YoYo

A line-salsa combo built on a cross-body lead that is deliberately never finished. On a two-hand hold the leader opens the slot and sends the follower travelling away from him, then recalls her along the same line before she settles — out, back, out, back. The recall is what gives the move its name: the follower is the yoyo, the leader’s frame is the string. It is usually taught in escalating levels, the plain travel first, then a turn added on the way back, then hand changes and wraps stacked on top of the same in-and-out engine.

The leader leads it with his body and a springy frame, not his arms: he steps back to open the slot and create the send, then changes his own direction to bring her home, letting the connection carry the message a beat before she needs it. The follower travels the full distance on her own axis and stays collected on the ends, ready to be recalled — she finishes each trip properly rather than hovering in the middle waiting to see what happens.

Pulling her back with the arms. The moment the elbows do the work the elastic dies, the follower gets yanked, and the shape flattens into two people tugging a rope. The other common miss is stopping dead at each end — the yoyo is a continuous out-and-in, so each arrival should already contain the next departure.

It lives on the cross-body slot, so it starts from an open break and hands you straight back to open two-hand position — exit into a plain cross-body lead to calm things down, or into an inside turn to spend the momentum you have just built.