How can I teach my students to dance to slower music?

[SalsAlx]

Why do people (especially beginning/intermediate dancers) (or yourself?) prefer dancing to faster salsa music (or even mid-tempo music) than slow music? I enjoy all kinds of salsa now including the slow songs. In fact sometimes I prefer having the time to really style and make a show out of the dance. I would really like my “advanced” students to be able to dance to most of the salsa they hear. So what would you suggest that I do to get them capable of dancing to the slow songs too?

I’d really like to figure this out so I can help my students start to appreciate the slower songs. Anytime I put on a somewhat slow song in class, even a nice DLG song like La Soledad, I get complaints. I don’t think it has anything to do with the song itself. They might enjoy listening to the song, but don’t like having to dance slowly.

I suppose it could be that they still don’t pay much attention to the beat. A fast song is energetic and they like energy, and they are used to dancing quickly. But I think there must be something more to it than that. My guess it has something to do with balance and momentum. I think the students rely on the forward and backward redirects on the 1 and the 5 to stay balanced. They don’t collect themselves on the pauses at 4 and 8.

Any thoughts?

[SalsaTO]

Dance to some slow tempo music. Show them what can be done with it. Then challenge them to try.

Up tempo or 'racing music' gives the dancers momentum. They speed through the moves, lead and follow are very dynamic as both are actively hanging on for balance - especially in figure eights. And, it seems much easier for the follower to execute the solo or launched traveling turns that are the current staple. However, footwork can get sloppy. But, since the beat is so fast, recovery is instantaneous.

While challenging, up tempo sometimes feels rather more like an athletic endeavor than a sexy dance. Not to say it isn't easy, one has to have confidence in leading complex moves very quickly. It does take time and practice. That said...

Mid or slow tempo music really forces the dancers to focus on timing and footwork and styling. There is more time between each beat to get into trouble. Falling out of time is noticeable and is harder to recover from. They really have to connect with their partner as the lead and follow is softer, subtler. The plus side is having much more time between the beats to actually do some styling, flirt with the partner and enjoy the music and play with the accents.

We deliberately chose slower music for a competition. It gave us the time to put the sizzle back into salsa. The audience really loved watching the different dynamic that the slower tempos bring. Lead and follow looked effortless, almost ethereal. There was time for the follower to loosen her hips and sneak in some very subtle but visible styling. The result was a devastating performance that had people asking about it three years later.

The challenge to your advanced students would be to dance equally well using the strong points and the different dynamics of both fast and slow tempo music. Go beyond the turn technician mindset, work the repertoire to take advantage of fast and slow.

Oh yes, and have some fun too!

[tangotime]

It is a general consensus among teachers. that is more difficult to dance to fairly slow music , than fast ( I dont mean warp speed )
It requires more balance, control, expression and interpretation.

This is evidenced by the people one sees in many dance clubs , who only will ( or can ) dance to fast music, primarily because they have not learned ( or been taught ) the intricacies of melodic change in music.

p.s.-- forgot to ask, how long have you been teaching ?

[danzur]

Have you tried putting on the slower Salsa music at the beginning of the class? Or teaching something new to it?

Even better (as said above), start the class off with a demonstration to it!

Students seem to have a more difficult time slowing down their Salsa once they have danced faster Salsa.

[englezul]

What happens is that in salsa classes teachers emphasize 123 567 as the basic step counts. This creates the impression that to be on time you have to be in sync with those counts and step on them.

Thus while trying to be on time (and having no clue) the beginners but not limited to them, are only concerned with the terminal points of the basic step and are not developing the control do dance between the beats because after all it is the motion between the beats that gives the fluidity of the dance not the destination points. A slower rhythm will expose a larger 'gap' between the terminal points of a step which they won't be able to fill uniformely because they are used to the choppy, jerky motion of just stepping on the beats. To fill that gap they will actually need to concentrate more, and add more effort to it. So they of course don't like it. Many, many students are not aware about this fact, so in fact dancing to slow music will only be a cause of frustration because they don't get what exactly they should be trying to accomplish.

To teach your students how to dance to slow music...tell them to SLOW DOWN. You can offer a visual example of what's going on by describing two graphs. Take a period of the sin function and approximate it with 5 points. You will get a triangular shape. Take the same function and approximate it using 2000 points. You will get a more accurate curve. Tell them when dancing they should be looking at controling their steps and movement in general to fill the entire range of motion in between the end points, just like those 1995 points smooth out the initial 5 point graph.

