Lockdown is over, Salsa is Back!

The Most Exciting Thing I Experienced in the Salsa Community While Traveling the World!

In 2018, I travelled all the way to Italy, to learn from and train with the best dancers and teachers in the world.

From Fernando Sosa to Adolfo Indocachea, these guys were my dance inspirations!

Once I was able to get past my initial period of being intimidated, I was extremely impressed with the way the teachers taught with such passion and mastery of the technical aspects while honoring the culture.

While training there, I was lucky enough to be blessed to witness the blossoming of a worldwide Salsa phenomenon: SALSANAMA!

Here's me demonstrating what I learned in one of Fernando's classes. Alongside Charlie Garcia (New York)

What is Salsanama?

Created by Fernando Sosa as a way to push his dancers to their limits, Salsanama was inspired by the breakdance battles and dance-offs that you see all over the media and movies: except SALSA STYLE!

Our 3-hour long training sessions would involve a technical training portion, a theory/concepts portion, study of music structure, and learning Salsa Shines movements...and it would all culminate in a battle!

Social media exploded with videos of pros and students dance-battling, and Salsa Shines were pushed up to the highest levels ever!

SOLO SALSA DANCING took the world by storm, and dancers all over the world were hooked!

And then came the aftermath...

"There is no way I could ever dance like that."

Once SALSANAMA started rolling out world wide, and dance studios all over the world started running Salsa Shines training and promoting local competitions, the inevitable happened:

First, professionals flocked to the comps and flooded their social media with videos of themselves dancing shines.

Second: students everywhere all said the same thing: "There is no way I could ever dance like that."

And I sympathised with them. Social media was filled with videos of PROFESSIONALS with decades of training, doing their best moves. Of course it would be intimidating for the average student!

And so I set out to deconstruct everything I knew, and to organise and curate all the training I'd received over the years from the best in the world including Fernando, Adolfo, Oliver, and more...and construct a program for REAL students.

A step-by-step program that would address all the individual elements that make up the full picture of what you see these amazing dancers do online.

Things like:

• Upper Body Movement
• Weight transfer and hip movement
• Increasing footspeed
• Understanding music structure
• Predicting and reading the music
• Using the right movements to the right music (Musicality)
• Turning on the attitude and flavour
• Incorporating specialty movements like Son, Pachanga, Swing, and more

All the things that gave me the confidence to battle against THE BEST in the world, like the legend, Fernando Sosa, or the multiple times world champion Ricardo Vega (from Karen y Ricardo):

All the training that I received, and have translated and prepared for this program, gave me the skills and confidence to be able to step onto any stage at short notice (sometimes at a moment's notice), to dance alongside SALSA WORLD SUPERSTARS like:

The legendary Oliver Pineda (video 1),  the amazing Panagiotis (video 2), World Champions Richie and Almendra (video 3), and the superstar Brendan Ayala (video 4)

Come Join the Salsa Revolution!

And so, I'd love to invite you to join us in the SALSANAMA training program. To grow alongside myself and hundreds of other dancers. To push yourself to the best you can be. To discover things about Salsa you never knew that you never knew.

My final thoughts on Salsanama and how I feel about it in the video below. Hope to see you in the program!