International Salsa School in Malaysia

Salsa is not easily defined. What is Salsa? A sauce, a recipe, a dance? Who invented salsa? The Cubans, Puerto Ricans? Salsa is a distillation of many Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances. Each played a large part in its evolution.

Salsa dancing is done on eight-beat music, with dancers moving on three beats, pausing for one beat, dancing for three beats, and pausing for one beat. The movement style is left-right-left-pause, then right-left-right-pause. During the pause in most salsa dancing some sort of flourish is utilized, be it a stomp of the foot, casting out the hand or kicking the lower leg. Salsa dancing is mostly a stationary dance, with little movement around the dance floor. Instead, dancers rely on the subtle movement of their legs and upper bodies to convey the energy of the dance.

Salsa appeals to many people because you are not constrained by too many parameters, you are free to vary the basic steps and improvise your own moves. Salsa is something for you to enjoy. It allows you to do almost anything - you just need to know the basic steps, which are relatively easy, and follow the music. Step into a Salsa club and you will notice that it usually does not take complicated moves to wow the crowd. A stylish head turn, a sensual hip wave or a flirty wink usually does the trick.

Another advantage of doing Salsa is that you are not confined to one dance partner. You require a fixed partner for most ballroom dances because the steps are choreographed. But for Salsa, you can dance with anybody because the leader is an on the fly choreographer when he relates to the music!