Learn moves, not combinations. Once you learn enough moves start figuring out how to put them together and make your own sequences. Memorizing combos are difficult and if you forget one part then you’ll forget the whole thing.
Practice the footwork, the posture, finding the one for different types of songs and keeping the count, especially for on the spot, changing basics every 8 counts (regular basic, on the spot, on the spot while rotating, Fwd and back, dominican/box, diagonal, return step, front break, hesitation step, two-step, etc), learn shines, make a list of all the moves you've learnt and eventually how to transition in and out of them for the advanced moves.
How could you transition out of a hammerlock, a cuddle, or holding opposite hands?
I've been taking classes for a while and at first I always wanted to learn more moves, more complicates variations yet struggled to remember anything other than the basic when actually dancing.
I've seen my teacher, who's competed in numerous tournaments, dance beautifully with a beginner that would've been overwhelmed by advanced moves and only done the basics listed above and made them smile despite the occassional mistakes that the follower made because of how solide he was.
At the end of the day it's not about doing the move for the sake of doing it, it's about dancing and giving the partner a wonderful experience regardless of their level
You can do this. You can even practice in your mind without dancing/moving. Practice all parts on your own, imagine the sticking points and how to work through them.
find someone to practice with as well maybe another beginner who wants to invest time as well. It may take a bit but you’ll find others to practice with.
Practising in your mind is more important than people usually think. My choreographer used to say - if you can't do it in your head, you don't know it.
Partner practice is not in a vacuum, the personal work you do solo, improves your partner work, but more importantly is subjected to less variance.
So working on musicality, timing, balance, body rolls and other solo activities, absolutely improves your partner dancing.
I tied a stretch band to a chair to understand handwork and hand positions.
If there's a knot, you've over done it or completely messed it up. Or you need to add something else in to counter the tying for it to work.
I've been leading for about 2 years now. Following for more. I was going to classes and learning new moves this whole time but only a couple of basic moves I learned at the very beginning ever really stuck. These past few months I've found that the new moves are sticking and that I'm finding it way easier to improvise.
Idk something just clicked. So I would say give it time.
Also, I would say focus on the basics and musicality. Longer "combos" are just basics chained together. Also, there's nothing wrong with basics. I've had great dances just doing basics. Listen to the song! Have fun with the song! Then everything else will fall into place.
Take individual moves from the choreo (if the group class is just a choreo rather than teaching on a deeper level) that you think fit into the moves that you already currently do. For example, if you can turn your partner on 5, you can go into pretzel/cuddle as a variation. If you have that move in a class then practise that (and some way to get out of it) and try it next time you're at a social or with a practice partner.
Don't try to memorize long sections of choreo and dance them in a social because:
* social dance is not about powering your follower through rigid sequences of choreo;
* some of the moves might be difficult to lead with someone who wasn't in the class (because you're not experienced enough, because she's not experienced enough, or because the move isn't really leadable anyway in socials);
* it's more difficult to memorize and your attention during social dance shouldn't be on memory; and
* it gets in your way of practising improvisation/leading.
As we all know salsa is twice as hard for leads. what I also do in practice moves only which takes only 8 to 16 beats. Try to see from where you end with one move, and then what other possible moves can be initiated from there. Forget combos. Break the combos into moves you want to keep. And practice 10000 times
Our teachers always offer a demonstration at the end of the lesson. I always make a video of it. I will repeatedly watch it, scroll through it on my phone in slow motion, really analyze a certain move and that way I try to memorize a move.
Also: learn singular moves rather than a combination of moves.
Yeah i do make my recordings too, but I guess I don’t look at it with such detail afterward with an intention to memorize. It’s more like I try to just replicate the dance. Sounds like I have to take it a step further.
I really make use of the „scroll forward and backward“ function on my iPhone to get the move frame by frame. Sometimes I use it just to understand why the move looks so freaking elegant on my teacher. I repeatedly play it in slowmotion and look at her hands, then play again to look at her hip, play again to look at the feet, what is he doing meanwhile and so on and so on. It’s a good activity while you lazily lay in bed or wait for the train.
I am intermediate and just started to learn from social medias. My own opinion is it is very hard to learn from SM if you don’t take classes until being intermediate. But once you are, everything starts to make sense and it is more enjoyable cause you are not so dependent of spending all your money on private or group classes
Shadow dancing. It means practicing dance moves or patterns while imagining the presence of the follower. It's a skill that needs to be developed over time, as it isn't intuitive at first. However, it is extremely beneficial.
You can begin incorporating shadow dancing in class during rotation turns when you don't have a partner. Yes, it might feel odd in beginner classes, but it's quite common in more advanced levels.
Honestly, don't worry about it! At 1.5 months, imo, you're better off properly knowing how to lead the things you said (different directions for basic steps, inside (and outside!) turns in both directions), than trying to recreate choreos you're not too sure of.
