Week 1 of 12
FreeTiming & Footwork + Posture
PHASE 1 — Foundation & Connection (Weeks 1–3)
Goal: a dancer who stays on time, stands tall, connects, and can lead/follow a few moves cleanly. Vocabulary is deliberately small.
The home base. Nothing fancy — stand tall, transfer your weight, find the beat.
This week
The fundamental: Timing & Footwork + Posture(Posture, Sync)
Your first 10 moves
You don’t need two hundred moves to have a great dance — you need ten you can actually lead. Here they are, in order.
The heartbeat of every figure. The forward-and-back rock-step that every linear salsa move is built on top of.
Teaches: Sync · In the song: filler/reset
The basic, turned sideways. A lateral rock-step that sets up turns and adds variety without leaving home position.
Teaches: Sync · In the song: filler
The embrace that leads. Learn the closed hold as its own skill and every lead you ever give gets clearer.
Teaches: Sync · In the song: filler/reset
The casino home base. The open, push-and-pull Cuban basic that every casino figure launches from and returns to.
Teaches: Sync · In the song: filler/reset
The linear workhorse. The slot-clearing exchange that moves the follow past the lead and powers most of linear salsa.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: travelling
The master reset. "Tell her no" — the cross-body walk-across that returns any casino figure to open home position.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: travelling/reset
The first turn everyone learns. A clockwise underarm turn for the follow, returning to the same spot.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: filler
The counter-clockwise sibling. A left underarm turn that often gathers the follow into a closed hold.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: filler
Plug in and swap. The casino workhorse — a half-turn place-swap that feeds nearly every Cuban combination.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: filler/travelling
Load the spring. A tension-and-rebound break that creates the momentum and distance to launch turns.
Teaches: Alignment · In the song: accent/break
- Improv
- stay on time switching between the basics for a full song.
- Musicality
- clap the beat first, then step it. Salsa — find your 1 (or your 2). Bachata — feel the 1-2-3-tap.
Comfort starts here too — consent and floor etiquette, the floor's ground rule.
Add week 1’s moves to your practice?
They’ll join your daily loop, so the coach brings them back at the right time and they move into muscle memory.
0 / 50 moves collected
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Week 1 of 12 on the path.