Merengue Cuddle Turn

Video Transcript

"Another variation on the Merengue turn is called the "cuddle," or that's what we call it. After we slide out to two hands, we're going to give her an inside turn, but hang on to the other hand while we do it. We'll start by taking her to her right. Gentlemen, lift your right hand and ladies lift your left. You're going to turn her in this way and bring her to your left side. Now we're hip-to-hip. As you do that, you want to keep the momentum going around in a circle. So, we just continue our basic step like this. Now, if you want, it's optional, but you can take her back and forth once before you unwind her. In this case, you just use your hands that are on her hips, use the inside of your wrist to push her over to the other side. Go around in a circle, switch sides, push her back over to the other side, and back around in a circle. When you're done, you just lift this hand up and unwind. So, the simple cuddle is this: you wrap her in, and wrap her out. And to give it a little more style, we can do that back and forth as well. To show you on the other side, we're doing our basic step, lift up the other hand, wrap her in, continue the momentum around in a circle. Push her over to the other side, and drop the hands to the hip, turn the other way, and switch sides again,. Turn back the other way, and, when you're ready, just unwind and we're back to our basic step with the two hand hold. That's the cuddle."