Dear John,

I haven't read all the comments in this thread as I've only just come back to this forum after being away for a year (used a different alias then). You say Latin dances and mention Rumba, so I assume that is the one you are trying to get your head around. But have you tried salsa? I find it is much more "natural" - to use that dreaded word again - than most Latin dances. Perhaps you have seen that the basic step in salsa loooks a bit like someone running forwards and then backwards, at least as far as the movement of the arms goes.

My suggestion would be for you to try to walk down a room with that kind of "cool" movement of the arms, and on each step, rather than concentrating on what your hips do, just let them go. Release your hips and see what happens!

Another thing that might help is to just move your hips to music. You have probably heard of isolation exercises. This is when you concentrate on the muscles moving a particular part of your body in order to achieve control over what they do. Try rolling your hips clockwise and then anticlockwise. Roll them from left to right and back. As a variation, you can try to write a figure 8 with your hips by raising one hip when it's away from your body, and then moving it over to the other side of your body, and then doing the same with the other hip. These exercises you can do with your legs together or apart. You can also try rolling your hips forward and back while having one foot some 40cm in front of, and parallel to, your other.

The reason it is useful to get a kind of control and muscle tone through exercises is that to get a really nice hip motion, you use your muscles to resist the way your hips are going: If you step on one foot and let your hip go, transferring all your weight on that foot, your hip will jerk out. When you slightly contract certain muscles, you can resist this movement so as to smoothen it.

As I said, I haven't read any of the other comments made since there were too many. I apologise if I have repeated anything that has already been said, or if people have made more suitable comments than I have, perhaps due to a better understanding of your problem, but I would be glad to hear my comments were any help at all!

Best wishes,

the Phoenix

Alright to attempt to answer your question is kinda difficult, many teachers practice techniques in different ways however i'll try to explain what i have done... I've been practicing latins for about 7 months now, and i'm told that my "cuban motion" is better than people who have been doing it for years. Here is what i would do:

1) For one, do not worry about your arm motions right now... To practice cuban motion, keep your arms to your sides and DONT USE THEM. Using your arms takes away from the movement and when learning your motion, you should be totally focused on the proper hip motions...
2) Keep yourself upright, do not look down, head straight up, back straight... Posture is the most important element in dance, you can know all the moves you want, but if you dont have proper posture, excuse my french, but it's basically a bunch of S**T.
3) I'm going to assume you know both your rhumba and cha-cha basics (box movement for rhumba, side to side motion for cha-cha), this is the standard for american latins... international uses slightly different patterns. You should practice these two basics SLOWLY. Do not use music at first. Your teacher was correct in saying that it is natural for one hip to drop when you move from side to side, however as a beginner you may have never noticed that... I definitely didnt and i had a time realizing what they meant until i concentrated on this whole motion...
4) On your basics... your legs should be straight EXCEPT when you are switching weight between your left and right legs... if you keep this in mind you will begin to notice your hip movements better. As you improve you will notice that your stomach muscles (aka area under your ribcage) will be the main power between you switching weight quickly and crisply...
5) I am currently trained by two wonderful professional dancers, and here is a quote from the gentleman, think of your hip movements on a scale from 1 to 10. 10 being the stiffest possible means you can move from one side to the other in cha-cha, and one being the loosest, you should attempt to keep your motion crisp yet relaxed, so therefore shoot for a 5 in your mind. If you arent at a 5, WORK ON IT.
6) Stick to the basic steps while practicing cuban motion. Dont mess with forward and backward chaseis (sp?) until you have at least started to master your basic cuban motion...

I hope this is of some help, not sure if i covered everything, let me know if i didnt, also, keep in mind that i spend nearly 2-4 hours a day practicing my basics, this isnt something that comes overnight, it takes months to even start to master, and years to actually look professional:) So take your time and enjoy the dancing....

Jason Annis

Thanks everyone,
I seem heard different kinds of stylish hip ..motion!?

I havn't danced any salsa yet, but I had heard about that principl which to move our hip in a fiqure 8 way before. A nice hip motion should be like that, I thoght!

I think what Frank said is just like what rumba (week's variation) vedio clip shown in this site. It was looked more elegant and smooth.

I will take your advices, thanks again

John Shue