Any advice for on1 dancer who is learning to dance on2?

I've been taught how to dance salsa on1 and have been dancing on1 for the past 10 months. Now I'm trying to learn how to dance on2 and was wondering if any of you went through this ordeal and could share your experiences/advices/tips.

When I'm listening to the music and doing basic step/ basic turn/etc, I have no problem hearing and feeling the beat, but it's when I'm trying anything more complicated than that, my body doesn't listen to my brain signals

To make things worse, lately, when I'm getting a bit behind the beat after some complicated combination while dancing on1 I started sometimes switching to on2 :shock: :shock: :shock:

Hi Vey. Try these topics:

How do you keep on time?
Why is 3/2 easier for me than 2/3?

I always count the whole song, and I count differently depending on which count I'm breaking on.

When breaking on one, I count: 1, 2, 3; 5, 6, 7.
When breaking on two, I count: 2, 3, 4; 6, 7, 8.

Thus, I leave out the beat in my mind that I'm holding with my feet. This difference in counting helps me keep the different styles straight. It still took me a couple years before I thought this was easy.

I've had other people tell me that they always count "quick, quick, slow" or "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6" (completely ignoring the beats of the music), but these don't work for me.

vey I had the same issues when I first started dancing on2. All I did was dance it as much as possible to get used to it. After a while everything naturally fell into place.

I'm in the same boat, and I'm going Youngsta's route and frequenting on2 spots. Yeah, everything's a little messy, but I don't see the need to go to classes to learn something I pretty much know already. Things aren't clicking yet for me, but they're getting there....

On2 is something I've been wanting to do for a few years.......it's near impossible if you live in an on1 city :roll: .........

I guess you guys will just have to be really patient with me when I visit your cities ........

I think part of the difficulty lies in how (after you've been dancing On1 for a while) is your muscle memory. You've trained your body to remember steps in a certain fashion.

I've been dancing On1 long enough that it's perfectly natural for me to do a small tap during the 4 while doing a CBL. Or finishing a turn and automatically stepping back on the 5.

But it's precisely stuff like that which will throw you off when learning Eddie Torrez On2. In that the syncopation (the pause) is different and that causes all the little things to be different. Which is the reason why it's pretty common for On1 dancers to dance Power2 or Montuno by mistake.

So for me, I'm still at a stage where I have to consciously think about my footwork and the count of the music when dancing On2.

Oh, and to answer SC's question - most scenes that I've been to (about 15-20 cities) dance primarily On1. On2 is definitely growing, but not predominent like some may lead you to believe.

All it takes is practice

As a person who learned on1 first and then on2, i must agree with all that has been said.

It will feel very ackward at first when your dancing on2. It reminded me of the good ol' dayz when I was first learning to dance on1. I would step, think about what to do next, and then step again. Needless to say, I was very mechanical.

However, all u have to do is stickwith it and practice more and more. As the people bf mentioned, the more people you dance with it, the more you become accustomed to it.

One thing about the on2 phenomenon I like was the emphasis on dancing in slots. Most on1 teachers I had did not stress that (hell, LAstyle is all about being everywhere ) However, I prefer the tight and clean movement that on2 promotes.

One thing that I do is to break on1 with your right and then go on2 with your left. For example instead of breaking with your left on1 just do a tap or a small step with your right then quickly break with your left foot and you will be on2 every time. It's a tip that I picked up from a Pro last year.

vey said:

I've been taught how to dance salsa on1 and have been dancing on1 for the past 10 months. Now I'm trying to learn how to dance on2 and was wondering if any of you went through this ordeal and could share your experiences/advices/tips.

When I'm listening to the music and doing basic step/ basic turn/etc, I have no problem hearing and feeling the beat, but it's when I'm trying anything more complicated than that, my body doesn't listen to my brain signals

To make things worse, lately, when I'm getting a bit behind the beat after some complicated combination while dancing on1 I started sometimes switching to on2 :shock: :shock: :shock:

Click to expand...

SalsaGeek said:

One thing that I do is to break on1 with your right and then go on2 with your left. For example instead of breaking with your left on1 just do a tap or a small step with your right then quickly break with your left foot and you will be on2 every time. It's a tip that I picked up from a Pro last year.

Click to expand...

You've piqued my curiousity...

Could you explain it further? Preferably with what you're supposed to do on each of the 8 count?

