Salsa City Forum » Salsa Music and Dance » Swapping partners 1 girl, multiple guys

I’ve seen this a few times and was wondering if anyone can explain how to do it. 1 couple dancing and then suddenly another guy swoops in off the sidelines and starts dancing with her. He seems to intercept her and keep on dancing. I’ve seen it with one girl and several guys and I’m not talking Salsa Rueda where switching partners is part of a move. I’m talking L.A. Style.

I was wondering has anyone done this? How do you do it? Are there rules of ettiqute about who you can do it with or when? Where can I learn to do this properly?

It looks really smooth and cool and the guys and girls always seem to think of it as a bit of fun but I could see how doing this at the wrong time would be dangerous or could lead to some serious confrontations.

I’ve been to several dance schools and looked at several DVDs and can’t find anything that covers this topic.

Hi mystic_puppy... What you just described happens on a Birthday…
The person who’s Birthday starts dancing and after a few moments another dancer steps in and replaces the other dancer and so on…. Most of the People takes part.
It’s a tradition to celebrate the persons Birthday

Hope that Helps!

No, that’s different. It’s just something that dancers who know each other will do. (Cutting in on a dance with someone you don’t know would be a very dangerous thing to do!)

I’ve seen the birthday thing before too it’s different. Similar but different.

The cutting in thing is much sharper, you don’t just line up and wait for your turn the guys actually cut in. I guess it’s kind of like stealing the ball off someone in basketball without a penalty.

I figured you can’t just do it with anyone only people you know and are on good terms with but also I was wondering how do you do it properly? Safely? Can you only do it on certain moves or wait for a certain beat? And how does the girl not get torn in two directions consequently?

It’s all in the wrist action champ ;-)

Actually practice makes perfect coupled with the confidence to relax and smile even whilst making an arse of ones self in the learning process...

If it really must be done ;) think of dame uno in Rueda.

Wait for the guy to do a cross body lead and then step back into an open break. Stand so the couple are in front of you, guy to your left girl to your right. As they step back on 1 they should only be holding 1 hand (don’t try it if they are in a closed hold or using both hands) step forward towards the girl on 1 and voila she’s yours.

Be carefull to announce your intentions first and not to crash into anybody else. As usual ask your teacher to show you, that’s what we’re here for. ;)