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Introducing the Handbook of Salsa Dance series.
For articles about Salsa Dance
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About the Handbooks
There are three handbooks in this series:
- Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Positions
- Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Patterns
- Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Butterfly Patterns
Handbook of Salsa Dance Series
This series covers beginner to intermediate level dance elements. This includes handholds, positions, patterns, and combinations.
A salsa dance combination is comprised of two or more salsa dance patterns, each pattern covering two bars of music. Every salsa dance pattern begins and ends in a dance position. One can view the salsa dance pattern as the artful transition from a start position to an end position over eight beats of music. Because salsa dance is made up of combinations, and combinations are made up of patterns, one can view salsa dance as an aesthetically pleasing progression through a series of dance positions over the course of a song. Expert salsa dancers know how to get into and out of myriad salsa dance positions in interesting ways. Knowing how to do this can help increase your salsa dance repertoire. This is facilitated by knowing your dance positions.
Learn how to break down elaborate salsa combinations into individual components by name. This allows you to pick up new patterns more quickly. It also makes it easier to remember a pattern or combination you learned previously. This will help you to learn from other dancers.
Each handbook contains links to free online lessons that demonstrate the techniques. The author researched hundreds of websites and online video lessons and curated the best 148 of them for beginner and intermediate students.
Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Positions
To best understand combinations and patterns, know your positions. To truly know your positions, be able to identify them and call them by name. This handbook will show you how to do that. The key insight is that every pattern begins with a start position, and finishes with an end position. This handbook enumerates those positions and teaches the names. Once you learn the position names you will be able to write down a combination in terms of its patterns, by giving the start and end position of each pattern in the combination.
Contents include a compendium of 68 salsa dance positions illustrated with 330 figures, an annotated curated list of 84 links to free online lessons from expert instructors, and a comprehensive dictionary of salsa dance terminology, packed into 387 pages. Each position is illustrated from multiple angles.
This handbook will help you identify common elements of salsa dance by name. When you have the vocabulary to describe the building blocks, you can understand what you see on the dance floor. You’ll be able to break down a combination into component patterns. You’ll be able to identify the positions that make up a pattern. Then you will then be able to compose new patterns of your own. Expert salsa dancers know how to get into and out of myriad salsa dance positions in interesting ways.
Salsa dance elements covered in this handbook include steps, handholds, turns, combs, arm and leg stylings, positions, patterns, and combinations. Handholds covered include left to right hold, right to left hold, parallel hold, handshake hold, reverse handshake hold, cross hold, and reverse cross hold. Turns covered include cross body lead, reverse cross body lead, single right turn, single left turn, inside turn, outside turn, and enchufa turn. Positions covered include apart positions, open position, closed position, half open position, handshake hold, hammerlock, half Hammerlock, cross hold, reverse cross hold, neck loop, arm hook, cuddle, butterfly, sombrero, and wraps.
This handbook also comes in an ebook version. The ebook version is ideally suited for referencing via smartphone.
Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Patterns
The second book in this series shows how to break down patterns into constituent dance elements. It also shows how to create combinations from patterns.
This Handbook provides a breakdown of common positions, holds, turns, and patterns. It contains 36 dance positions, 51 dance patterns, and 184 illustrations, all packed into 293 pages.
A salsa dance combination is comprised of two or more dance patterns, each pattern covering two bars of music. Every salsa dance pattern begins and ends in a dance position. One can view the salsa dance pattern as the artful transition from a start position to an end position over eight beats of music. Because salsa dance is made up of combinations, and combinations are made up of patterns, one can view salsa dance as an aesthetically pleasing progression through a series of dance patterns over the course of a song.
Those amazing dancers that you see on the dance floor seem to have an endless knowledge base of elaborate combinations. How can they memorize so many different combinations? The secret is that many of them tend to use a small collection of patterns. They know how to get into and out of a position. If they have a combination that begins with some particular start position, they also know an interesting way to get into that position. Each pattern they perform takes them from the start position to an end position. They know how to take that end position and turn it into a start position for the next pattern. They know how to mix and match patterns to create combinations that seem to be infinitely varied.
This handbook will help you get there.
This handbook is structured for quick reference. This handbook contains a compendium of basic positions and turns, a catalog of common salsa dance patterns, a collection of salsa pattern combinations composed of patterns defined here, and a guide to creating new pattern combinations of your own.
The patterns in this handbook can be used to create thousands of combinations. It is possible to combine these patterns into 227 combinations of length three without repeating a pattern within any of those 227 combinations. The number of combinations that can be created without repeating a pattern is even greater for longer combinations: 471 combinations of length 4, 952 combinations of length 5, and 1,820 combinations of length 6. Twelve combinations are provided to show how to create combinations using the patterns in the handbook.
Illustrated Handbook of Salsa Dance: Butterfly Patterns
The newest handbook in this series focuses on one type of salsa dance element: the butterfly position.
This is a comprehensive exploration of myriad butterfly positions. Whether you learn best from illustrations, diagrams, descriptions, or video, this handbook has you covered.
This handbook breaks down 5 categories of variations on butterfly patterns. Each set of variations combines common butterfly positions, holds, turns into patterns. Each focuses on a single objective, such as entering a butterfly position, exiting a butterfly position, and using a butterfly position in the middle part of a pattern. These variations comprise 20 dance positions, 40 dance patterns, 131 illustrations. This handbook shows how to combine these patterns into enough combinations to fill an entire night of dancing without once repeating.
Whereas the first two handbooks in this series take a breadth approach to learning, this handbook takes a depth approach. By mastering a single category of patterns you can accelerate your learning in areas. Instead of slowly learning everything across the board, diving deep into a single type of position and pattern takes your dancing to a new level. This handbook focuses on the Butterfly positions and their related patterns. It looks at what can be done using 9 butterfly positions. From these 9 positions it presents 20 patterns that use a butterfly position. It provides another 20 patterns that complement the butterfly combinations.
These 40 patterns can be combined to create hundreds of short combinations and thousands of longer combinations. These patterns can create 620 combinations of length three, and 2,349 combinations of length four, where each combination never uses any single pattern more than once. Based just on the patterns in this handbook, you could literally dance all night without repeating yourself.
This handbook provides 5 sets of variations that show how to get into and out of butterfly positions. You can devise many combinations of your own creation. This handbook shows how. To show how to combine patterns into combinations, 11 combinations are provided, of which 9 are linked to a video lesson. Each combination demonstrates how to combine the patterns presented into a pleasing sequence.