One of the most basic yet crucial aspects to dancing is weight-shifting. What is weight-shifting? Simply put, it’s how you displace your weight each time you step. It’s also how to make your dancing look sexy and natural. Sounds easy, right? Well you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t do it correctly as well as how tough it can be to master.
Learning Latin Hip Movement
A dancer with great weight-shifting easily set themselves apart from
the rest. Female dancers exude sexiness and Male dancers show
confidence and skill with their excellent weight-shift.
What you can do
Start by standing against a wall and place both of your hands slightly
behind your glutes/booty. Now shift your weight so it’s onto your
right leg and slightly bend your left so there’s no weight on it. You
should’ve noticed that your right glute has moved back and is now
touching your right hand.
Next, slowly shift your weight to the left leg. Your right glute will have moved forward and the left one has gone
back and is now touching your left hand. If you don’t want to use your
hands, you can be close to a wall so that when you shift weight, your
glutes will touch the wall.
Once you’ve got the basic weight-shift movement, start walking away from the wall, each time focusing on your weight moving from one leg to another.
The real trick here is to really focus on how it feels when all of your weight goes from one leg to another. If you don’t feel a shift, you’re not transferring all of your weight.
Once you get your walking away from the wall down, you can start weight-shift walking using you salsa basic. Go nice and slow at first, focus on the shift and do this for a few minutes every day. Soon enough, you’ll feel yourself weight shifting when you dance and how properly weight-shifting will make your execution of moves much easier and more effective.
The Pendulum Technique
Another solid technique for great weight-shifting is what I call, the Pendulum Technique. Think that theres an upside-down triangle full of energy that rests behind your belly-button and points downward through your hips.
When you shift your weight to the left, this triangle will move over and will now be pointing downward to your left foot. When you shift right, it targets the right foot.
Now stand straight and shift your weight back and forth, thinking this triangle of energy is moving left to right, much like a pendulum. Keep rocking back and forth now taking side steps and then work on stepping forward and backward. Always think of the pendulum and how it should be swinging when you step. Tighten your abs and it will be easier to move.
Soon enough your weight will shift well, and you’ll really start to nail down that sexy, Latin look…
Till then,
Stay Shining Salseros!