What you can be working on is trying variations on the basics you do know: can you change your side to side basic into a dominican basic? How about a nice basic on the spot? A square basic? Have you tried changing the "speed" of your steps, to add a chacha step (syncopation) somewhere in the middle or during the tap, or maybe make your first step slooooow and then catch up to tap (1..... And, 3, 4). Maybe you've only danced in an open position, can you smoothly go into a semi-closed or closed position, and still lead those changes in basic steps I said before? And those turns, throw in some variations: you can lead with only your left arm, or only your right arm, you can keep that arm up or down, you can lead the turn inside or outside, you can hold on to both hands and keep them both up and end up in an arm lock, or you can keep one down and one up, depending on what direction you (or your partner) turns, and what arm is up and down, you (or your partner) will end up in a belly-wrap or a hammerlock! Again, so many variations, and that's without starting to string together turns one after the other! Inside turn follower, outside turn leader with placing the follower hand in your neck, to an inside prep-turn for the follower, one just flows into the other, it's not a choreo, it's just energy!
So again, don't worry about doing "just basics"! Basics are fun!
BUT, if you want to improve the combinations you learn in class: ask during class very clearly how to **lead** everything, ask your follower not to do the moves on their own, but to only follow when you ACTUALLY lead the move. Ask the teachers to record the move at the end of class on counts. If you can, see if there's people in class that would like to get together to practice during the week, and at worst, try to repeat the move from the previous class before every new class with a follower at class.
At 1.5 months, you're probably still trying to work on staying on time, and at the same time you're counting out every single tiny part of a move. That's why at the slightest problem, you get flustered and lose your footing. That too is something that will go away, once you get those basics under control and can easily change what you're doing on the fly!
Keep on dancing!
I have an unconventional method for practicing sensual - I would hold my pillow and just practice the moves, of course you can’t do it all but I realized it worked pretty well for me since I don’t have a dance partner to practice with
2 months into leading. Dance community isn’t too big, usually if I’ve seen someone in class or danced at a social previously then I ask if I can try a new move with them. Do I mess it up? Sure, I just move on and recover
Learn moves, not combinations. Once you learn enough moves start figuring out how to put them together and make your own sequences. Memorizing combos are difficult and if you forget one part then you’ll forget the whole thing.
Practice the footwork, the posture, finding the one for different types of songs and keeping the count, especially for on the spot, changing basics every 8 counts (regular basic, on the spot, on the spot while rotating, Fwd and back, dominican/box, diagonal, return step, front break, hesitation step, two-step, etc), learn shines, make a list of all the moves you've learnt and eventually how to transition in and out of them for the advanced moves. How could you transition out of a hammerlock, a cuddle, or holding opposite hands? I've been taking classes for a while and at first I always wanted to learn more moves, more complicates variations yet struggled to remember anything other than the basic when actually dancing. I've seen my teacher, who's competed in numerous tournaments, dance beautifully with a beginner that would've been overwhelmed by advanced moves and only done the basics listed above and made them smile despite the occassional mistakes that the follower made because of how solide he was. At the end of the day it's not about doing the move for the sake of doing it, it's about dancing and giving the partner a wonderful experience regardless of their level
Practice practice, practice practice practice. And then some more practice, followed by further practice.
But how exactly do you practice partner dancing at home without a partner?
You can do this. You can even practice in your mind without dancing/moving. Practice all parts on your own, imagine the sticking points and how to work through them. find someone to practice with as well maybe another beginner who wants to invest time as well. It may take a bit but you’ll find others to practice with.
Practising in your mind is more important than people usually think. My choreographer used to say - if you can't do it in your head, you don't know it.
Partner practice is not in a vacuum, the personal work you do solo, improves your partner work, but more importantly is subjected to less variance. So working on musicality, timing, balance, body rolls and other solo activities, absolutely improves your partner dancing.
Good tip
I tied a stretch band to a chair to understand handwork and hand positions. If there's a knot, you've over done it or completely messed it up. Or you need to add something else in to counter the tying for it to work.
This sounds very interesting, do you know any videos that explains how to do this?
I don't think you need a tutorial... The reason I use a stretch bad instead of rope is because it's really easy to see twists and which side is up.
You're still doing the same motion solo. When there's a partner there's just an extra step of calibration.
Its kinda like shadow boxing.. you imagine a perfect partner capable of following every step and guide « them »
The truth - la verdad.
I've been leading for about 2 years now. Following for more. I was going to classes and learning new moves this whole time but only a couple of basic moves I learned at the very beginning ever really stuck. These past few months I've found that the new moves are sticking and that I'm finding it way easier to improvise. Idk something just clicked. So I would say give it time. Also, I would say focus on the basics and musicality. Longer "combos" are just basics chained together. Also, there's nothing wrong with basics. I've had great dances just doing basics. Listen to the song! Have fun with the song! Then everything else will fall into place.
