impressions on my 1st salsa lessons...

[WetonE]

Well I want to start off saying that this class is sponsored by my universities international house, so there were a lot of amatuer dancers, and I had a blast. Pretty ladies and everyone was in a good mood. My isntructors seemed liked they knew what they were doing, but there were some inconsistincies with the way I have been told salsa should be taught.

The main thing was the hip motion. I took everyones advice here, and tried to develop the motion without trying for 2 weeks. Using some lessons at Bustamove.com, I worked on alternating my legs from straight to bent. I quickly understood what eveyone means when they say the motion doesnt all come from the hips, and I feel like I got the steps down pretty well. but tonight, they kept telling us to move those hips, and I was told that I needed to exaggerate the sway more. I did so, but it was REAL hard to keep up with the rythm like that. The actual motion is not hard, but staying in time while exaggerating the motion was. I have long legs too so I think this makes it a bit worse.

Could this just be a conflict between two styles, or could it be something else? The reason Im taking the lessons is so that I can go to the local salsa club with a little bit of confidence, but if there are competing muscle movements, it could be a problem. Do any of the vets here have some advice?

[Sagitta]

You are correct in saying that the hip motion does not come from swaying the hips but from stepping. Ignore what the instructors in your last lesson said and let it develop naturally. Don't focus on the hips. Sometimes when I help out a beginner I force them to stop their hip movement because they are shaking their hips and not letting the movement be generated naturally. I make them march to get rid of that bad habit!! I force them to march. If a person knows what they are doing you can tell a faker from the real thing. Better to have less motion and have the genuine article. My 2 cents.

[youngsta]

Yeah by all means do not force it! As you get more comfortable with the basics and begin to shift your weight more consistently while stepping the hips will come. Not many things more horrible than a person forcing that motion!!

The reason Im taking the lessons is so that I can go to the local salsa club with a little bit of confidence, but if there are competing muscle movements, it could be a problem. Do any of the vets here have some advice?
Go now! Don't wait because when you get there, no matter how much studio confidence you have, it's all going to go out the window because it's nothing like a learning environment! The worst thing I ever did when I started dancing was wait to get my confidence up before hitting the clubs.

--your friend always
Sassy Hips :lol:

[cocodrilo]

Definitely take Youngsta & Sagitta's advice & don't force it. Get the steps down FIRST, next be very careful you are keeping with the rhythm of the music, THEN start to worry about things like hip/ribcage movements & styling(arms, flipping hair, etc.). This is not going to happen overnight, but it WILL happen probably before you even realize it! And GOOD LUCK! :D

[hobrien]

Mmmm, sounds like a conflict between styles, AND a conflict with teaching methods. In LA, you dont move your hips so much, you have a simple forward and back movement and in Cuban the whole idea of the dance is the intricate body movements. Doing Cuban style forward and back properly IS HARD, but it looks absolutely fantastic if done correctly.

I agree with the other guys also on NOT forcing the hip movements, for guys it is not a pretty sight. In my opinion you get the right hip movement for free by moving the knees and heels properly. However since you are just a beginner, I think your teacher is (as many do) teaching a simplified version of the step.

I have actually relearned the basic forward and back three or four times and everytime was in a different way, what I had to think of was different, how I moved my body was different, how I positioned my weight was different. Now I can dance the forward and back in about three different ways. None of these ways is wrong, and they all provide me with possibilities when I am out dancing :banana: , so it is worth knowing the different ways, even if some of them are not so correct....

If I were you I would stick with the classes though and do the hip movement if he says so. You are going to learn from it, even if what you are learning is not exactly correct, at least you will know that, I am sure he has other good things to teach you.

:bandit:

[cocodrilo]

Mmmm, sounds like a conflict between styles, AND a conflict with teaching methods. In LA, you dont move your hips so much, you have a simple forward and back movement and in Cuban the whole idea of the dance is the intricate body movements. Doing Cuban style forward and back properly IS HARD, but it looks absolutely fantastic if done correctly.

Hmmm. I learned from a Peruvian who learned in LA, started dancer training as a kid, and his hips were all over the place(which is probably why I have extreme hip action, too!) Maybe his teacher was CUBAN?(I seriously doubt it was a gringo!)

[borikensalsero]

One of the instructors that I went to, used to tell us all the time, move those hips, move those hips, she actually did it just so we kept in mind that in salsa you move your hips.

It really didn't have anything to do with the technique used to move the hips, but rather for the knowledge that the hips need to move.

However, she would never compromise staying on beat with hip movement. Stay on beat is crucial, you can move those hips all you want, but if you are out of beat, then you aren't really accomplishing anything.

If you know a little about the technique for moving the hips, then use that technique to move your hips when the teacher asks for hip movement. If he asks for more hip movement, get on the ball of your feet, step toe out, and it will cause a greater sway on the hips.

Salsarhthyms wrote a thread here once about practicing the wrong thing. Which he had a great point that people say practice makes perfect, but if you practice the wrong thing, perfect will be the least you'll become. Yo don't want that happening to you... Perhaps you should ask the instructor to explain "proper" hip movement technique.

There are some wrong things that you can benefit from (someone losing money and you finding it :D ) but practicing bad habits really doesn’t help you any, what it will do is cause problems in the future when you will need to re-teach your body the proper technique in order to move forward in your salsa skills, for improper technique will hinder your growth in skill...

It is all up to you, if you want to learn all you can as hobrien says and use it to your advantage, by all means do, however, keep in mind that you aren't skilled enough yet to use a minus and turn it into a positive... It could very well be that you won’t know that you are creating a dance around a faulty foundation. Not your fault, it’s just simply that you don’t have the necessary means yet… It takes a lot of know how to take a mess and turn it into neatness.

[WetonE]

wow that post says it all. The lessons were VERY messy, as one would expect with 40 people learning from 2. I feel like I can learn more practicing by myself.... But it was good to dance with a partner so I'll keep going. Salsa club= still scary to me at this point. But the one in my town teaches lessons for the first hour or so after it opens, so I guess I'll just suck it up.