Cuban Motion in Rumba Dancing

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Leslie Sack with expertvillage.com. My website is lesliesack.com and this is Rumba the dance of love. So what we want to feel in our bodies as we’re doing this dance is we want to get our hips going one way and the body going the other way. So we want it to look like we’re doing a lot without going anywhere. So this is what in only Latin dances this is called Cuban motion, it’s a universal concept and Rumba’s a great way to practice it because it’s nice and slow, it’s one of the slowest dances in the Latin group of dances. So what we’re going to do is just to practice this element by itself, you’re just going to straighten one leg and bend the other one. So I’m going to keep my heels on the floor, I’m going to straighten one knee and then bend the other knee, they’re both straight and then one knee bent, both straight, together knee bent which ever leg is where all my weight that’s where my hip moves. What’s going to happen is my hips move back, we don’t want them to go side to side like this. Just one hip goes back and then the other one so it’s really pretty, you shift all your weight and then we’re going to have eventually is your upper body is going to be squeezing you’re going to be using those back muscles, so if I’m on my right leg my right side squeezes, if I come on my left leg my left side squeezes, it looks like this. So we’re going to try to add that in as an ingredient but first we’re going to learn the basic steps and we’ll add that in a little bit at a time as we learn more, so that’s your Cuban motion, have fun. "