Next Step

The technique that changed competitive Latin - written down for the first time.

For decades a Latin dancer was measured by feet, hips and legs. Those are still the foundation. But there is a coordination on top of them that separates complete dancers from the level below - and until now, nobody taught it.

It is called body action: the connection between what the lower body generates and what the upper body does with it. It is what lets a couple move as one, and what gives the dance volume you can read from the far side of the floor.

Gabriele Goffredo and Anna Matus were the first to bring it into competition as a systematic technical element, rather than an individual gift. The choice cost them four places in the world ranking before it changed the way the discipline is judged.

This is their method, in sixteen lessons:

• Posture, and the neutral position you always come back to
• The two zones of the upper body - and where an action must never start
• The chain: rib, hip, knee, foot
• Weight transfer, preparation, and the Samba whisk taken apart to the ankle
• Level one: translations and rotations. Level two: the eight and the reverse eight
• The couple - synchronised, not connected

Every chapter carries a numbered drill with repetitions and tempo, the mistakes to expect before you make them, and the three or four lines worth keeping. The book closes with a twelve-week practice programme and a twelve-point self-assessment you can run on video.

Book One of four. Written for competitive Latin and Pro-Am dancers who already understood that body action is the difference.