Perhaps the most difficult part of learning to dance for ladies is achieving steady balance. Like most skills, balance takes time and practice to achieve, but here are some ways to speed up the process.
Touch up your timing
Once you have a solid understanding of salsa timing, and begin to memorize which foot corresponds with which beat, you will become much more steady on the dance floor. If we have a poor understanding of timing, then we compensate as we follow by pausing or shuffling steps, which brings us off balance.
Focus on footwork
You can improve timing and balance by practicing footwork on your own (plus it’s a great work out). With a nice slow song, concentrate on marking your footwork with the beats in the music. Footwork also forces us to maintain our own balance, without a lead for support.
Perfect your posture
Back straight (slightly arched), shoulders back, core (abs) engaged. By keeping your upper half stable, it won’t throw of your center of balance. To help with multiple spins in particular, do lots of sit-ups! Aim for doing 50 sit-ups right before going out dancing. It works wonders!
Don’t lock your legs
By keeping your knees slightly bent, your center of gravity is brought closer to the ground. This allows your muscles to work more effectively to prevent losing balance (for example, in an unexpected move from the lead). Bent legs can absorb much more impact, helping you recover from a move that would potentially throw you off balance.
Hold off the heels
Staying on the balls of your feet allows you to center your weight over a more specific spot, plus it keeps your muscles engaged in the “ready for the next move” position. Another benefit of bending knees and staying on the ball of your foot is a greater range of movement, so hips in particular will be much more fluid and noticeable.
Don’t lean on the lead
We never want to rely on the lead for balance, for three reasons. 1) It prevents us from establishing our own balance long term, 2) all leads are different in the amount of strength/support they will give you, and 3) leads don’t like it when we hang or depend too much on them (it throws off their balance too). Your goal should be to support yourself even if the lead lets go for whatever reason (this is especially true in dips!!!).
Practice with Pilates
Practicing Pilates or Yoga will teach you better balance while strengthening your core so that your body can support itself in different positions. Plus, it’s great exercise and makes you feel healthy and fit!
Balance takes time to achieve for several reasons– as you become more advanced, you are better able to predict the combinations, your muscle memory improves, and you develop stabilizer muscles. Practice whenever you can on your own, and everything will fall into place. For further discussion, use the Community feature to share stories and get advice from others.
Bloch is carried here as well,...
The same problem occurs with guys where they have to do a half-turn while holding the follow’s hands. For me I’m always worried that I’m going to smack her with my arms or I’m afraid that I’m going to pull her if I just worried about doing my turn.
Its all about timin ur partners movements ..well, thats wat i think… good article julz
I find rebounding work outs very helpful in developing my balance, especially when the unexpected saves come up. I always try to do a 20 minute work out on the mini trampoline before I go out dancing. It’s the only exercise I do. It’s fun and have many other benefits.
I went to an open house on Sunday where the teacher does a new choreography every lesson. I’m thinking about taking it because it took me out of my comfort zone which is really good for pushing forward and learning.
This is great! I think a lot of follows have questions about this and I have really been enjoying working with follows to improve their skills with balance.
I think half the battle is improving general posture. We all get set in hunkering over say, at the desk at work, and its hard to bring your body up and out of that 8 hour a day position! But hey, it works wonders for balance and it makes you feel better to lift your head and pull your shoulders back!
I have recently found a tip that really helps follows with this: Pay attention to your back. If you can pull your shoulder blades closer together, you will open up your chest and engage your shoulders and “turn on” your muscles in your arms, and through your core. Try it – I have been getting great responses from this tip!!
This is an awesome article for tips on balance. I am so glad that my inquiry about balance inspired you guys to put an article out on this topic! And in my pursuit of dancing improvement, I came across an exercise DVD made by the Dancing with the Stars using all Latin moves including Salsa, Merengue, Mambo, etc. This article you wrote highlights how we can acquire better balance by focusing on our footwork and practicing on our own. This type of exercise (or Zumba classes with Latin aerobics) is also a good choice along with Pilates or Yoga. And with these videos, practice at home is quick and easy.
I also am finding that I have been leaning too much on my lead and turning too far away from him. So I have been focusing on lightening how much I rely on him as well as carefully positioning my feet to turn closer to him which reduces the uncomfortable “body tweak” that occurs from being too far away and knocks me off balance.
I like the idea of doing the sit-ups before going dancing. I do stretches already right before dancing but now I will add the sit-ups to that as well. I find it hard to remember to keep my knees slightly bent, though!
Thank you, Julie, for putting this all together!
Just read this, a really good article and some good follow up points. I’d just like to say this is what I love about this site, having people sharing their experiences and knowledge of dance.
Hopefully this will help people “myself” included get ideas to improve further their dancing.
Julie/Anthony keep up the good work!