Salsa City Forum » Salsa Music and Dance » Confused on cuban motion

Your description is confusing me. First you say...
“Gently shift your weight onto your left leg as you bend your right knee just a little and take a small step to the right, about 12 inches (30 centimetres). As you take the step, you should feel your hips move slightly to the left. Press down with your right foot to shift you weight onto your right leg and you should feel your hips moving to the right. Take a closing step with your left foot to bring your feet together. Let your weight shift back to your left foot and you will feel your hips going to the left. Repeat the sequence.”

The you say...
“The essence of what’s happening is this: your hips go away from the the side that is taking a step. When you step with your left foot, your hips go to the right. When you step with your right foot, your hips go to the left.”

Can you see the confusion? The last statement contradicts the first. To me, the first is what’s more natural and what actually happens, but the 2nd is what I see other teachers teaching on their videos, and I don’t see how they do it. To me, when performing the basic salsa step, you touch the ball of your foot down, then as you’re pressing it and shifting your weight to that leg, your hip moves toward the foot that is being pressed down, not opposite. So the first description given is what I find to be more true. But the 2nd statement is what I see other teachers teaching in their videos, and their up-to-tempo technique looks correct, but when viewed in slow motion, it looks awkward and I can’t do it their way.

It depends what you mean by a step. By “a step” I mean when a foot is in motion relative to the floor. So what you say in your last paragraph is right, but I don’t think of the foot being pushed down as stepping. That’s the start of the step of the other foot.

If you’re happy with the instructions, and it seems you are, don’t overthink the explanation too much. Of course, in the pattern, there has to be time somewhere for the hips to come back to the centre, but I didn’t try to microanalyse every tiny fragment of the motion in that bit of explanation.

Hi, now I’m confused, is cuban motion diferent to the montion for dancing LA salsa? If so, how are they diferent?

Cuban motion is the basic movement for all styles of Salsa as the roots of Salsa are in the dance ‘Son’ which came from Cuba.
It all starts from the bending of your knee and the natural consequences of what happens to the rest of your body when you do so.
Ask your teacher to demonstrate, it will only take a few seconds.

Some great breakdown explanations here of the Cuban motion! If I can just address Nickys comment which may have been asking about the general difference between Cuban and LA style as opposed to the technical breakdown of Cuban motion... so here’s my short and simple contribution of the difference between the both styles...

Cuban style is danced in a circular fashion ie. Traditionally with the man ‘walking’ around the woman. There are more turns and less ‘spins’ and arguably less complicated turn/spin patterns than in cross body style.

Cross body style is danced ‘on a line’ ie its danced much more linear with the woman moving forward in a straight line and more often than not turning 180 degrees. It arguably tends to have more complex spins and turn patterns.

I use the word ‘arguably’ as I know in each case some people will say it can be much more complicated than the other. There are some very complex moves in Cuban style yes! I’m not getting into that argument!!! Also these days to add to the ‘confusion’ each style borrows something from the other and more and more people are mixing up the styles. (Much to the dismay of some of the purists of each style!).

People often find the transition from Cuban to cross body much harder than the transition from cross body to Cuban. I would say an understanding of the difference in styles will really help make the transition. As will having a teacher capable of dancing both styles and who has a good understanding of the difference and is able to explain it. More often than not as we did at our class at Culto the other week I find myself explaining to our Cuban style dancers wanting to add cross body style to their repertoire exactly what to avoid doing when coming from a Cuban style background and wanting to learn cross body style. It can be hard at first to get out of the circular motion habit, and some of the spins and moves can seem much more complex to what you are used to. But ultimately as always it boils down to having a good lead, following the lead and remembering to move forward rather than in a circle...

We are commonly now getting a lot of Cuban dancing students coming to us that want to be able to dance both styles... so much so we are considering a ‘conversion course’ for Cuban style dancers where we can concentrate on the difference between Cuban and Cross body style and the common mistakes to avoid when making the transfer. A good ‘bilingual’ dancer will know exactly what a cross body style dancer is going to do compared to a Cuban style dancer given the exact same lead.

Guys when mixing up the styles the real key is making sure your lead makes it very very clear to the dancer that the move you are about to do is a Cuban or a cross body move, its even more important and harder than normal as under normal circumstance a good female follower can sometimes work out what’s coming next from a bad lead... much much harder for a female follower to do when when mixing up the styles!!!

Email me or leave a message and if we get enough interest in a conversion course we will run one.

P.s. By conversion course I do mean Cuban style dancers wanting to learn and understand Cross Body and be able to dance both styles... rather than converting them totally from one to the other!!!

Long live both styles!!! :-).

Shahid
www.salsabuena.co.uk
Shahid@salsabuena.co.uk
07800-565651

Wow, thanks for the explanations and for all your enthusiasm. I’ve since asked a few dancers about it, and I think I understand better now... we’ll see...

Basically, Nicky, just have fun! Your hips will move naturally as you change the weight from one leg to the other. It certainly shouldn’t be a forced motion that looks very unnatural.

Luckily, women are more naturally blessed with the hip movement as we are of course designed differently to men :)

I personally can’t stand it when styles are mixed, in fact it really irritates me. As with the discussion on here re dancing on 2, as Andy pointed out there are many different styles of the music and thus the dance.

I wish people would understand the music more so could then dance accordingly. People forget salsa is music, and we happen to dance to it.

Anyway, I’ll shut up now as I’m going off on one now... ;) Just have fun and enjoy it.

I have a question: Would you say that the hips move basically side to side, or do they rotate at all (clockwise or counterclockwise?) out at the extreme-most point of their side-to-side motion making a figure-eight that I’ve heard mentioned? Or is that for a different type of desired motion? Thanks for any help. I really liked your description of Cuban motion.

I don’t see a figure-eight in Cuban motion. You could say the hips go in a zig-zag in the forward-and-back move. In the end, it doesn’t matter; the important thing is not to make your hips do anything in particular. The hip-movement comes from doing the steps properly in a natural way. “Take small steps” is the best tip I can give anyone who’s trying to get to grips with Cuban motion.

There is a marked difference between “Cuban Hip” and Cuban Motion“. Cuban Motion is NOT the hips but a contra body motion between the hips and rib cage. Actually, the rib cage isolation moves in contrast to the hip of the same side. For example, as the left rib cage moves laterally and away from the center, the left hip moves laterally toward the center. Think of an ”S“ movement as opposed to a ”Z" movement. This is true Cuban Motion.