Aint necessarily so. Authentic that is. Let's just take Rumba. There is not A Rumba. There's Guaguanco and Columbia and more. Guaguanco Matancero means Guaguanco from Matanzas. Matanzas took in Yoruba Calabar and Congo Peoples during the Spanish occupation. Also the Habanera and other Spanish influences. Matanza favour Rumba, Oriente (SE of Island) favours SON which has influenced "our " Rumba. Both are found in Havana. In COLUMBIA Rumba they sometimes balance glasses of beer on the heads and can carry knives or other weapons. Danced only by men. There just isn't an authentic (sic) Rumba to go to. This applies to most American, Intl and indeed Latin Club dancing and dances.

Thank you.
Your concept is seems right.

This week when I practiced my baisc step.
I gotting feel a "pelvis drop" when I put all my weight on my leg (when my leg is totally stiff").
I also feel when I drop my weight on my left leg (forward basic), my right side will move slight forward at the same time automatically. On the other hand, when I did "backward basic" or "jive rock", I also could feel a "drop", and my left side moved forward slightly.

I didn't know whethere I was doing the right things? And my arm movement should follwing my R or L side "slight forward".

One question is that when I stiffed my leg, I felt a little bit unbalance. Would you give me some comments.

Thanks in advance

Jhon Shue

Sorry, my english isn't good enough.

So maybe there are some mistakes in writting.
Actully, I agree with your ideas. Because it sounds reasonable and realizable to me.
But I didn't express that was because after reading your reply, I found I am a very very "beginner".
I've been doing all those things that you said should not to be focused on at first. (I didn't have any wonderful teacher?!!ha ha!)
On the other hand, I put all things together not only focus on "hip motion", and I made my hip movement to much (maybe reached 8~9 the scale you said) .

Beside, you said: "stomach muscles is will be the main power between you switching weight quickly and crisply".
In fact, I heard similar things from my previous dance teacher. Only difference is that She told me that I should used my stomach musicles not just hip (including, rumba, chacha, and jive rock) at the beginning before teaching me how to practice rumba or cha-cha basics well.
No wonder I cann't feel my stomach muscles power, Maybe because I didn't train my basic steps well at first.
Anyway, I think that my first thing is to practice the basics well then getting developing my stomach muscles power. So ,I reply you that "I got a lot work to do...".

The things you didn't talk about was "arm motion", but when I looked in this site, I found someone disscussed it before.

After I reading your reply, I started practicing, althoung I still couldn't control my stomach muscles. But I known it should take more time to develop it.
As for my teacher said "use my back musles", it was confusing me. I really didn't know how to exercise my "back muscle" without moving my shoulders.

Thanks, would you mind giving me more advices?

John

John Shue,
I'm not sure if you understood what I wrote... I'm a little confused by your reply... Did you not agree with what i said or were you thanking me? Let me know if you have questions...

Jason

Hi, Jason :

Y known? You've pointed somethings I'd not even mentioned last time. All what said were just happened to me.

Including :"still care of cha cha chasse", "like to keep with music measure","put mind in my arm","move my hip up to 10...in scale" ......all are not good.

Thank you again. and I know I've got a lot works should to be doing right now.

John Shue - It's not really a hip motion. Don't tell ANYONE I told you that. It is a bottom or but or buttock movement. Hip just sounds more polite. Stand up - put all our weight on a stiff left leg; drop your left buttock. Same for right.
That's a "hip" ! movement. As to "cuban motion" - the cubans don't dance that way. Neither do they do the Intl Rumba or Ch CH. Ask a Rombrero.

John,
As for the arm movements, I dont even use my arms while practicing my basic steps... reason being, it takes away from the concentration. Just keep your hands to your sides and relax your arms. It's good that when you step forward you feel the side you step forward on come forward a little, this is correct. It seems as though you have picked up on my ideas pretty clearly. Your dance teacher was correct in much of what she was saying, I dont like to contradict people anyhow when it comes to teaching, because everyone does look at things in different ways... So my greatest advice is DRILL those basics into your head, make them very comfortable and stable. Also, as for the balance problems, make sure to keep your feet at 45 degrees at all time, kinda hard to explain on here.. You may want your dance instructor to explain that whole idea to ya. Let me know if you have any more specific questions.

Jason

Thanks,
I will practice it more ......

There is a lot of confusion and also individual opinion about latin motion, and everyone seems to have a different method of trying to imbue it.

As a American dancer, much of what I see taught & done socially, has an immediate hip settle after every step. This can look cool to some people, but falls in the look category some of us humorously describe as "white boy latin" - a sort of "swishy" hip movement at every step, kind of like a Michael Jackson act instead of ballroom dancing.

Using A-rumba box as an excercise (cha-cha is too challenging for a beginner), I've found an excercise that addresses this:

Play a very slow rumba beat, and mentally divide the music into 8 counts instead of 4 (i.e., count the half-beats, just for this purpose).

On 1, you arrive on your LF, leg bent, with your center already completely over the toe (i.e, your body has moved before your leg and fully arrives with it). Do not drop a hip, but instead straighten the knee while pushing up slightly with the RL (rear leg) at the same time, thus pushing BOTH hips up through the first 3 "counts." Take your sidestep (bent leg) as usual, and settle each hip on "5" and "7."

After awhile, you'll begin to see (depending on opinion) that good A-latin motion is really the same as good I-latin motion, except the knee is bent. Neither is a "swishy" dropping of the hip after each beat.

Hope helpful.

Just for reference,
Many of you probably know this but if you want to see what real latin dancing looks like, go to a few latin clubs, its nothing like what ballroom teaches.. in fact if you go to these places and try to dance cha-cha with them, they'll prolly start laughing.... now i'm not ripping on ballroom because i do latin ballroom anyways... but its really funny if you get out and see the true origins of ballroom latins...