Salsa Dancing Tips?

Question:

Salsa Dancing Tips?

I have been trying to learn to dance Salsa for the last couple of weeks. Although I have made some progress in learning the basics, I still have a bit of confusion on what are the best moments to perform turns, cross body leads and switching to side steps between other things and off course, how often to repeat to avoid monotony and at least display some sense of style as a beginner.

Does anybody know of a good online resource that may go a bit into explaining these aspects? Mostly everything I??m finding is just teaching me the same basic steps with slight variations but never truly telling me when to use them.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Essentially, it depends on what style you are dancing. The two most common styles are dancing on 1 and dancing on 2; referring to the first or the second beat of the music. For the most part, the footwork and dance patterns are similar, though the style of body movement differs. If you are dancing on 1 the leader will break forward with the left foot on the first beat of the music and back with the right on 5. If on 2, the leader will break back with the right foot on the second beat of the music and forward with the left on 6.

In my opinion, wether dancing on 1 or 2, the most essential part of dancing salsa is hitting the breaks. What this means is dancing to the timing of the music. I find that most new dancers want focus on learning body movement and multiple combinations while overlooking the importance of the basic step and dancing on time.

Sites that go into detail with regards to your question are not coming to mind, though I find it very helpful to watch others dance. There are lots of clips online of salsa dancers dancing socially that could be instrumental in helping you improve. Youtube.com has a lot clips, but you have to know what you??re looking for there because there are a lot of bad salsa dancing clips there. A site I like is www.imambo.tv. Most dancers you will see there dance on 2. My team also has a site at www.salsainutah.com. We have a few fun clips (we??re trying to improve our collection).

I know this is long, but to keep things simple for now, if you are dancing on 1 the women??s turns and the cross body lead occur on 5, 6 & 7. If dancing on 2, then on 1, 2 & 3. If dancing on 1, a woman??s basic side step to the left would be with the left foot on 5, and to the right with the right foot on 1. I hope this helps. There is a forum at my teams website where you can ask any question you like about salsa dancing.