Hello everyone,

first, sorry for my poor english, i´m brazilian and have little knowledge of your language.

I´m new to ballroom dancing, i´ve been taking classes for almost a year now.

I would like to talk about samba. I was looking at the samba videos in the site and i think that they are realy diferent from what i´m trying to learn here in Rio de Janeiro. We dance really close , most of the time cheek to cheek, and we do a lot of fast turns to both sides. There are many steps where the man pulls the feet of the woman with his own feet. I will try to get some videos of our gafieiras so you guys can see what i´m talking about...

It sounds like you're describing Argentine tango - a wonderful dance....

I think that some samba moves evolved from the tango and bolero.

I´ve seen some people dancing tango and i also think its a wonderful dance.

But samba and tango are very different, the samba has more joy, a couple dancing samba must smile and play wich each other. The tango is more precise, and the couple must show much more passion...

You are probably dancing Brazilian Samba, while dancers here dance International style Samba.

Juice 23. The International Style Samba can not be done correctly in a small area. It travels in the main anti-clockwise. In a very small area like a float in a parade a skilled couple could cope, but they would be the only couple dancing.

i'm a 10 dancer- believe me- i know what its like do try to do a samba cramped! ;)

now hoez you feel

It does sound like you are describing Argentine Tango, which I believe is (or can be) a much slower dance. Samba as it is danced in the USA is a very fast and extremely energetic dance.

Jerry