A Guide to your Basic Salsa Steps for Beginners
Below is a description of some basic Salsa steps for partnership dancing, if you want to practice a few moves, remember that you always step in the "quick, quick, slow" rhythm (where a quick gets one beat and a slow gets two beats).
Remember to always lift your foot slightly off the ground as you step onto the other foot. This is the same as when you walk. You should shift your weight to the foot you are stepping on. Try not to rock back and forth with both feet on the floor. The way to be sure you have shifted your weight onto one foot is to lift the other foot slightly off the ground. Your steps are done by alternating stepping onto the right then the left foot, again right, then the left, and so forth. This is the same as what you do when you walk.
As a beginner you sometime tends to try and dance salsa as you see it done by other more advance dancers, this sometime can set an habit of over or odd movement to your body, a useful hint is to try and keep your step as basic as possible, and close together, this give you upper body control and help you keep more in time with the music. By keeping your steps basic, and close together, you will find your natural body movement comes into play, you can then apply styling to your moves.
When dancing salsa, you have a leader and a follower, although the leader is generally the man and the follower is generally the woman, anyone can be a leader or follower.
Step on the count of 123, pause on 4 then 567, pause on 8, and then repeat, remember to do small steps, it helps with the balance of the upper body and the timing of the music, Here is what I mean by a small step: One foot should not pass more than half a shoe-length beyond the other foot. As you learn increasingly complex moves, you will find that there can be exceptions to this rule where a large step is needed. As beginners when doing the steps listed below you can’t go wrong by doing small steps.
Basic Step
The leaders footwork is:
- 1. Step forward on left (Quick)
- 2. Step in place on right (Quick)
- 3. Step back on right (Slow)
- Pause on 4
- 5. Step in place on left (Quick)
- 6. Close right foot to left (Quick)
- 7. Close right foot to left (Slow)
- Pause on 8
Then repeat
The follower footwork is:
- 1. Step back on right (Quick)
- 2. Step in place on left (Quick)
- 3. Close right foot to left foot (Slow)
- Pause on 4
- 5. Step forward on left (Quick)
- 6. Step in place on right (Quick)
- 7. Close left foot to right foot (Slow)
- Pause on 8
Then repeat
Side Steps
The leaders footwork is as follows:
- 1. Step left with the left foot (Quick)
- 2. Step in place with the right foot (Quick)
- 3. Close left foot to right (Slow)
- Pause on 4
- 5. Step right with the right foot (Quick)
- 6. Step in place with the left foot (Quick)
- 7. Close the right foot to the left foot (Slow)
- Pause on 8
Then repeat
The follower footwork is as follows:
- 1. Step right with the right foot (Quick)
- 2. Step in place with the left foot (Quick)
- 3. Close right foot to left foot (Slow)
- Pause on 4
- 5. Step left with the left foot (Quick)
- 6. Step in place with the right foot (Quick)
- 7. Close left foot to right foot (Slow)
- Pause on 8
Then repeat