How to be a better salsa dancer? In this article, we will share our experience and advices on how to improve your salsa lead and be a better salsa dancer! This article is addressed to the leaders. We will do a separate one for the followers side!
Here are the Bullet points for our 15 Salsa dancing tips :
1- Be gentle with yourself
2-Be gentle with your salsa partner
3- Always ask your salsa dance partner for feedbacks
4- Swap roles between leader & Follower
5- Always practice your basic salsa step. Don’t rush this learning stage.
5 Bis- Don’t be afraid to add a basic salsa step before continuing a turn pattern
6- Listen to Salsa Music All the time
7- Take the Lead. Don’t hesitate.
8- Give yourself time
9- Go Out Social Dancing
10- Don’t take yourself seriously
11- Practice at Home & Alone
12- Record yourself & Watch it after!
13- Get the attitude on! Show confidence!
14- Watch video of other salsa dancers and get inspired.
15- Practice your spinning technique
How to be a better salsa dancer?
First of all, let me introduce myself quickly. My name is Clement and have been dancing
- Salsa,
- Bachata (Is Bachata Dirty Dancing?)
- Kizomba
- Semba
- Afro Dance
- Son Cubano & Cuban Son
for over 20+ years. I have also built my own dance school on the Gold Coast and been teaching over 1400 Students for the last 8 years.
9 Tips to Improve your salsa dancing & Be a Better Dancer!
Let dive into our 9 fundamentals tips to improve your salsa leading skills and make you a better salsa dancer and salsa leader!
Salsa Dancing Tip 1 - Learning How to Properly Lead in Salsa is a Skill that requires time and practice!
First of all, The subject of learning how to lead is not an easy one. It is easy for everyone to learn a salsa step. But learning how to PROPERLY lead is a skill that requires time and practice. That’s why, our first tip is for you to actually be gentle with yourself. You can learn a step in a week, but properly leading your partner can take years to learn.So, don’t give up!
How to be a Better Salsa Dancer?
Salsa Dancing Tips 2- Be Gentle with your Salsa dance Partner
Be gentle with your partner! When we start learning salsa, we all remember the feeling of being stressed out. As a result, we tend to grab, and squash our partner’s hand. Not very enjoyable feeling. Our recommendation: try to lead your partner using less strength and pressure. Try also not to grab her fingers, but instead to lead with your frame and whole body. I know, Cliche! But t’s true! Don’t just rely on your arms, instead ensure your chest is angled and giving the direction too!
Tips Salsa Dancing 3 - Always ask your dance partner's feedback
Make sure to always ask for feedbacks. The only way to improve your leading skills is to improve your communication through leading and improve the overall followers sensation at the end of the dance. So, don’t be scared and ask her !
Was I leading to strong?
Were my lead clear enough?
Did you enjoy the dance?
Yay, I know, this is an annoying stage of your learning journey. But it is necessary. Until you reach the next level, and be able to feel and be aware of your lead and strength. With time and confidence, you will also be able to read your partner better. Anticipate her moves, weight transfer and the overall environment while dancing.
How to be a Better Salsa Dancer?
How to improve your salsa leading skills? Swap Roles!
An exercise I loved doing down the track of my learning g journey was to swap roles while dancing. I started learning how to dance salsa with my best friend. We were obsessed with latin dancing! And we wanted to know how it feels to follow. So we often alternated between leader and follower. That helped us a lot to understand what a follower feel and how we can improve our leading. It was also an extremely fun experience as we got to understand each other leading world, steps and creativity!
How to be a Better Salsa Dancer?
Tips for Salsa Dancing 5 - Always Work on Your Basics Salsa Steps
Never forget the importance of your basics. Most people try to learn many many steps extremely quickly. As a results, you get extremely overwhelmed. Yay, I did that too. I also wrote down on a paper the names of the steps with a description on how to execute them. (Back then, there wasn’t as many videos – so pen and paper were the way to go!).
But back to the basic steps. Drilling them, over and over again IS ok! You might think that your partner will be bored. But really, that’s the only way for you to improve. Once you improve and level up your dance, your partner will enjoy it. So it is a minor sacrifice worth the effort.
Extra Salsa Tips for Leaders:
Don’t be afraid to insert a basic Salsa step before continuing a turn pattern if needed!
Tip for Salsa Dancing 6 - Listen to salsa music abundantly
Listen to salsa music everywhere you go.If you are not used to listen to salsa music, you will not naturally understand the rhythm. Salsa music can be overwhelming with so many instruments playing together. Try to identify one instrument (let’s say guitar, drum or conga) and get the pattern from it. You would want to be able to listen to a song, and dance while keeping the beat without trying to find the beat. Yay, confusing. Basically, you want to dance on the beat naturally. Without putting any thoughts on it, so you can focus on leading your dance partner properly! It will definitely free some mind space!
