Welcome to Salsa Moderna. This page is designed for those who are new to Salsa Moderna but have done a little salsa dancing before, and wish to improve your skills and add to your repertoire.
We teach mainly cross body salsa on 1. If you have danced salsa before you may know what this means - basically the style we teach is danced in a 'slot' or a line and we start our steps on the first beat of the bar. It is worth knowing if this is the style of salsa you have done before or not. If it isn't you will still be able to join us at improver level, but you may notice some differences in the steps to what you have done previously.
We encourage our dancers to come for the beginners sessions too for several reasons. Firstly it is always a good idea to refresh the basics, it helps other newcomers progress faster and also when we have no complete beginners present I teach a bonus improver session instead so by arriving early you could get extra improvers moves! It also costs the same no matter how many classes you attend so you have nothing to lose. Sessions are drop in, no need to book and you can start at any time as it is not run as a course.
You don't need to bring a partner to our salsa classes. We rotate dancers round every few minutes so during the course of a lesson you will get to dance with and meet lots of other students. However, if you would prefer to come with a partner and dance only with them then that is fine too, although students do tend to learn quicker when they get the chance to dance with multiple dancers.
Our improvers lessons are designed for people who have a little previous experience of salsa dancing. Some of our experienced salsa dancers often join in too as this can really help the improvers - for example you may be leading or following the move perfectly correctly, but your partner (who is also an improver) may not be and you might mistakenly think you're doing something wrong. If you dance with someone with more experience it is easier to tell when you're getting it right, and if you're finding it hard, you can always ask for their advise. Our classes are very friendly and informal - everyone has been through the learning process and remembers how other dancers helped them when they were learning. We all make mistakes - I do too even though I've been dancing for many years - we're all human and it's ok to get it wrong. It's more important to have fun.
You can wear whatever you like to our salsa classes, we have no dress code, although I'd recommend shoes with a smooth or slippery sole - avoid gripping soles such as trainers as these cling to the floor as you turn and can make some of the moves hard to do and can make ankles and knees ache. For ladies I would avoid spiky heels - heels can get caught in the real wood floor! - as this can make your balance harder during spins etc.
We video the moves from each class (Don't panic! We don't video you (unless you fancy seeing what you look like dancing - in which case we'd be happy to, just ask!), just our staff dancing through the moves) and give out the password to everyone present at the class. You can then look back at the moves any time you like to help you remember what you have learned. To get to the videos for the classes you attend, click on the recent moves tab at the top of the page, select the date of the lesson you attended. At the top of the page are written notes of the moves - scroll down and add the password where asked to gain access to the videos.
As well as our group sessions we also run private classes or can be booked to teach your club or group, or for weddings and parties etc. If you have something in mind, please get in touch.
We look forward to meeting you soon!
