“I just have a quick question. The other day I went to a salsa class and the instructor said we shouldn’t use our thumbs when holding onto the woman’s hands. For me I find it easier to create and control the tension if I use my thumbs especially when it comes to dancing with women who lack tension in their arms. I tried not using my thumbs and it feels little awkward. What do you recommend?”

Well Mark here is my answer:

When you close your thumb or palm over the follower’s hands, the follower immediately relaxes their arms and, even subconsciously, thinks that because you have them they don’t need to do anything. The result is a follower with Spaghetti arms who won’t follow quickly and accurately your lead. So you may think that you have more control because you are holding on but in actuality the follower will not respond properly to your lead.

Instead, if you open your thumb and palms and curl your finger tips and try to have your partner create the same tension with only your fingertips, you will force your partner to create resistance in her frame to keep from letting go. The more often your partner lets you go the more she will strengthen her fingertips and create more resistance. So you may feel like it is out of control at first because you are losing your connection but eventually your partner will firm up her fingertips and frame and then you will have a partner who will follow you quickly and accurately.

In other words, it is worth the initial growing pains to get the right tension and frame so that you can move on to become a great intermediate and then advanced leader.

So followers and leaders, make sure you never use thumbs and palms and instead curl your fingertips slightly and pull a little to create consistent tension and resistance.

Hope that helps – happy practicing!

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1) Create tension in your frame – When you instructor keeps reminding you to keep your arms 90 degrees, open the thumbs and only use you fingertips in a light pull, they are reminding you to create tension in your frame. This is because salsa is not a choreographed dance. You never know what the next move is and the leader has to communicate what the upcoming move is with the tension in their fingers. To assist in the communication process, keep your arms at a 90 degree angle with your elbows flush along the sides of you bodies. Don’t stretch your arms. This weakens your tension. Both leaders and followers should not clamp their thumbs down on your partners hands because, again, this weakens tension. Your only hold should come from your fingertips curling and pulling gently against your partners fingertips.

2) Don’t look down – Looking down is a bad move for many reasons. The first is it shows your self consciousness which affects lead and follow. Your partern can sense when you aren’t confident and they become less confident about your lead or follow. Also looking down as a leader doesn’t allow you to see around you and you can end up hurting yourself, your partner and couples around you. Same with followers who look down. You can end up traveling too far or into another couple.

3) Listen to salsa music outside the classroom – Many students worry that they don’t understand the salsa beat. This is because they only listen to salsa music for 1 hour a week in a classroom where you are busy learning new moves and it is difficult to concentrate on several things at once. Instead, take the time to listen to salsa music in your Ipod or in your car and tap out what you think is the beat 1-2-3, 5-6-7. Slowly you will start to distinguish the one of the music and be able to understand the beat. This will then translate to better, more musical dancing in the classroom and on the dance floor.

There are many more tips to discuss. I will try to provide some more over the next few days!

The post Salsa Tips to Keep In Mind appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Flex writes:

“Let’s try to compile a list of simple basic things that followers should do automatically, but all too often don’t:

1. Wait for a lead.

2. In the absence of a lead – i.e. when the leader does not signal and initiate some change of direction or momentum – do your basic over 8 beats (many moves particularly in X-body rely on the follower executing her basic: if On1, back then forward, forward then back. Sooooo many followers don’t do this simple thing!).

3. Maintain your frame – connect to the lead with responsive arm pressure. Otherwise he can’t guide you with precision.

4. In open hold, follow the hand that is being led, with your frame. i.e. orient your frame towards it

5. When they’re below shoulder height and your hands are on his, keep the connecting hands slightly angled up at the wrist (so that, using the connection pressure, he can guide you backwards with that hand as well as forwards)

6. Keep your hands available – waist height when loose, if not in a styling moment – so that he knows exactly where to find a hand.

7. Take the offered hand, returning any pressure.

8. If the lead drapes your hand on or round his body, leave it there until he removes it one way or another – this helps him to find that hand again immediately, as he can feel exactly where it is even if he’s turning.