Salsa Tips to improve your leading skills 7 - Take the Lead
TAKE the lead. Don’t hesitate when you lead, don’t second guess yourself (unless something is happening that feels unsafe). This might be the most difficult mental shift for you. You’re actively crafting a dance and asking your follow to realize your vision. You have to go ahead with your heart on your sleeve and take charge, working with them to make something unique. Ask firmly and smoothly.
How to Be a Better Salsa Dancer?
How to be a better salsa dancer? Tip 8 - Give Yourself Time
I know, I am repeating myself, but this is important: Give yourself time. You might not see any improvement at first, while applying any single recommendations you can hear on YouTube, or win your dance school. But you are improving and improving your leading skills takes time.
How to Be a Better Salsa Dancer?
Salsa Dance tips 9 - Go out social dancing !
Finally, go out social dancing as many time as possible. The best way to improve is to practice. So get out there and practice your salsa moves!
How to Be a Better Salsa Dancer?
Other common Salsa dancing tips to be a better salsa dancer
Here is a list of other salsa and latin dancing tips that we used and find helpful!
How to Be a Better Salsa Dancer?
1- Don’t Take yourself seriously and Stay Humble !
It is important to learn how to laugh at yourself. Don’t let your ego get in the way. In oder to learn how to dance salsa and any other latin dances, you will need to make some mistakes. Instead of being upset, or embarrassed, embrace the moment. Put your ego aside, or your feelings aside, and stay humble. Learn, get feedbacks and practice hard!
2- Practice at home and alone.
Good thing is that you don’t need a partner to practice at home. You can practice your solo steps by going online on YouTube and learning some salsa shines. This will be great for you to work on your salsa timing and salsa musicality, as well as coordination.
You can also practice shadow dancing at home. Which means you visualise your partner and try to lead an invisible salsa partner. This will help you memorising the steps you learn while implementing muscle memories for this specific steps!
We added some Salsa tutorial dance videos bellow for you to practice!
3- Record yourself while dancing and practicing .. and analyse it after!
Ok. This can be a bit scary. No one like to watch himself or herself dancing at first. But let’s be real. If you don’t like what you see, there is a high probability that other people feel the same ! Improve your overall look while dancing (salsa postures, heads up, body tension, etc) until you fall in love with your own reflection!
4- Be confident
This will probably not come easy at first. But same as you can feel when someone walk confidently towards you to talk to you (i.e business meeting etc), same applies to dancing. Attitude is as important in latin and ballroom dancing! Our advice: Fake it until you make it! But don’t be arrogant! Stay humble, but with confidence!
5- Watch videos & get inspired!
This one is the easy one. It is probably the one that you do naturally and constantly!
Watching other people dance. Watch Latin dancers that inspire you!
Well, good news: this will help you improve your salsa dance and be a better salsa dancer! The more you get inspired, the more you learn, the more you can create your own style and inspire others!
6- Practice your spinning technique
It doesn’t matter what type of salsa you are dancing: Cuban salsa, LA salsa, Colombian Salsa, Cali Salsa, Portorican salsa.
Learning how to properly spin is important for any dancers! And good thing: you can do it at home, alone!
There is many tutorials explaining you how to spin on Youtube – so get into it !
Salsa Dancing Tips - Cuban Salsa Dance Tutorial
In this video you will learn the basic step for dancing cuban salsa (also called Casino). Learn how to lead properly in cuban salsa, and how to dance cuban salsa.
How to be a better salsa dancer?
This is where things start to be a bit more complicated! In this video, you will learn one of the very common cuban salsa step called Enchufla.
Learn Cuban salsa footwork, lead and cuban salsa moves with this short 2 minute tutorial.
How to be a better salsa dancer?
Practice your salsa steps alone at home with our Salsa shines dance tutorials
Improve your overall salsa coordination and sense of timing with this salsa tutorial. Learning new salsa shines and practicing them at home will benefits you during your salsa learning journey! Practice them over and over until it is muscle memories!
How to be a better salsa dancer?
Salsa Dance Shoes & Shoes For Salsa Dancing
To be able to be a better salsa dancer, you will also need the best latin dance shoes. Latin Dance Shoes Australia will provide the best dance shoes for latin dancing.
You can customise your heels shape, and heels size for any of their dancing shoes. Wether you are looking for ballroom dance shoes, tango shoes, salsa shoes or latin shoes, you will find everything you need there!
How to be a better salsa dancer?
How to be a better salsa dancer?
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Origins of Cuban Salsa & Free Salsa Dance Tutorial
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Cuban Salsa Step: Guapea With Suelta
How to Be a Better Salsa Dancer?
More informations available here for senior citizen dance classes
Dance teacher, music lover and latin dancer!