[Josh]

SalsaTO and englezul, good posts!

What englezul said about not stepping on a strict QQS tempo is so true. Show your students that. Like SalsaTO said also, demonstrate just doing basics to a slow tempo, and maybe a CBL or two with a student. (assuming on1): Try rushing the 5/6 and really hoooolllld the 7. Get to the 1 early, really emphasize it, then pop the 2 and 3 on the clave beats. Really style your basic. Don't just do forward/back... cross R over L on 7. Do a little heel shine on 1/2. Play with it. Put on Ray Barretto's Acid. If they can't groove to that song nice and slow when you demo it for them, then they need some serious work :wink: ...

[Sabor]

theyu need to build an apetite for slower tempo and letting the beat soak the bones.. it happens with time and more musicality.. like maturing into it.. its all about feeling there and it takes a while for many to grow into the smooth sexy beat..

[sweavo]

theyu need to build an apetite for slower tempo and letting the beat soak the bones..

great phrase!

[Big10]

What happens is that in salsa classes teachers emphasize 123 567 as the basic step counts. This creates the impression that to be on time you have to be in sync with those counts and step on them.

Thus while trying to be on time (and having no clue) the beginners but not limited to them, are only concerned with the terminal points of the basic step and are not developing the control do dance between the beats because after all it is the motion between the beats that gives the fluidity of the dance not the destination points. A slower rhythm will expose a larger 'gap' between the terminal points of a step which they won't be able to fill uniformely because they are used to the choppy, jerky motion of just stepping on the beats. To fill that gap they will actually need to concentrate more, and add more effort to it. So they of course don't like it. Many, many students are not aware about this fact, so in fact dancing to slow music will only be a cause of frustration because they don't get what exactly they should be trying to accomplish.

To teach your students how to dance to slow music...tell them to SLOW DOWN. You can offer a visual example of what's going on by describing two graphs. Take a period of the sin function and approximate it with 5 points. You will get a triangular shape. Take the same function and approximate it using 2000 points. You will get a more accurate curve. Tell them when dancing they should be looking at controling their steps and movement in general to fill the entire range of motion in between the end points, just like those 1995 points smooth out the initial 5 point graph.
I think the first two paragraphs were an excellent explanation of the problem, although, contrary to the final paragraph, I think it takes more than just a mathematical picture to solve it.

The key to dancing fluidly to slow music is having control of the rest of your body, both on and between the beats, like englezul said. That actually takes some physical coordination, flexibility, and stamina. I think an accurate analogy is lifting weights. A person might quickly jerk up X amount of pounds into the air and then let gravity handle most of the work for the weight to go quickly down. Much more strength is required to take twice as much time while you lift that same weight at a slower pace and then slowly lower it to the ground. With fast music, it's easier to start a step quickly and allow momentum/inertia to get your body to the next step. Slow music requires you to have control over your body the whole time.

So, my solution relates back to what SalsAlx suggested in his opening post -- I think he was on the right track with his conclusion that it probably relates to balance and momentum. From a practical standpoint, I think the way to improve students' ability along these lines is to incorporate some body isolations into each class. So, for example, if your class "warmup" is the standard 4-minute song's worth of steps, I would change that to perhaps 2 minutes of steps and 2 minutes of various body isolations (shoulders, chest, hips, whatever) to the beat of the music. That will get them used to sustaining small movements for a longer period of time, and improve control over the parts of their bodies necessary to dance effectively to slow music.

[Hart_House]

The best way to teach students to dance to slower music is probably to play faster music.

[SalsAlx]

The best way to teach students to dance to slower music is probably to play faster music.
Sorry, but I have to totally disagree with that. I tend to use fast music as a reward and slow music as a punishment. If they can stay on beat then I play faster music. If they can't stay on beat then I play slower music. It appears that they ignore the music so if I play slow music they can't help but to pay attention to it. Faster music allows them to ignore the beat and dance instead to the energy.

