Shake it

I went to Peru when I was 19. Everybody danced and they did the shoulder shake thing. Needless to say I could not do it. Back home I continued to practice until I got it. It started 1 second or even half a second at a time. I would shake body and get the shoulders started but could not sustain it. Eventually I learned to stretch it out.
 
Hey everyone,

Please! more input for this thread :D, cause I'm trying to work on my body movement. Shoulder Shakes / Shimmies as we call it here is no prob for me since I've been doing it since young after watching some dance movie (too young to remember what) on tv... I thought it's something like a dog shaking off water from it's body after a shower :lol: :p

Always thought I was doing it the wrong way/cheating since most ppl around me struggle with it... :oops:

The other body movements, however are a pain in the ahole for me...
Like moving the shoulders, the chest and all those body movement stuff you see those advance dancers doing...

Body waves are hard for me as well, I look odd doing them haha...
Hence more input on what type of exercises to do or how we should move our body to get the body isolation/movement/styling to look smoother...

Frankie Martinez always (do you pronounce it as Martiniiizz or Martineeeeezz?) seemed like he's gliding on the dance floor, whereas we mortal seems to be stumbling beside him :roll: ...

Thank a lot in advance.
 
borikensalsero said:
That's what I'm talking about!!! Shake it baby, shake it!!! Oooops, don't shake too much that you might bump the couple next to you right out the floor. :tongue:
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:P My teacher does that, intentionally sometimes! I remember once we were dancing samba, and she kept doing the marcha so that we bumped into a fellow teacher, firend of hers. Hilarious! She's a doll.
I would give you advice on shoulders, but I'm not there yet. I'm a small fry, that one is copyrighted. I haven't even done the hips in salsa yet. When I do hips, my teacher goes "Don't do any hips. No hips at ALL". Hmm. Wonder if it's because I have horrible hip technique... :?

Twilight Elena
 
Twilight_Elena said:
I haven't even done the hips in salsa yet. When I do hips, my teacher goes "Don't do any hips. No hips at ALL". Hmm. Wonder if it's because I have horrible hip technique... :?
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People who are new to salsa often try to actually swing their hips, which makes the motion look very unnatural. Maybe that's what your teacher is trying to say? The hip motion in salsa is not really generated from the hips at all; as I understand it, it comes from the bending/stretching of the knees. More info can be found in the Hips! Latin Motion/Hip Motion Index...
 
Twilight_Elena said:
I would give you advice on shoulders, but I'm not there yet. I'm a small fry, that one is copyrighted. I haven't even done the hips in salsa yet. When I do hips, my teacher goes "Don't do any hips. No hips at ALL". Hmm. Wonder if it's because I have horrible hip technique... :?

Twilight Elena
Click to expand...

Don't worry about the hips, as Mac_Moto said. Just do the stepping. The hip thing will come as it is generated by how you step...trust me on this. Over time your stepping will become as it should and you'll be able to undulate those hips like the best of salseras out there... :wink: :)
 
take up a class in belly dancing, it really helps. I took bellydancing for years before I started getting serious in to salsa and what can I say.... I am la reina de shakin' it.
 
Try to work on moving one body part at a time, and slowly, then gradually speed up.

It takes several different muscles and parts to make something like that work, and you have to first figure out by feel which ones they are, get them to obey you, and then put them to the test.
 
The way I was taught is to push one shoulder forward, then the other, like someone is pushing your shoulder blade from behind.

Start slow and gradually speed it up. I find that music that I really like (cha cha in my case) helps immensely.
 
The human body is a cool thing. Skeletons are cool. Muscles are cool. From all the things we do every day -- walking, climbing stairs, sitting down and standing up -- we already know how to balance and move. When you walk in a relaxed manner, your pelvis traces smooth figures of eight and your buttocks move up and down. It's more exaggerated in women because our hips are jointed slightly differently, but men do it too.

Salsa steps are just a way of walking backwards and forwards (or side to side if you're feeling like putting a bit of rumba into it) and from what I can tell, if you do it properly, all the stuff your body already knows how to do gives you all the sexy fluid motion you need. Your body knows how to be sexy. Relax and let it!
 
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