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Tips for samba dancing. We are going to talk about three. One is posture, how to have a nice posture while doing your samba steps. First of all, you want to make sure that your knees are soft. That’s going to take the pressure off your lower back, and that’s going to keep your hips nice and neutral.

Also, that soft knee is going to give you the bouncing movement, and that’s the number two. Having that soft knee is going to give you the bouncing movement that we do use with the basic samba steps, the basic footwork.

Posture, it is important to have your chest nice and open, so really lift it up. Connect it with the abdominals. Roll the shoulders all the way back and down so you have a nice, nice, nice long neck and you have a nice, wide chest keeping it all the way down.

The third tip that we are going to talk about is breathing, how to breathe during your basic samba step. You do not want to go all of the sudden out of breath, and can’t breathe and can no longer dance. So, just make sure you’re breathing in and out through the whole time, right. Remember to never hold your breath, because if you do then you’re just going to have to let it go out your mouth. You want to have nice and easy small breaths in and out the whole time.

One of the most complete breaths is the diaphragm breath. It’s all the way in here into your belly. So if you fill with air and exhale and get the air out that’s going to give you the nice support that you need to keep up with your intricate samba steps without running out of breath.

So, three tips. Posture is shoulders back and down, nice and long neck, hips nice and neutral, and knees soft. Two: small, soft knees bouncing as you do your samba step. Three: breathe through the whole time.

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About samba, kind of our customs, it was brought to us Brazilians by the Europeans during colonial times. Believe me, it has changed a lot over the years.

Today, during Carnival, most of the states of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have the traditional costumes, especially during the samba school parade, but other states not so much. So, they have the bikini that’s a two-piece outfit. They also have a one-piece outfit, or they have the dress that’s a little more sophisticated look when they have a private event or a TV show.

I am wearing Capezio dance shoes, very comfortable, because you can articulate through the feet and it also supports your ankle. I have a gold queen dress. That’s a dress that’s usually used when your samba performer has a TV show. It’s a more sophisticated look.

I have the jewelry all over. Also, I have my arms of war. It’s a little bit like a warrior look. I have my wings, beautiful, gorgeous, and gold, and it symbolizes gold. I do have my head piece. It’s also in gold, and the jewel represents the jewel that’s natural from Brazil. It originates from Brazil. Brazil is very rich in natural jewels and minerals.

So, today I am a gold queen.

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Hi. My name is Michele Bastos and I am a dancer, a choreographer and teacher in New York City. I am from Salvador Bahia, Brazil and I started dancing at a very young age.

Coming from a family of musicians and dancers, music was always present in the house. At different occasions my brothers and his friends would get together and do jam sessions in the house. They would compose songs that they would perform and do in Carnival. Most of the songs became legendary Carnival hits.

I have performed with major Brazilian bands such as Banda Mel, Banda (?), Banda Teja Samba, Banda (?), the queen of Axe music Daniela Mercury and here in America have performed with Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, and the Gipsy Kings who I love, among others.

I have a dance degree from Federal University of Bahia and right after graduating from college I won a scholarship with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Today, I am a Pilates education specialist. I work with Crunch Fitness as the National Pilates Director and I own my own dance group in which I direct and choreograph. I teach Afro-Brazilian dance, Orishas and Samba classes and workshops in different universities in the USA and around the globe.

So today we are going to learn a little bit about Samba and how to do the basic Samba steps. You are going to learn different aspects from what to wear, what type of shoes to wear and what type of Samba party you want to go to. Are you ready?

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So, where to find samba classes. You can always look online, and search to make sure that there is a location near you, that’s going to be convenient for you to go on the weekends, or just right after work. Just make sure that you can stick to your workout routine, and make samba part of your life.

Also, if you are in New York, (?) major universities, they are going to be offering Afro-Brazilian samba classes, dance studios, and most of the health fitness clubs offer samba classes as well.

It’s can derive from light drums, Afro-Brazilian samba, to just a sixty minute samba workout played by a CD. But no matter what type of a samba class you’re looking for, they both offer the same high-energy, and fun exercise. And dancing.

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Samba as a workout.

Afro-Brazilian dances and samba, what type of workout is it? It is cardio based workout. You’re dancing an hour to an hour and a half. It depends on the intensity of the class. It could be low intensity so you’re just learning the basic moves. You’re traveling very little through space. Or, it can be a really high intensity class in which you’re traveling through space and dancing for a whole hour and a half or two hours of class. So, it’s really high-intensity cardio based workout. You can lose about 300 to 500 calories in only one workout.

The great thing about samba is you can do it solo, you can do it duet, and you can do it in a group, and in different types of samba it’s going to provide how many people you actually perform your dance with. For example, samba de gafieira is usually done in a duet, two people. But the regular samba class, the regular samba step, Afro-Brazilian samba, it’s a solo dance workout.

