Teaching Salsa
The quick-start guide to teaching your first Salsa class with confidence.
Whether you're a passionate social dancer or an aspiring instructor, Teaching Salsa is a practical, honest and laugh-out-loud guide to leading your first class with confidence and clarity.
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Written on our dance floors
Teaching Salsa distils more than a decade of real-world teaching at Dance Culture into 92 fast-moving pages.
James draws on years of training instructors, and thousands of hours in front of real classes, to walk you through everything from calming those pre-class jitters to building a safe, joyful learning environment.
With engaging anecdotes, proven strategies and a refreshing dose of humour, the book demystifies the art of teaching partner dance. It's the same thinking behind every class we run, and it's required reading for our own trainee instructors.
You'll learn how to
- Lead your first class, even if you're terrified
- Break down complex steps with clarity and style
- Create connection, community and confidence in your students
- Embrace mistakes (including your own!) as part of the magic
If you've ever wondered, "Could I really teach Salsa?", this book says yes, and shows you how.
From the very first page, it's clear that James has written more than a teaching guide. This book shows us that the heart of dance is the quality of teaching that welcomes us to it. It blends practical techniques with insights that only years of lived experience could provide.
A peek inside
Fourteen short, punchy chapters take you from the fear of starting to the joy of wrapping up your first class.
- Embracing the Suck
- Facing the Fear
- Owning the Room
- Walk Before Your Dance
- Content Triage
- A Music-First Approach
- Introducing Posture and Frame
- Minimum Effective Lead and Finesse
- Dance Floor Etiquette and Wrapping Up
Four practical appendices round it out, covering everything from simple right turns and magnetic hands to a basic cross-body lead.
Ready to teach your first class?
Teaching Salsa is available now in paperback and on Kindle.
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Prefer to learn in person? The book pairs perfectly with our hands-on Instructor Training programme, where trainees put these ideas into practice on a real dance floor.