[Music]
>> Nicole: Hi, welcome to Dance Papi. I'm Nicole Lazo and this is my partner Chris Penales.
Today we're going to work on how to do the lead and follow with partnering. When we dance
as a couple, you always want to dance with the weight over the balls of your toes. You
don't want to be standing up or be pulling back from them. First of all when you put
your hands with a partner and you lean into them, you shouldn't feel like you're overbearing
and pushing into them too much. You should have a little bit of tension here, so he can
feel me and I can feel him. We want to keep this angle as we go into our
connection. We're going to do a closed position first so the leaders can put their right hand
on the lady's shoulder blade. Followers, we're going to have our left arm on top of
theirs, thumb in front of the shoulder, fingers behind. This is our main connection. Like
I said when we're pushing with our hands, if we're pushing into each other here, I can
be pushing on his shoulder and he can be pushing on my back. That's how we're going to feel that.
With the opposite hands you want to connect.
There are a lot of different ways you can connect and it's the leader's choice. We're
going to go over a couple of them. This is our pistol grip so leaders if you put out
a toy gun. Ladies we're going to have our hand right on top of the bottom finger. That's
our pistol grip. We have the regular closed position here.
Then there's another one where you would do it on2 or in bachata with the lady's palm up.
Ladies it's the leader's choice. You don't want to go up to him and figure out what position
you like best. The one you do not want to do is the interlocking
of the fingers. This is bad because when you go to turn your arm might just rip off. Make
sure it's just the fingers connected slightly so when you do your turns you can rotate around
the hands. All these are closed positions. If you want
to do open position, that is when we have two hands connected right here. You're a little
farther away from your partner but it can set you up for different combinations.
Chris is doing a pistol grip with both hands and you can do the same thing here. You can lean
into your partner. Leaders going to have his fingers facing his partner. Ladies we're going
to have our palms up and that's me resting right there. We can let our fingers rest as
well. We're pushing in each other and that's how we're going to have the lead and follow.
You can have it two-handed, open position, one hand open position, cross. All these are
called open position. The last thing we have is our compression zone.
Compression zone is about chest-to-arm hip level. Whenever the leader has your hand
in this part of your body, you're only pushing into them. The minute they raise the hand
up, you're going to relax a little bit. If he tries to raise your hand and you're forcing
him down and he's trying to go up, he's not going to be able to lead you into your combination.
This is compression zone, and then if Chris raises it up I'm going to relax because he
wants me to turn or something like that. Same thing if the hand goes down. Here's my compression
zone, if the hand goes down I'm going to relax. He can do the same thing, turn me and then
have my hand go behind my back. You don't want to be holding up too hard.
Compression zone, relax, compression zone, relax.
We have open position and then closed position.
All right so when you're dancing with music the same thing with the open and closed position.
Five six seven, one two three. This is our closed position and Chris has chosen pistol
grip for his left hand. Remember you can do the other ones. You can do the regular or
arm up. It's all about this connection on the side. Leaders, if you have a follower
that is not giving you the right connection in pressure. Let's say I don't have my arm
connected at all, he can still have a really good connection here and he has a fixed arm
so his elbow isn't really in and out. Does that make sense? You are always going to have
your hand fixed on your back. Ladies if we're dancing with a leader that's
all over the place, he doesn't have any frame. Chris let's go, I can have my own connection
here as well. My thumb is going right into his shoulder here, and I have a fixed arm
as well. You don't want to be going close and pulling and then going close. That should
be fixed the whole time for your closed position. When you do your open position - two hands,
you want to give a little bit of compression during the compression zone. The same thing,
you're pushing into your partner so that you can feel the lead and follow.
Thanks for watching this video on Dance Papi. This was your framing and connection for salsa
on1. If you liked the video give us a thumbs up and you can check me out at nicolelazodance.com.