It’s a very easy way for you to get your workout done, to get your cardio exercise in, so that you should get nice, healthier, and stronger while you’re just having fun. That’s the whole thing about samba. It’s fun, fun, and fun.

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What you wear to a samba class. Again, you want to make sure what type of samba class you are going to. If this is an intense cardio workout-based samba class, you want to make sure you’re wearing breathable fabric, because you’re going to be sweating, you’re going to be dancing and jumping through the whole time. Most of all, you want to make sure you have a comfortable range of motion, which means you want to make sure you’re comfortable if you roll on the floor, to have a seat on the floor if you need to do the kneeling position. You want to make sure that your knees are also covered, and you want to make sure that you are able to have long arms and legs while you’re doing your samba routine.

For an example, if you’re doing an Afro-Brazilian samba class, it’s an hour and a half of intense dancing. You’re going to be dancing through the whole time. In the Afro-Brazilian class, we do dance at (?), you might be going onto the floor. For that, you want to be prepared. Make sure that you have support for your knees and make sure that you have a good range of motion to go onto the floor.

If you were taking a social samba dance class, which means that it’s more towards the ballroom side, and you were going to go after work, then you might be wearing your workout wear. However, you want to make sure that you do have range of motion, so be careful with really tight pants and tight tops that are going to prevent you from moving the torso. It’s going to prevent you from moving your hips. It’s also preventing you from lifting your knee up to hip height. You want to make sure that you are wearing a nice, comfortable outfit, but also accommodating between comfortable and looking cute, of course.

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Samba reggae, it was born in Bahia in the 1970’s, and it’s a combination of Samba de Roda and the Jamaican reggae influenced by Bob Marley. We do love Bob Marley in Brazil especially in the north, east, and of course Rio de Janeiro. It’s lyrics are very powerful, and it’s really strong with social content.

Samba reggae became in Brazil an expression of its Pride bloco movement. It’s pretty much about the message of the community it represents. Samba reggae blocos and bands usually represent the community. Two big examples of samba reggae blocos and bands in Salvador, Bahia are Ile Aiye and Olodum.

If we asked about the mestre on the samba it’s his way of just playing the repinique. That is a Brazilian musical instrument. The sound has changed since the 1970’s. However, the message is lighter, but it’s still the same. So we talk about love, but, yes, the political message is still there as well.

When the samba reggae is performed the musicians actually also dance on top of the stage. They have big musical instruments, usually called surdo, and while playing the surdo they’re making strong arm movements with the surdo and reaching with the hands while playing. So the movement, the dance, is based on this type of movement. Nice and long, and it’s up above. Big movement. It’s usually slower than the regular samba speed, so you get to do big steps side by side and allow the body to respond to the music. And it’s heavy.

That’s our samba reggae.

What type of shoes to wear to do the samba? It depends on what type of environment. If you’re going to a samba class you must know what type of samba class you’re going to. For example, we have Afro-Brazilian samba classes. It’s usually an hour and a half, and it’s barefoot. One, most of the studios do not allow street shoes inside of the studio, so it has to be barefoot. Two, it’s real important to have the contact with the floor in order to perform some of the orishas dance in Afro-Brazilian dances.

When you’re doing just a samba class it’s different than a ballroom dancing studio. You might want to wear dance shoes. It could just be high heels. Capezio shoes are very good because they stabilize your ankle joint and also give you nice support so you can articulate from heel, ball, toes to toes, ball, heel.

If you are going to a social dance you want to look cute. So girls, yes, high heels are more than welcome because more than anything you’re going to be dancing for fun. It’s different than when you’re going to a dance studio and you take an hour and a half of a serious workout. This one is more on the fun side, so you want to look cute. Yes, you want to wear your high heels.

First of all, you want it to be comfortable. Make sure the shoes are the perfect size. You do not want small, because once you start dancing your feet get a little swollen. It needs to be comfortable. Make sure that you have ankle support, and make sure that you can articulate through the feet.

Now, for the guys, it’s important the shoe slides. For that you may wear dance shoes, or if you’re going to a social party you may wear regular shoes. It’s very important that you have that slide effect especially for the samba. Guys, when they do samba, it’s really close to the floor. They do not lift the feet so far up like girls do, so it’s really important to have that slide effect with the shoes as well. Also, you want to make sure that you are comfortable.

So, it depends on what type of environment and what type of dance class – Afro-Brazilian, orishas, or just your pure samba – you want to make sure that you have the perfect shoe.

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Now we are going to learn a step that has become recognized Bahia in by the name of Cho Chua. Cho Chua is a song and it’s an old song of Brazil and then it was re-done by a big famous Pagode band recently and with the Pagode music, the good thing about it is, for the dance is that the dance steps usually follow the lyrics.

