Most articles, forums, and videos emphasize these two ways to learn: in class and at the club. Yet there is so much more that you can do on your own to become a better dancer- no floor or partner necessary. Here are 5 tips to help you learn Salsa on your own, which will help you improve at a MUCH faster rate.
1. MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE MIRROR- Practice body rolls against a wall or mirror, focusing on ‘peeling yourself off of the wall’. For a downward roll, start with your head and follow with your chest, stomach, hips, and knees. For an upward roll, come back up with your knees, hips, stomach, chest and finally head. This will give you the muscle memory, and muscles in general, to do great body rolls while dancing.
2. WATCH OTHER DANCERS- whether on the dance floor or the internet, observing can be your greatest learning tool. Don’t allow yourself to be limited to the styles present in your area. Watch dancers from around the world to see what styles are out there. No matter where you are observing, pick dancers who you admire or who have something you’d like to incorporate into your dancing. Make it your goal to learn something from someone each time you go out (congresses are perfect for this), and you will add lots of variety to your repertoire.
3. DO SIT-UPS- strong abs give you better balance, which allows you to to be more smooth and centered on the dance floor. This is most important for spinning- the best way to spin is with a nice, tight core that allows you to spot and stay balanced. Try doing ab-strengthening exercises just before going to dance class or out to the club, and it will likely make you feel much more controlled. That is the short term fix- as for long term, strong abs will help you become a better spinner in general since you’ll have more strength to whip around faster, and will also allow better strength for attempting more advanced moves.
4. RECORD YOURSELF- The video camera is your friend! Really, it is. This is perhaps the best tool out there, as humbling as the experience may be. Have someone video tape you social dancing, in practice, in the studio with a partner, wherever you want. Later, watch the video and see what you think. Sometimes we are our harshest critics, and for this very reason, it will allow you improve at a much faster rate. We don’t always have great perception of what our bodies are doing- we make think that we are doing something correctly, but then on film we’ll see that we are not, and this allows a better connection between mind and body. This is also a great tool for dance teams- record your routine in practice, tech rehearsal, and performance and analyze it. That way you know if you are in unison, and if all the movements are being done the same way.
5. BODY ISOLATIONS- In front of a mirror, move each part of your body in isolation. Be careful to ISOLATE the movement, only move one part at a time, no matter how slow you go. This works great to slow cha cha music, so each movement can take a couple 8 counts. If you dedicate some time each day to practicing these isolations, your body movement will improve and will become much more natural out on the dance floor.
Shoulders: Start with one shoulder, rotating in backward circles, then forward. Then the next shoulder, both directions. Then move both shoulders at the same time, starting at a slow shimmy and working your way faster and faster.
Hips: Move your hips to each side so that you feel a good stretch around the hip bone area, to one side first, then the other. Make sure your knees are bent so that you increase your range of motion (and don’t get hurt). After you have gone to each side, go forward and back. Then try the figure 8- have your hips follow a lateral figure 8, or I suppose infinity sign. This one is trickier, but VERY IMPORTANT for improving your basic step and other footwork. I like to imgine each hip bone drawing part of the figure 8, the left starts the motion, making a clockwise circle, and the right hip continues the motion with a counter-clockwise circle. After the figure 8 drill, move on to large circles in both directions, and you are done.
Core (rib cage): Standing with arms out to the side, shift your rib cage from side to side, being careful not to move other parts of your body (like the hips). Once you have the side to side, go front and back. Then go front-left-back-right-front and gradually speed it up until it becomes a nice roll, and then repeat the same for the other direction. For the front to back motion, you can also practice popping the chest out to get that sharper look.
Hopefully these will prove to be useful tips for the dancers out there who want to take it to the next level. There is no substitute for social dancing and classes, but doing these things as a supplement will definitely speed up the process and make you a more complete dancer. Have fun!
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As an extension of (3), I would highly recommend pilates for all dancers. It is pretty much an entire hour of core work, stretching, and developing good alignment and body control. Since I started a few months ago, my balance, coordination, and spinning have greatly improved.
Nice tips Julie!
If recording is such a good tool, it may be one of the most underused of the list:
- The mirror can be used in a studio when practising or in a lesson or at home getting that bodyroll down.
- You’ll invariably have chances to watch other dancers
- Sit ups are doable, and most runners, or health conscious folks will do a few fairly regularly (though i’m seeing the Wii Fit might hit an audience that might not normally do so!)