9. If he tosses or flicks your hand / arm up, for pity’s sake continue the movement gracefully up and around. He’s expecting you to do that, not to make your arm go stiff after moving three inches!

10. Distinguish between hand flicks where the lead wants that hand back again (the majority) from those where he is throwing away that hand in order to take the other. The beat on which this occurs is usually critical to that distinction.

11. Do not take the initiative to let go the leader’s hand, even if you worry that what he is attempting to do may result in a knot. (This assumes that the leader knows what he’s doing – if you decide not to trust him, the dance may as well end there and then).

12. Do not hold on to the leader’s hand so that he cannot drop yours easily. The initiative to take or drop a hand is his.

13. If the leader initiates a turn or spin, keep turning or spinning until he acts to stop you. Many moves over the full eight beats rely heavily on this principle and become joyfully easy if only the follower understands it. If she doesn’t, they either require a heavy mechanical lead or result in one of those moments where she knows she’s hesitated and got something wrong – but may blame it unfairly on his leading!

14. Unless otherwise engineered specifically by the lead, keep some bend in your connected elbow so that there is always some flexibility for you to step backwards as well as forwards.

15. Recognise the signals to go into a shine and learn some of the conventions to signal when you’d like to come out of it. Have a few steps you can shine with, rather than freezing in horror.

16. Recognise a block and have your bodyroll etc. ready to occupy that space of four beats until the block’s lifted.

17. If he’s doing something amazing in front of you but not leading you to do anything at the same time, don’t stand there frozen in open-mouthed wonder! Do something cute and sexy.

18. In the absence of any tactile lead, use visual cues. If he’s positioning for a cross-body lead, no contact, then do a cross body. If you’re doing X-body style and he starts walking round you, don’t turn (just do your back-and-forward, forward-and-back 8-beat basic). If it’s Cuban and he walks round you, do turn.

19. If the leader’s behind you and one or both of your hands are loose on the pause beat, make them available to him (use the seagull position if both hands, half seagull position if one hand, and if he doesn’t take them on the next beat withdraw them quickly as he may be coming round you and doesn’t want to go round a wide circle to avoid your extended hands).

20. When he starts to lead your arms overhead, take the tension/pressure off as soon as he takes the tension off (don’t fight a head-comb, and when spinning or turning keep those overhead arms soft so he can do touch-and-gos or neck wraps or hand drapes or hand flicks etc without you getting into a stiff-arm wrestle)

21. Pay attention to your leader as well as to his lead. Look at him when he’s looking at you. And smile! The least you can both do is be each other’s for five minutes on the dance floor.”

This is really a great list for followers to work on. Ladies, most complaints that men have centre around these issue so choose 1 tip a week and work on it!

The post Flex’s 21 Things for Followers To Follow appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Back leading is not a good habit to allow yourself to indulge in. Many beginner female students back lead which means they try to control the dance – they assume a move is taking place and will lead themselves in it. Because they don’t concentrate on it right from the beginning it becomes a difficult habit to break as they progress and they will find men will not enjoy dancing with them as much.

Remember that it is not your role to lead. Your role is to follow and look great doing it. A great tip to combat back leading is to close your eyes when you feel you are starting the habit. Let your partner tell you when you begin and as soon as you do, close your eyes and allow your partner to guide you. If you are back leading because your partner is not leading you properly, then verbally tell him what you need as opposed to moving his arms for him.

The other thing you could try to do to avoid back leading is to concentrate on your styling – the way you look, your posture, your arm movements, your body movement from knees, to hips, to rib cage to shoulders and your facial expression. Concentrating on your own areas will help avoid back leading.

The last thing to note is that men who learn with a partner who has back led them will end up suffering from this as they will not be able to lead another dancer assertively and quickly enough. So stick to your role, ladies, and after the first month or two you will see a noticeable difference in yourself and your partner!

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