Here are some ideas for salsa dance practice, the main goals are to train the ability to place the pause at different times deliberately.
During the COVID pandemic I started to get bored of practicing only the On 1 basic step for inline Salsa. I was trying to come up with some ideas to spice up my practice sessions and also understand more about the different ways of dancing inline Salsa.
One of the key concepts in Salsa is the pause. My goal was to see how placing the pause in different beats changes the feel of the dance.
1. The Basic step On 1
For the Basic steps On 1, start by taking a step forward with the left foot and stepping with the ball of your foot on beat 1 and the pause comes in beats 4 and 8.
1.1. Diagram notes
- the beat: the first row shows the beat, in Salsa music there are 2 sets of 4 beats, 8 in total
- home position: the beat 0 shows the initial position, some people also call this the home position
- transfer of weight: the red color in the steps indicates where your body weight is supposed to be
- only the ball of your feet touch the ground: the footprints without the heel mean that you are only stepping with the ball of your feet
- traveling foot: an arrow instead of a step shows the direction your foot is traveling and not touching the ground
- step on the beat: the X in the last row mean that foot touches the ground on that beat
- pause: the Ps in the last row tell you where the pause is
2. Changing the timing of the Pause
For reference, in the On 1 Basic, the pause is on beats 4 and 8. The goal is now to place the Pause in different beats, e.g., 1+5, 2+6, or 3+7.
I the following sections I will make the case that placing the pauses on different beats allows you to get a better feel of different instrumental rythms; for that I will be using the song Ay Mi Maria by Bloque53 as reference for the Tumba, Bass and Piano rythms.
2.1. Pause on beats 1 and 5: feel the Tumbao
When dancing in this style, the forward and backward motions align well with the TUM TUM of the simple Tumba rythm.
2.2. Pause on beats 2 and 6: feel the Bass
You can hear the doom of the base on beats 1, 3, 5 and 7. When I practice this style I imagine that I'm dancing on the fret of the Bass; when the pause on beat 2/6 comes, it feels like it's me sutaining the Bass doom.
2.3. Pause on beats 3 and 7: feel the slap
When dancing this variation, it feels like I need to emphasize the Tumba slap (the PA on TUM TUM PA) on beats 2 and 6.
3. Other ways to change the location of the Pause
- you can use the same ideas of placing the pause on different beats when dancing On 2 and try to feel which instrument is emphasized for each given variation
- two more ways to change the location of the pause is to step on the Clave beats; for this I typcally need additional technological aids to be able to hear the Clave, more info in Practice, practice, practice
4. TODO Dancing on the Clave beats
4.1. TODO Clave 2-3: Steps diagram
4.2. TODO Clave 3-2: Steps diagram
5. Practice, practice, practice
You will need some good tunes to practice, I suggest you use music that is not too fast and song on which the the piano, bass, and Tumba rythms are easy to hear. I like to use Ay Mi Maria! by Bloque53.
For the Clave rythm I like to use an app like Salsa Rythm or The Salsa Beat Machine, you can control the speed and volume of each instrument! That has helped me a lot connect each timing of the pause to different instruments.
6. Conclusion
Now you have 6 ways to practice placing the pause:
- 4 positions of the pause on the basic and
- 2 positions when dancing on the clave beats (clave 2-3 and 3-2)
7. References
- The step icons were taken from svg icons and are licensed by CC BY 4.0
