Salsa Simplemente!

PETER
With no previous dance experience, just a liking for Latin music, I started taking salsa lessons at a local Health Club in 1999. To start with I was absolutely hopeless. But finally the penny dropped and once I had got to grips with the basic steps and turns I was hooked. I started dancing more and more, regularly attending workshops in Newcastle and then further afield. In 2004 I ventured to my dream destination – Cuba – and have been back there on three more occassions for tuition in 2007, 2009 and 2011.

At the end of that 2004 I qualified as a dance instructor with the UKA. In 2005 I started Salsa Simplemente with great trepidation, thinking that salsa was on the crest of a wave in the UK and would soon diminish in popularity. How wrong could I be!

The classes and events have grown in popularity and In 2009 I was very flattered to win Salsa York s Twelfth Night Extravaganza Award for Services to Regional Salsa, having come third then second in the previous two years.

My interest in Cuban music and dance gives me a preference for Cuban style salsa which can be vigorous or gentle, it can be very intricate but it s also very fluid, expressive and a great deal of fun. I also love La Rueda, the Cuban-style group dance which is fabulous to watch and great fun to do – and even more fun when it goes wrong.

In my classes I teach common salsa basics so that people have a general background without specialising in any particular style. I teach slowly and methodically with particular emphasis on:

establishing the basics.
learning to lead and follow, giving and interpreting the signals.
building up the confidence of leaders to actually lead.
having fun.
teaching short combinations and repeating moves so that they become automatic.
having more fun.