Guys, thank you so much for all your feedback and advice!!!! All that you've wrote is very-very helpful :!: :!: :!:

I have another related question for you:
while you were learning on2, were you continuing dancing/taking classes on1?( that's what I'm doing and I'm wondering do I have to stop on1 for a while in order to learn on2 or it's OK) :?: :?: :?:
Eventually, I would really like to be able to do both well ...

vey said:

Guys, thank you so much for all your feedback and advice!!!! All that you've wrote is very-very helpful :!: :!: :!:

I have another related question for you:
while you were learning on2, were you continuing dancing/taking classes on1?( that's what I'm doing and I'm wondering do I have to stop on1 for a while in order to learn on2 or it's OK) :?: :?: :?:
Eventually, I would really like to be able to do both well ...

Click to expand...

Well - for example, if you were trying to learn English, would you really want to learn how to speak with a Southern drawl while simultaneously trying to learn the Queen's English?

tj said:

SalsaGeek said:

One thing that I do is to break on1 with your right and then go on2 with your left. For example instead of breaking with your left on1 just do a tap or a small step with your right then quickly break with your left foot and you will be on2 every time. It's a tip that I picked up from a Pro last year.

Click to expand...

You've piqued my curiousity...

Could you explain it further? Preferably with what you're supposed to do on each of the 8 count?

Click to expand...

I think I'm doing a similar thing: my perception is that on1 and on2 are extremely similar, it's just that foot placing is a bit different on each particular beat, so when I'm practicing on2, I'm still starting on1 but not with my left foot going front (as in on1), but with my right foot doing a little, almost "in place" step and than right foot going front on2.

vey said:

tj said:

SalsaGeek said:

One thing that I do is to break on1 with your right and then go on2 with your left. For example instead of breaking with your left on1 just do a tap or a small step with your right then quickly break with your left foot and you will be on2 every time. It's a tip that I picked up from a Pro last year.

Click to expand...

You've piqued my curiousity...

Could you explain it further? Preferably with what you're supposed to do on each of the 8 count?

Click to expand...

I think I'm doing a similar thing: my perception is that on1 and on2 are extremely similar, it's just that foot placing is a bit different on each particular beat, so when I'm practicing on2, I'm still starting on1 but not with my left foot going front (as in on1), but with my right foot doing a little, almost "in place" step and than right foot going front on2.

Click to expand...

Ok, now that you've chimed in, I understand what SalsaG is talking about.

The "tap" means no weight change in my lexicon, but obviously he is doing one.

As I said earlier, one of the most difficult things that I find in learning On2 (Eddie Torres style) is that the pause is on a different part of my footwork.

Granted that this isn't truly right in that the On2 is typically taught with one's feet never being together... a rough translation is that On2 is like On1 except you break on the 6, but with the pause being different.

Obviously, this varies by instructor - I'm specifically referring to a couple of instructors from NYC; I forget the name of one, but the other was Bernard Martinez. He and his wife are quite good!

So, this step in place on the 1, then breaking forward with one's left on the 2, isn't this reversed? Granted, that's how we're learning it in my local studio, but basically, I believe that we're dancing it with our 1's and 5's reversed (at least compared to how "true" NYC instructors have taught it). No big deal, honestly, but I think it'll add to the confusion if any of us were to actually get more serious with it. Similar to when an instructor dances rueda different from the rest of the world.

Which is the reason why it's pretty common for On1 dancers to dance Power2 or Montuno by mistake.

Click to expand...

For a long time I believed the only way to dance "on2" means stepping 234, and one day while I was dancing, my "experiment devil" (see another thread :twisted: ) told me, "Hey what if you skip 4 and step on 5 instead while you are away with the partner?" I think, actually somehow I felt it was "right" for me to do so because of the music that was being played at that time. So I was playing with my feet, 23-5, 67-1, 23-5, 67-1.... and it felt so good.

And in a week or so, it became my habit to step this way even while doing moves. Then I thought, "Damn, I have developed another bad habit!!" I tried to "correct" it, but it was not easy, because it felt so good....

After a year or so, I heard about "Eddie Torres 2 --- stepping on 123, 567 but breaking on 2" for the first time. I was wondering how it was possible....
After a lot of thinking, I finally realized that stepping on "23-5, 67-1" means stepping on "123, 567"!! :shock: So I was doing the exact same step without knowing it was already a common thing among a lot of dancers.

The problem for me was, since 5 and 1 comes on the last part of three steps in my way of feeling the music "23-5, 67-1," I had trouble with those moves that has to be initiated on 1. Like multiple turns. I was always late for that. So I tried to fix my way of feeling music, and finally I can somehow feel the music "123, 567" instead of "23-5, 67-1". Does this make sense to anyone else? :?