now because I realized it doesn’t only make you look better, it feels so much better. It’s what brings everything to life. It makes you look good, it makes you feel good, and not just to you but to your partner as well. That’s because body movement is actually technique. And when you move correctly, you’re leading and following will feel much more smooth, connected, and impressive.
5) Turn Technique
Turn technique is what holds most beginner follows back from being able to execute smooth and controlled turns. And it’s what holds most leads back from being able to lead the turns smoothly because they’re leading them on the incorrect timing. Dial your turns in because it’s the fastest way to improve both as a experienced beginner lead and follow. It’s going to make your dances so much more enjoyable too
6) Layering Your Skills Together
So you’re going to want to practice all the individual concepts I’ve already mentioned on their own before getting into layering. But once you have your timing, your basics, some simple shines, some body movement, and some turn technique, you want to start layering them on top of each other to bring the package together and make your dancing more complete.
To start layering these techniques and skills together, begin with your basics. Once you have your basics down, start trying to add your body movements in. Once you can do that, take some simple shines and then try and add body movement into those shines. Now, the important thing to remember here is that you shouldn’t do complex footwork at this point because it’s going to complicate things too much. As you’re trying to add this layer of body movement on top it’s going to be much harder to even do the simplest of shines.
Next up, once you’re comfortable adding body movement to some simple shines, add a turn or two in there and then see if you can add body movement on top of that. Once your execution improves, you can focus on doing each of these things and connect deeper to music. Try playing a song. As it plays, think about and feel how the energy of the song changes from the intro through the verse and into the next section. How does it make you feel, and how are you going to express those changes in the song with your movement? Now remember: Layering these skills on top of each other is a very step by step progressive process. Some days you might feel like you’re a few steps ahead and otherdays you might feel like you’re taking a few steps back. But if you focus on all these individual elements and then layer them on top of each other one by one being very compassionate with yourself and starting very simple, you’re going to see results over time
When practicing alone, the camera is your best friend and you are your biggest critic. Before getting started, try and have at least one video clip of yourself dancing with a partner so you can analyze what you need to work on.
How to approach critiquing your dancing:
Watch the video all the way through without thinking. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.
Watch the video a second time and identify the parts of the dance that don’t quite look right. Maybe you fumbled your steps, your partner didn’t respond well to your lead, or you had an otherwise awkward moment. Figure out what caused that awkwardness and write it down.
Keep a list of your “mess ups” and find out what your biggest weakness is. Some examples could be stumbling in your footwork, unclear lead/follow technique, poor timing etc.
Choose one of the skills from your list of ‘mess ups’ and focus on it during your upcoming practice sessions. Every now and then, re-film yourself and see how you’re improving on your skill of choice.
Repeat the process of weakness identification, analysis and practice until you are happy with the progress you’ve made.
Celebrate when you see improvement!
8) Practice Partner Shadowing
Shadowing is basically running through a move or pattern from start to finish while pretending to dance with a partner. It might feel a little lonely, but it’s a great way to drill your technique without the distraction of a partner. Quite often, when you’re learning something new, you’ll pay too much attention to what your partner is doing and forget what you should be concentrating on. When shadowing, you can make sure your posture, movement, lead/follow technique, and footwork are all dialed in before moving on to a partner.
Shadowing is more of an intermediate technique and will get easier and easier the more Salsa experience you have. If you’re a beginner, feel free to give it a try, but don’t get discouraged if you can’t quite visualize the hand holds and (your ghost partner’s) body positioning while starting out.
9) Memorize Your Steps
Dancing is a language. You have to learn your vocabulary before writing a sentence and perfect your sentence writing before crafting a letter.
In the same way, you have to master Salsa steps before combining them into a pattern and master patterns before social dancing. Everything in dance is modular. Without the vocabulary, you have no building blocks to build your masterpiece.
So what can you do to make this masterpiece more masterful? Memorize your moves! Increase your potential by having as many building blocks as you can. If you forget your moves, your social dance will crumble.
If you’re really keen to try this, create a list of all the steps you know (perhaps categorizing them by skill level or technique will help you remember them). Every once in a while, re-visit the list and see how many of the moves you can perform from memory. If you find yourself forgetting some, then that’s a good time to start jogging your memory.
The moves you have locked in your memory are your home base – your safe place. From there, you can slowly add steps to your arsenal and expand your vocabulary.
10) Watch Great Dancers Do Their Thing
Watching others dance is a great strategy to tie into your camera critique. You already know what skill you want to improve on, so now you need to find someone who’s great at it and study them.
Go out for a night of social dancing and take a break in between dances. Glue your eyes to the dance floor and identify someone who looks like they really know what they’re doing. How does their movement compare to yours? Try to ignore their personal style and focus on the technical movement. Pay close attention to how they connect with their partner, move their body, flow between steps and respond to the music. While watching, focus on the movement that’s related to the skill you are trying to improve. Watching everything they do is fine, but ‘everything’ can be overwhelming to think about. Having a focus will help you find the key takeaways to fast track your improvement.
After your secret spy session, remember one or two takeaways that you can try next time you practice. Rinse and repeat this process for each skill you want to improve. Remember to use your camera to keep tabs on your progress.
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In the fast-paced world we live in, we want everything immediately and too often this spills over into how we learn, leading us to glaze over the fundamentals and not reach our salsa dancing potential.
The problem is that there’s a misconception with fundamentals. People get antsy when they work on basics, they want to progress faster, “I’m ready to move on!” they say. But when you move on so quickly, not nurturing the foundation you’re building, you hit an upper limit, a ceiling. Read more →
Taking 15 minutes to better understand turn technique could change your world.
A month ago, we cruised over to beautiful Kelowna, Canada with Patrick and Scarlet to teach some salsa workshops on turn technique. At the start of class Patrick and Scarlet asked everyone to social dance, using inside and outside turns, to get a sense of where everyone was at. I jumped in and started dancing with Rina (not her real name).
