Position

By position we mean the shape that your body takes during most of your dance. In general we distinguish two positions:

- Leaning position: Your chest is clearly leaning forward, further your hips (but your head should not be further than your chest or you will look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame !!!!) Your knees are almost always a little bent (even when you step forward or backwards). This is (very briefly explained) the Cuban style position.

- Straight position: Your shoulders are vertically aligned to your hips (or sliiiiiightly leaned forward). Your knees are straight when you step forward or backward. Please remember that "straight" is not the same than "stiff". Salsa dancers with a ballroom or ballet background tend to be stiffer than those with jazz-dance or contemporary dance experience.

Type of patterns:

Originating from different pure styles, the patterns and movements that you can see today in the dancefloor have finally been mixed up. It certainly helps confuse people about what a salsa style is but at the same time it brings a variety of possibilities that makes it impossible to get bored of dancing salsa! Again globalisation has something to do with this.

- Casino patterns: Most of the routines when your arms are entangled in your partner's arms, body and neck come from Cuba in the early 50's. Casino style stems from the traditional Cuban son (in the 50's, the commercial tag 'salsa' was not invented yet). Some of the best Havana dancers met regularly at the "Casino Deportivo", were they developed the "rueda de casino" (or Cuban wheel).

- Hustle: Disco dance has influence notably today's salsa style. The generally called "NY style" has brought into salsa some of the patterns (and the linear movement) from the hustle.

- Acrobatic style: Certainly influenced by rock&roll and ballroom, some salsa dancers introduced spectacular patterns where one of the partners (Usually the follower) lose contact with the floor, or his/her position was more horizontal than vertical.

- Cheek-to-cheek patterns: Still some people reject the flashy-entangled-acrobatic salsa patterns and prefer to keep close to his/her partner for a more sensual dance. Just a few inside/outside turns rightly distributed might be enough to make your dance interesting and enjoy both music and company without exhausting each other.

Personal enhacements:

You may find two persons doing the same patterns, let's say a Cross Body Lead (CBL) with inside turn, in the same travelling (CBL, for instance), in the same timing (Why not "on 1"?) in the same position (straight could be appropriate)... but still you see they are not doing it in the same way. They are adding a personal touch. Salsa has shifted from a dance for Latin-American people to a worldwide dance expression, so this personal touch may come from maaaaany different influences. Here we will only talk about the more widely recognised. (This does not mean at all that we consider them as "the best ones")

- Cuban rumba and Afrocuban body language: Cuban "Rumba" (don't confuse it with Spanish rumba, or ballroom rumba) refers to a group of related musical and dance styles in Cuba: yambú, guaguancó and columbia. Them all preserve a strong influence of African drumming and tribal dances. Given the common African drumming influence, Cuban salsa style is strongly influenced by the Rumba moves.

- Hustle (again): The rage of the 70's in the States could not make its way without spilling its influence on the Latin US salsa dancers. It brought quite a lot of the hands movements that we see today in most of the cross body lead dancers.

- Ballroom: Many ballroom dancers made a journey through the salsa experience (with more or less success) and brought as well some features from their style and techniques such as cambrés and portés.

- Jazz-dance, hip-hop and other modern "stand alone" dances: Most of the footwork (=shines, = freestyle) you see today in the salsa dance floors where originated in modern pop-music dance styles.

The personal touch is very much about body language. Complementing your salsa training with other dance disciplines will only make you a better and more distinct salsa dancer. Innovators watch out! If you bring too much of another discipline into salsa you risk to be considered as a freak!