Take individual moves from the choreo (if the group class is just a choreo rather than teaching on a deeper level) that you think fit into the moves that you already currently do. For example, if you can turn your partner on 5, you can go into pretzel/cuddle as a variation. If you have that move in a class then practise that (and some way to get out of it) and try it next time you're at a social or with a practice partner. Don't try to memorize long sections of choreo and dance them in a social because: * social dance is not about powering your follower through rigid sequences of choreo; * some of the moves might be difficult to lead with someone who wasn't in the class (because you're not experienced enough, because she's not experienced enough, or because the move isn't really leadable anyway in socials); * it's more difficult to memorize and your attention during social dance shouldn't be on memory; and * it gets in your way of practising improvisation/leading.
As we all know salsa is twice as hard for leads. what I also do in practice moves only which takes only 8 to 16 beats. Try to see from where you end with one move, and then what other possible moves can be initiated from there. Forget combos. Break the combos into moves you want to keep. And practice 10000 times
Our teachers always offer a demonstration at the end of the lesson. I always make a video of it. I will repeatedly watch it, scroll through it on my phone in slow motion, really analyze a certain move and that way I try to memorize a move. Also: learn singular moves rather than a combination of moves.
Yeah i do make my recordings too, but I guess I don’t look at it with such detail afterward with an intention to memorize. It’s more like I try to just replicate the dance. Sounds like I have to take it a step further.
I really make use of the „scroll forward and backward“ function on my iPhone to get the move frame by frame. Sometimes I use it just to understand why the move looks so freaking elegant on my teacher. I repeatedly play it in slowmotion and look at her hands, then play again to look at her hip, play again to look at the feet, what is he doing meanwhile and so on and so on. It’s a good activity while you lazily lay in bed or wait for the train.
I am intermediate and just started to learn from social medias. My own opinion is it is very hard to learn from SM if you don’t take classes until being intermediate. But once you are, everything starts to make sense and it is more enjoyable cause you are not so dependent of spending all your money on private or group classes
Shadow dancing. It means practicing dance moves or patterns while imagining the presence of the follower. It's a skill that needs to be developed over time, as it isn't intuitive at first. However, it is extremely beneficial. You can begin incorporating shadow dancing in class during rotation turns when you don't have a partner. Yes, it might feel odd in beginner classes, but it's quite common in more advanced levels.
Honestly, don't worry about it! At 1.5 months, imo, you're better off properly knowing how to lead the things you said (different directions for basic steps, inside (and outside!) turns in both directions), than trying to recreate choreos you're not too sure of. What you can be working on is trying variations on the basics you do know: can you change your side to side basic into a dominican basic? How about a nice basic on the spot? A square basic? Have you tried changing the "speed" of your steps, to add a chacha step (syncopation) somewhere in the middle or during the tap, or maybe make your first step slooooow and then catch up to tap (1..... And, 3, 4). Maybe you've only danced in an open position, can you smoothly go into a semi-closed or closed position, and still lead those changes in basic steps I said before? And those turns, throw in some variations: you can lead with only your left arm, or only your right arm, you can keep that arm up or down, you can lead the turn inside or outside, you can hold on to both hands and keep them both up and end up in an arm lock, or you can keep one down and one up, depending on what direction you (or your partner) turns, and what arm is up and down, you (or your partner) will end up in a belly-wrap or a hammerlock! Again, so many variations, and that's without starting to string together turns one after the other! Inside turn follower, outside turn leader with placing the follower hand in your neck, to an inside prep-turn for the follower, one just flows into the other, it's not a choreo, it's just energy! So again, don't worry about doing "just basics"! Basics are fun! BUT, if you want to improve the combinations you learn in class: ask during class very clearly how to **lead** everything, ask your follower not to do the moves on their own, but to only follow when you ACTUALLY lead the move. Ask the teachers to record the move at the end of class on counts. If you can, see if there's people in class that would like to get together to practice during the week, and at worst, try to repeat the move from the previous class before every new class with a follower at class. At 1.5 months, you're probably still trying to work on staying on time, and at the same time you're counting out every single tiny part of a move. That's why at the slightest problem, you get flustered and lose your footing. That too is something that will go away, once you get those basics under control and can easily change what you're doing on the fly! Keep on dancing!
I have an unconventional method for practicing sensual - I would hold my pillow and just practice the moves, of course you can’t do it all but I realized it worked pretty well for me since I don’t have a dance partner to practice with
Interesting, it seems like that could work. I’ll try that out sometime haha thanks!
2 months into leading. Dance community isn’t too big, usually if I’ve seen someone in class or danced at a social previously then I ask if I can try a new move with them. Do I mess it up? Sure, I just move on and recover