| Improving Your Spins in Salsa – Part 1 |
| Written by Azucena Perez | |||
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I first discovered Salsa in late 2003 at a popular club called Miguel’s La Bodega which used to be located in the warehouse district of downtown Austin. Four nights out of the week, I’d watch and be mesmerized by the dancers swaying to the rhythm of the syncopated percussions. One thing that attracted my attention more than anything else was the way the female dancers were spinning. Some of them were spinning so effortlessly, one turn after another, that it made me wonder if they had “magic” shoes. Later on I found out that indeed they had special shoes just for this kind of dancing. Shoes notwithstanding, the common denominator across the board seemed to be spins, spins, and more spins!
That’s when I knew Salsa was for me. Since then, and after dancing salsa professionally for the last six years as the video shows above, I have learned and taught different techniques for improving spinning ability, speed, and balance, and I would like to share some of them with you in this four-part series: Part One: Posture: Head, Shoulders, Arms, Hands, Torso and Back
Let’s start with the most important aspect of the perfect execution of a turn or any dance figure: posture. It may seem obvious to some, but most of us do not have perfect posture in one way or another. The better your posture, the better your skeleton will support your body weight with less effort and the more stable your movement will become. So let’s see if we can attain the best posture our body is capable of before we take that first turn.
HEADFor many people, especially those who work in front of a computer, the tendency is to push the chin forward, creating tension in the back of the neck. If you turn with a protruding chin, you will notice that your body tends to go forward and out of balance at the end of the turn. To correct this, stand up with your feet hip-width apart. Your head should be right over your shoulders, floating over your torso without any effort. Both ears should be pointing down and toward the shoulders and your chin should be parallel to the floor. Imagine that you have a cord attached to the top of your head elongating you upward. The back of your neck is long and relaxed and your chin neither juts forward nor tucks under.
SHOULDERSBefore executing a turn, your shoulders should be engaged enough to support your torso and chest. A good exercise I learned from Yoga teacher Rodney Yee is to have someone wrap their arms around your upper arms as if to lift you off the floor. You then try to break free from her/his hold and in doing so, you naturally engage your shoulder blades by broadening your back. Another way to position your shoulders and upper back for a turn is to hug a medicine ball. This movement broadens your back, flattening your shoulder blades and expanding them away from the center.
TORSO AND BACKYour back should be in its natural position but for many of us that means a swayed back (tailbone pointing too far back away from your body) or a tucked-in pelvis (tailbone pointing too far forward toward the front of the body). Two things that we need to pay attention to: the tailbone should be in a neutral position and the ribcage should be floating over your hips without protruding forward. To find this ideal point, lie down on your back with your knees pointing toward the ceiling and your feet flat on the floor. Make an imprint of how your tailbone rests flat on the floor and your entire spine is on a straight line. When you stand up, imagine that you are trying to align your pelvis right over your hips and ankles on a straight line. The chest is lifted but your ribs do not protrude and your torso should be slightly forward so your armpits align with your hip bones.
ARMSYour arms can help you maintain your balance and momentum as you turn. However, they should never be used to actually make you turn which is a common mistake made by beginner dancers. To find the optimal position of the arms, raise your arms to chest level as if to hug a friend, making sure your elbows point to the sides of your body and are positioned below your shoulders. Subsequently, your wrists should be positioned below your elbows with the palms of your hands toward you. This would be first position in ballet (French and Russian schools). As you take off for a turn, your arms should remain in front of your torso at all times. Make sure not to bring one arm closer to your center than the other and maintain the same distance between your elbows throughout every turn.
In the next part of this series we will go over foot position and drills that will help you improve your balance before you take off for that perfect turn.
Read: Improving Your Spins in Salsa – Part 2... Want to take a private lesson with Azucena? Click here for more info or to book your lesson(s).
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