Super Salsa Wednesday

If you've been missing Salsa, now all you need to decide is where you want to go and dance.

Here is line up for this Wednesday:

Salsa Benefit
Benefiting victims of last week's tornado
At Buffalo's Southwest Cafe on Alps
9 p.m. free lesson
10 p.m. open dance
$5
Just go through to the back room. Also feel free to show up early to dine.

SpicySalsa (from the Ritz)
Beginning this week.
The Library in downtown Athens.
Lesson by Matt @ 9p.m.
10 p.m. Open dancing
18 to party, 21 to drink.
$4

Salsa at Tasty World
Tasty World Downtown
Lesson at 9 p.m.
10 p.m. open dancing
18 to party, 21 to drink
$4

Happy Dancing

Simply Salsa

To me, salsa is one of the best night club dances, its tight, close, casual and fun. By casual I mean that for those of us who don't have or know great technique, salsa still looks pretty good and dances easily. (I know that there are salsa connoisseurs and teachers who are cringing right now- my apologizes). The rhythm is also fairly easy to follow with the music, as salsa utilizes the down beat and falls in even time. This is unlike some other dances like foxtrot which may get off of the down beat for two-thirds of the time. Salsa is known for its use of spins and pretzel-looking moves(technical term :) ), which Justin Nix and Brittany Slonina demonstrate in the video below.


On a side note, you may have noticed that none of the lessons I record from our dancers have any music. This is because of my very new understanding of the strict rules of copyright law and my lack of desire to get busted this semester. Most of the dancers I film are pretty discouraged by this, after all What fun is dancing with out music? But none of the dancers where as determined as Justin, who dances in the next video.

Whipping out his cell phone he asks 'What if I wrote a song and said you could use it?'. 'Of course,' I answer, 'but we are filming now where will you get a song?' For the record, he has no cds, no ipod, no musical instruments only his cell phone, on which he is button mashing as we speak. I stare in curiosity, but seconds in salsa music streams out of the little phone. The music he composed in spare time with an application in his phone is playing merrily. So it is with great glee and amusement I ask you to enjoy the music; Copyright Justin Nix.

Couldn't get enough of Latin Week--Get some style

Last week's Dancing with The Stars featured the spicy Latin dances, the samba and the rumba. These dances along with cha cha, paso doble, mambo and tango all use basic Latin styling.

While it may seem like Latin styling is just a lot of ‘booty shaking’ it does take a lot of practice to do and look good. The key is to the keep control of your hips and to move fluidly into to each weight change. Most challenging part of styling is that while your hips and legs are moving your upper body is isolated and still. Working your abs to keep to your ribs and hips separated is quite a work out and explains why all those dancers have pretty flat mid sections.

In this video Randall Barnes and Rachel Holland explain the Latin styling from the waist down.