Hello Lucy:
My advice, for what its worth, is to lead your arm movements from your elbows. When you practice imagine that you are in water and you are moving your arm back and forth in the water. Lead with the elbow and allow the rest of the arm to follow. Same thing when coming back in. To keep your arm from going behind your back remember that your arm is never really straight out to the side but slightly forward of your body. As in many things in dancing it is more an illusion that it is straight out to the side. Try this, put your hand in front of your ribs and have either no bend, or only a slight bend, from your wrist to elbow. Look at the angle from your shoulder to elbow, how it angles forward from your body as you go down from your shoulder to elbow. Your elbow is ahead of your shoulder and this will be the same when the arm is out to the side. In other words your arm will be angled a bit forward of the shoulder when out to the side rather than be in line. Go back to having your hand in front of your ribs as I mentioned above. Turn the palm of your hand up on a 45 degree angle so the baby finger is closer to your body than your thumb, like you are carrying something. When you take your arm out to the side do not allow your elbow to move or curve backwards but rather move straight out to the side ( this way you keep that same elbow in front of shoulder angle ). Step one: Think of taking the elbow outwards without lifting the arm or shoulder, kind of like your going to elbow somebody beside you. You will notice that your upper arm is now facing 45 degrees out and down from your body, ( the same look as if you were resting your hand on your hip ). The main thing is to not lift it any higher than that right now. Step two: What you want to do next is unfold your lower arm out from your elbow by straightening your elbow, not by lifting your shoulder ( as though you are going to go from resting your hand on your hip to pointing out at something ). Doing it this way allows your elbow and shoulder to roll over naturally. Look at your elbow when you unfold your lower arm outward, see how the inside of your elbow turns forward and up on its own. This is because your shoulder is rotating in the socket. As a contrast, start over and try and lift your arm out in one movement by straightening your upper arm so it is parallel to the ground in one movement, right from the get go. Take a look at your shoulder, is it up around your ears? This is because lifting the upper arm to be parallel to the ground right away does not allow your shoulder to rotate naturally. At the end of the previous technique as you compress your back your shoulder will roll back and down even further, but don't worry about that right now, leave that for down the road or it will only screw you up at this point. What I am trying to do is get you to take your arm out in a way that does not look stiff and allows the shoulder to rotate naturally. Okay, we have your arm out there, now to bring it back down. Step three: Turn your hand so the palm is up. Step four: Bring the elbow in to the body until it is about a fist distance away from your ribs, leaving your lower arm and hand still facing out to the side ( pretend you are holding a serving platter out to the side but away from your body ). Step five: Now, without moving your elbow from where it is at your side, turn your lower arm so it goes from facing out at your side to arc across and back to its starting position ( without dropping your serving platter ) with your hand in front of your ribs. As you get better step one in the rumba can be sharp on the first half of the slow then the unfolding of the arm can be timed to match the compression of your back on the second half of the slow. As each song is different the arm movements will reflect the feeling and emotion of the song and dance. Your instructor can help you with matching the timing of the arms to the music and footwork.
Hope this helps you out.
! But would love some advice please. . . .
).
.