- Body isolations - wouldn’t know how much most people do them.
It’s definitely stressed much more in hip hop, and belly dancing for example, and used within group lessons i’d imagine.
Do most lessons or instructors let people film in class? I think I banged on about it a while back hehe.
For all the dvds out there, there is a paucity of actual easy to access cough (iPhone friendly) cough snippets for a move, with the basic angles.
An example. You’re wanting to recap on some old moves you’ve done or seen. You’re at home.
Where’s that side on view of a salsa slide to 1/2 turn?
2:37 into Chapter 13 of Strictly Come Salsaing DVD 2.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see what a salsa slide into a round the world would look like?
Let’s just get the Salsaero for Dummies DVD 3 out, Chapter 8, 2:39 in, or 46:23 from the start with the head on view.
Cue one up on VLC, one up on WMP… Hmm, looks good. And so on.
A slightly different angle on the normal salsa training video. Yes, part of a turn pattern, but one that can be created by bolting moves together…
And it’s coming back to how you learn. I have a recollection of a salsa article, describing how the first x bars worth of moves were the most important, to remember the pattern. (Less advanced moves would be shorter turn patterns, or able to break them down).
Want a hot new move? Bung video 25, 34, 45 and 56 together in a playlist, and boom, a new turn pattern. Ease of sharing that turn pattern, once dancers both have the necessary videos? Just a simple playlist file.
Who wouldn’t give a few quid to have a decent video library of moves they’d been taught in the past? It’s one of the topics that consistently reemerges when talking to leads. Yes, practise is the thing. But what if you can’t remember it to practise it again? Rely on those scribbly notes? No wai hosai!
But what about having video of turn patterns you’ve learnt/been taught/others have been taught?
Suddenly the salsa lesson instructor can become an open source teacher rather than a guardian of secret move knowledge. Do slowly learning pupils equate to more money for instructors? It’d be a brave instructor to demo the concept, but it’s not too far away.
What’s hindering the process?
Time
Hardware - the ability to film the moves, easily.
Software - how to edit, encode, share, upload the clips, and then have a system to use them in, rather than just a folder full of files like 080804.mkv …
Lack of need?/lack of ease of doing it
Pressure from instructors to not open source dance instruction
I’d put down a few dollars to say that in the not too distant future. the capability to edit video on a phone, or playback frame by frame/have a shuttle wheel multitouch like capability will arrive.
Who would have totally expected that you could fit:
A recording studio that included
1x 2 octave grand piano
High medium and low Tom drum, 2 high hats, 2 snare drums & a kick drum
1x 4 string electric guitar
1x Blues guitar, with
1x Audience
all into a phone? ((Band app) It isn’t just instruments, you can fit a fully working mobile music creation beat making studio in there, via BeatMaker app)
So you could potentially cluster these together. Get the ability jump to these sections. side on view? Click. Front on? Click. Follower moves w/o lead present? Click. Leader only part of the move? Click.
Having multiple little video segments might be a pain, and chapters within a longer video might do it.
Now, if you could intelligently link to chapter markers within 1 long video on a turn pattern, you wouldn’t need all the smaller files necessarily.
Another concept, for learning:
- Some reference videos of a given move are created, for the sake of the example, lets say with a front on and side on view. Doesn’t have to be 1 person making the reference move. This is crowd sourcing
- Given a standard known BPM was set, anyone who wanted to, could then record on a phone lets say, dancing to that BPM. ( using a metronome, or playing the reference song to get in time).
- Upload the videos
- Put the videos side by side, match the start, then use the sound from one video (probably the reference video, which would have a better coding/bitrate).
- Boom! You’ve got comparative playback, that could be private, or open.
- Using the right encoding, and you could also do a frame by frame fwd/bckwd option. Get an overlay for the beat, to display on say 3-4 frames worth per beat.
Even if this is an outlandish wish list, would the potential for a video clip library be tempting? Also, think “Sweded” videos! - A favorite move on a DVD? You can’t copyright a move, right? Think mashup ups, on a salsa move scale…
I’ve been told I had castle in the sky thinking previously*, but the predictions are coming true, and I thought i’d put these ideas out here, to see if anyone thinks they might be useful, if they could be made feasible.
Apologies for hijacking the thread