Salsa Dancing Instructions
Salsa and Mambo music are highly percussive Cuban-based rhythms that make you want to dance! The music is based on a 2 bar clave rhythm that repeats throughout the song. Bongos, congos, bells and timbales are other featured percussive elements, with horns and vocals layered on top. To the average new listener the music usually sounds like a jungle of percussion overlaid with horns. Although Salsa dance and Mambo dance are usually thought of as fast exciting dances, they can have a slower more romantic feel as well.
There are a few different ways of using the 4 beats of Salsa music to make dance moves for salsa. While some people have very strong convictions about the 'rightness' of their way of counting the steps for salsa dancing, the bottom line is that you can have a great time salsa dancing to either rhythm. In our syllabus we count QQS and dance the first Quick on the 1st beat of music. This is probably the easier rhythm for salsa dancing, because it starts on the '1' beat of the music, which is natural for most people. Alternatively, some salsa dancers hold the first beat of music and start dancing 'on 2'. Dancing this count, you start on the 2nd beat and count 2 3 4 hold. (Note that this is just QQS starting on the 2nd beat). This is often thought of as Mambo rhythm, but it can be danced to any salsa music.
Dancing for Dessert provides everything you need to know to salsa dance! We provide illustrated salsa dance steps for online salsa dancing instructions. Try our free sample dance lessons online.
Dancing for Dessert. Illustrated Salsa Dance Steps. Online Dance Instruction.
Online dance lessons are the easiest way to learn dance steps. See our DANCE! page for details on various dance steps you can learn online.