The Samba. It's not so much the steps but that elusive body tick, plus the changes in rythm. I have on tape a comment that pointed out that this couple had three changes in rythm in six bars of music. Anothe final where the comment was made, he had better watch his timing. At this point in time I still can't pick the mistake. And added to that is it is necessary to keep to an eight bar phrasing. Does anybody out there have this dance as their favourite.

Yes, Samba is one of my favorites.
I am still working on the solid basics of a volta, bota fogo, cruzado locks, and a good promanade run.

The promanade runs seem to have a variety of timing 123, 1a2, and SQQ.
This has given me some problems. I have gone to the 1a2 and it's very fast.

A good volta or a bota fogo is not easy.

Samba is filled with volta's and bota fogo's and I am trying to master the hip movement and at the same time keep the upper body still. And all those infinity and figure 8's with your hips are not easy--plus one needs to have good joints and flexibility (I do Pilates and some Yoga often for dancing) to do it.

This is not a popular dance socially in our area. We may get only one or two Samba's per night, so we don't get much practice. It's a moving and showy dance and the floor craft can be a problem. I'm lucky because it's my partners favorite.

Keeping the dance in phase is a little above where we are at now. I find it difficult to link all the figures together compared to other dances.

Don't think I have the elusive body tick yet. Can it be described?

I bought the new Samba-Slavik and Kirina dvd at Dance Vision and am now working on the details of all the syllabus patterns. I would like to get their Innnovations Samba dvd too.

We have hired a new coach to help with latin and I am having a Samba lesson tomorrow on primarily refining the technique and movement of the dance.
He is not the best, but after I use him for awhile and get better I plan to get a much higher level teacher, Milana (she's Russian) in another city nearby that placed 5th at Blackpool in Latin a few years ago. She has some students that are terrific. I always look at a teachers students to judge if he is a good teacher.

I agree that Samba is the hardest dance--the movement, timing, and character of the dance is totally different than other Latin dances. It is not a easy dance to lead with the lady far away in lots of figures. The lady needs to be familiar with the syllabus work.

Anomymous. A place I go they always play as a Samba Aba 's Dancing Queen. Its not traditional but has a nice feel about it. In a technique class I go to we have for the Samba, as well as the other dances, a set of steps which both male and female do exactly the same steps all facing the same way and progress around the ballroom. Of course it is eight bar phrased. If I were you I would wait untill I met up with Milana to introduce the body tick which is used on just about every step, Boto Fogo , Voltas etc. I don't have Slavik's tape on the Samba, but I have been told it is as brilliant as the others in the series. There is so much information on them I will be looking at them for ever.For the Promenade to Counter Promenade Runs I have 3/4 1/2 3/4 3/4 1/2 3/4 3/4 1/2 3/4. That's what I am supposed to do, but unless the coach is leading I finish up with a 3/4 1/4 1 timing. At the bottom of the chart it says. The timing for this figure is unusual. And so say all of us.One little bit of advice. If you have a routine which should be eight bar phrased and you decide for some reason to drop a couple of bars they must be replaced. The other thing is don't stop. If somebody is in your way and you can go clean through the middle, or split and go around them. If you stop unless you are very good you will never pick up the phrasing. Best of luck.

I like the Samba and really enjoy dancing Samba. Out of 14 dances we have tried to learn, it has been the most challenging. Studio always was trying to show us combinations including multiple types of Samba steps/movements, we dropped all the combinations and used videos to learn manuevers that contained one type of movement/step ( swivels, samba walks, bota fogas etc.. ). That approach has worked better for us. It is still one of our weakest dances, but at least it is fun now.