Mambo Walk Move in Mambo Dancing

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Leslie Sack at expertvillage.com. My website is lesliesack.com and this is the dance mambo. I am just going to talk about your frame and how you want to hold your body, posture and how you want to step when you are stepping in this dance. When we are doing any Latin dance, we are trying to walk. Any way we walk we are trying to walk as if we walking naturally backward. If I were to think about it, this is how we would walk backwards. I step on the ball of your foot first and then I step onto my heel. Okay and my leg straightens. The Latin look is you are trying to do this any direction you go. You're trying to walk forwards and sideways as if you were walking backwards. Sounds really easy. That is the most important part. Try not to think too much about it. You might get paralysis through analysis but the most important part is I am walking forward and you are stepping toward the front of your foot and bending your knee just like you are going to climb up little stairs and then you step onto the stair so you bend you knee, straighten, bend your knee and straighten. So that is how you step with your feet. When you are holding your partner, bend over a bit. You want your arms to be up so get your heart lifted and bring your arms down to get your lats working and bring your elbows in front of you. This is my frame. My left hand is up and my right hand's on her back. I put my right hand up and my left hand is towards his shoulder. Okay. So just going to be great in front of each other and posture is slightly forward of your ankles. You know a little forward leaning and then to practice the hip action. If you just bend one knee and straighten the other, this is how it is going to look. The whole reason that your hips move is because you have all your weight in one leg or the other. So just don't worry too much about your hips. You don't want to look a little too hippy. It's just change all your weight to one leg or the other and naturally your hips move.. That is your Cuban motion so you will look authentic when you mambo."