New Forest Salsa

Q&A with Duncan...

My name is Duncan. I have been teaching Salsa for 10 years... when I was at university I was doing a bit of DJing and one evening the Dance Teacher didn't turn up. So, I was talked into filling in. The teacher then didn't turn up again... so I carried on... and it kind of grew from there!

• Do you offer private lessons? Yes. I've experience of doing this for individuals, couples and small groups. Please contact me directly if you are interested in these.
• Do you do private party bookings? Yes; as I started out as a DJ you also benefit from my experience playing music and setting up good quality mood lighting to fill a large venue (a step up from the tacky disco lights of many mobile DJs). Please contact me directly if you are interested in these.
• I've never danced before, can I still come to your classes? Yes. The Absolute Beginners Courses start by covering the most basic skills such as listening to the music and body movement.
• What does this mean if I've danced before? You will still get a lot from the first couple of lessons in terms of improving your musicality and body awareness and learning Salsa-specific styling.
• Do you teach lots of routines? I have been teaching Salsa for over many years and feedback from students has taught me that people want to learn more than this. I have responded and developed a teaching style based around basic dancing skills - this is how professional dancers learn and you deserve the same! You will find that after a few weeks you will be able to improvise moves and sequences even though we've not specifically learnt them. There are some good reasons for learning routines (and we will do them sometimes)... but it is like learning to read whole sentences before you can read individual words. When learning to read your long term aim is to get used to jumbling all the words up to make new sentences. So, learning to read generally starts with individual words, then builds from very short sentences, and then onto longer sentences. I mimic this proven approach to learning with the way I teach dance.
• Why is the Absolute Beginners course so short? 12 weeks may seem like a short period of time to learn the basics of Salsa. You probably won't be winning dancing competitions yet! You will realistically understand the basics and be able to have fun dancing by the end of the course. By then you will understand about stepping in time, lead-follow, creating simple moves and be able to do back-basic, forward-and-back-basic, walk-turns and cross-body leads... these are what you need to do the Improvers Classes so you will then be ready to join in with that class.
• What should I wear on my feet? I recommend: comfortable, secure and slippy. Comfortable means you are used to wearing them (so don't get special dance shoes you are not used to or you'll be learning two things at once... to dance and to move in your new shoes). Secure means they won't slip off your feet while dancing and also that they will allow your shoe to move exactly as your foot does (so your initial movement is not wasted by flex in the shoe... for example flip-flops are a bad choice). Slippy means that it slips on the floor a bit (for example trainers are not very good because they tend to stick to the floor too much).
• Can I come to your classes on my own? You are welcome to come on your own. About 1/3 of people in my classes come on their own, 1/3 come with their partner and 1/3 come with friends.
• After the Absolute Beginners Course... what then? Well, if you carry on dancing after the Absolute Beginners Course there will be a strong emphasis on relaxing and learning to "see" the opportunities to do different things in different combinations as you dance. Additionally we will be looking at more advanced moves and shapes that we did not cover in the Beginners Classes.
• Does that mean we start learning routines? Not really (we do a bit, but with nothing like the emphasis you will find at other places), although you may well develop your own favourite "routines". More importantly you will learn to see clear opportunities based on your position at a given moment in the dance... in English that means "you will learn more variety".
• Will we learn really cool advanced stuff? You don't actually need advanced moves to enjoy dancing socially. However, lots of people want to learn them anyway so they can be flash and fancy! In Improvers Classes we will sometimes look at more advanced things... it involves a lot of effort for a relatively small benefit, although it is nice to have those "icing on the cake" moves to drop into your dancing sometimes.
• So, what kind of advanced moves do you teach? I like to teach travelling turns in a cross-body lead, which can be combined to make really flash sequences (typical Strictly Come Dancing stuff that students normally recognise from the TV). Sequences of spot-turns are also nice - not so flash but for the people dancing they have an amazing flow - and they are increasingly not being taught any more in Salsa so it is nice to have some retro-moves that other people haven't seen before! Also, we sometimes spend some time on drops and leans (and other static-moves).
• Do you teach dance full time? I spend about 1/3 of my time teaching Salsa. So, if I take a while to respond to emails or phone messages that is why.
• What do you do the rest of the time? Well, I also teach Salsa classes in Bournemouth. I spend another 1/3 of my time as a Gardener in Romsey, Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and the New Forest. I spend the remaining 1/3 working as a Maths Tutor in Poole and a Maths Tutor in Romsey.
• Can't see a question you are wondering about on here? All the questions on here are questions I've been asked... and I'm happy to add more if you can think of them!