[Catarina]

I really enjoy dancing to slower music and for some reason haven't had difficulty dancing more slowly, which i think was surprising earlier on. It requires being much more precise in when to step and transfer weight, otherwise errors stand out so much more, which is why it seems more difficult. so i wonder if those who are having difficulty dancing slowly really are barely on time to faster songs even in the basic. what about having them clap the count out to the music (not the clave) to emphsize that if they aren't clapping in time with the count, or if their feet are not in the proper place at the proper time, it throws it all out of whack. it's not that you hurry your way through the movements with bigger pauses in between steps or that the 4 & 8 are especially looooooong beats in between the "normal speed" 123, 567; it's that the movement between steps is allowed more time and can be more fluid or more pronounced.

(disclaimer: i didn't re-read all the posts in this thread, so I probably just repeated what half of you already said....sorry bout that!)

[SalsAlx]

No it's cool. No one recommended that I have the class clap. Might be good for basic step, but this is an advanced class. YES. AN "ADVANCED" CLASS CAN'T DANCE ON TIME! Pfft... It's the studio. They encourage the students to advanced before they are ready. And the students lack the drive to learn and practice musicality.

What I generally try to do is have the leads vocally count in time with the music. That helps a bit. I'm absolutely SHOCKED by the lack of hands when I ask the class if they count in their heads. SHOCKED I tells ya! How do they maintain ANY rhythm?

Granted, I understand that the rhythm should come from the music. I no longer count when I dance since I've really learned so much about the music. But for people that can't find the rhythm in the music counting really does help.

[tj]

AN "ADVANCED" CLASS CAN'T DANCE ON TIME! Pfft... It's the studio. They encourage the students to advanced before they are ready. And the students lack the drive to learn and practice musicality.


Well, besides the studio, I think just about any "advanced" class that I've ever taken had at least a few folks that were in way over their head.

[Sagitta]

Hey...I dance slow to even fast music - or that's what the followers sometimes say because of how I dance, even though I'm still keeping to the beat.
Lots of people don't know what to do when the music is slow. They have all this extra time and just the same moves they find adequate at faster tempos, but not when it slows down. Encouraging creativity/styling/moving the entire body...perhaps incorporating some of that at the start of the class as a warm-up salsa aerobics might help.

[gte692h]

Dancing super-slow (even without music) is the true test of how well someone has learnt a given pattern. Out of a 100 students, if you give them a super-slow count (say a gap of two seconds per step), and tell them to just do the basic and cross body for 30 minutes with that time, 99 % are going to be unable to do it that slow, and will speed up within 2 minutes.
This is primarily because the average person lacks patience.

However, you will have one determined student who will actually stick to that given time for a half hour, not knowing why you made this absurd test for them. However, what's happening during this half hour is that their brain is soaking up every little nuance of the step to such an extent that the next time they dance, it will be effortlessly fast.

its a counterintuitive technique that I have learnt from studying music - if you want to go fast, you have to develop the patience to go super-slow. Practicing at a high tempo is a complete waste of time, if you haven't gotten the basic technique down correct.
If you ask yourself how you learnt complicated double turns, hitting them perfect on time at high speeds, the only way was to have started slow, methodical, patiently.

Its an attitude one needs to instill in their students.

[SalsAlx]

Well, besides the studio, I think just about any "advanced" class that I've ever taken had at least a few folks that were in way over their head.
This is hardly limited to a "few" folks. I'd say of about 300 students in the studio 20 of us can stay on beat. I don't really count the girls because they are supposed to be going with the guy, but I've noticed that most of the women I dance with race the music too. There are probably 3 or 4 girls in the studio that actually dance to MY rhythm instead of their own. And maybe only 1 or 2 that can actually dance to the music themselves.

I'm not exaggerating either. This is a social dance studio, not a competition level one.

[LACHopeful]

I don't do enough Salsa to say that I'm an intermediate but I do a lot of intermediate moves.
I really love dancing slower because my partner is concentrating on technique and is really feeling the music. When I dance to faster one, it's always "oh my god, I've got to get this girl on count...NOW!" I don't like that sensation.

[noobster]

This is hardly limited to a "few" folks. I'd say of about 300 students in the studio 20 of us can stay on beat.
Are you sure that you are the ones who are on beat? ;)

Btw regarding dancers who don't like slow music... I love slow songs, but there are a lot of moves that are really just not appropriate for them. Maybe people who want to try their latest 10xspin/pretzel/whatever are impatient with songs that don't let them do that?
(On the other hand I know a couple of guys who will lead those regardless of what the song is telling them...)