So when you are taking a Samba dance class and one of the musicians call Cho Chua, this is the step you are going to be doing. So let’s start. Nice and easy, follow the rhythm of the music, just softer knees, nice with the hip, weight, side by side. Shift the weight from right to left, nice and easy. We are going to add just a small little step to the side, and the hip will do a little ta-ta. Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta. The leg is slightly open to the side, as you accent the hip down, down. Down-down. Down-down, and down-down. Down-down, and down-down. Last one. Good. So now, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta.

We are going to do that a little bigger. Ta-ta, ta, and single, side by side. There is a little jump, little hop, and then you tap the toes, and tap, and tap, and tap, and tap. Now, let’s just change direction. Let’s have front and back. And, and, and, and. Stop. Hip accent. Front and back. Now, to make this even more fun, let’s add the arms. When you go back, Cho Chua. Cho Chua. Cho Chua. Cho Chua. Uh-uh…uh-uh…uh-uh. Front. And front, and back. Last one. This is your Cho Chua step.

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So now we have seen samba side by side the step slide, and also the samba step forward with the slide back. We are going to add a variation, another step into the samba pagode routine, and that’s a single leg hip accent. Usually we’re going to turn just a twist more diagonal, and we are going to do it to that side first.

You’re going to step forward with the front foot, hip accent, and bring all the way back. So, it’s pretty much just like the step forward slide back footwork, but however, we’re doing that into a small diagonal and we are going to repeat the same leg a few times.

So step forward, freeze for the weight, hip accent, and then slide back. Step, hip accent, and slide back. Step, hip accent, and slide back.

Faster, it’s going to look basically, almost like if you’re not transferring the weight completely forward, but you are. So, it’s hip, accent.

Let’s do it to music. Four, three, two, and step, and step, and step, and step.

So, it’s a small step, short step. You want to stay on the balls of your foot on your supporting leg. And hip, step, step, step, step, and step.

Do the other side. And four, three, two, prepare, and step, step, step, step, step, step, step.

Switch sides again. Four, three, two, and step, step, step, step, four, three, two, switch sides. Step, step, step, step, four, three, two, and one.

That’s your single leg hip accent step.

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So now we are going to learn a very specific movement and the Bergauze from Salvador by Brazil, and it’s called Quebradeira, which means shake everything. So we are going to move the legs fast and we are going to move the hips, and the torso, in a very not coordinated way kind of way, kind of. Let’s try.

So facing sideways, we are going to relax into the knees, where I’ll get a nice and neutral pelvis. First let’s start off with the movement of the feet. The feet we move from right to left, with very, very, very small range of motion. And from that, you are going to add hip movement into circular moves, nice and easy. Now on top of that footwork and the hip move, we are going to add the torso movement on the torso. However, it’s all a little bit faster and it’s really free movement, so don’t think about it too much. Allow your feet to move, allow your hips to move, and allow your torso to move. Ready? Four, three, two, and (?). The hips moving, the hips, the torso, it’s moving, and (?).

Let’s do that again slow. Okay. Foot work, right to left. Right and left, and right and left. It’s one. Then we add the hips and the torso, and four, and three, let’s double time, go and… Let’s turn around. This is a very traditional step on Samba, nowadays when you go to (?) concert, you are going to be doing the step, so rehearse it. Train at home.

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How to do a short samba pagode from Bahia routine. You have a series of moves we have done; side by side, Samba step. We have done step forward and slide. We have done the single leg hip accent and the quebradeira move, the cho chua move. Now let’s put everything together. Remember, there are no set rules, it’s all about putting the movements together, the series of movements together and have fun and enjoying yourself. Whatever you remember, just add it to the routine.

Now, you can always go back to the Samba side-by-side step. It’s always a safe place to go back and just regroup and get together. And then you start doing all the steps (?) and then just have fun with your routine. Okay?

So let’s start with the basic step, side-by-side. And remember, you can make that as slow and as small as you need, or as big as you like. Let’s bring that forward, with your Samba step, forward, hip, hip, hip, hip. Okay. Let’s go back to Samba side-by-side, with arms and with hips. With arms and hips, right into the single leg hip accent, and, and, and.

Now let’s do the other side as well. Ready? Turn and… now turn and find someone to dance with you. And do quebradeira. And quebra, quebra, quebra, quebra. Remember the footwork, the hips and the torso. Da, da, da, da. Now, just have fun and play with your Samba steps.

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So now we’re going to learn (?) from Bahia, step forward. It’s my favorite style, of course. That’s where I come from. I’m from Salvador Bahia, Brazil. I’m going to demonstrate just a few times, but we’re going to do it together.

Okay. Certain principles of the side by side, slide, slide, side, slide. Same thing. However, we’re going to step forward. Right foot, front step, and it’s a slide back. Same thing, left foot. Step and slide back. Right foot, step, and slide. Left, and slide. Right, and slide. Left, and slide. So just a small step forward, and then transfer the weight back to center. Transfer the weight, and it’s a slide back center. Transfer, and slide, and transfer, and slide.

So what is missing? Hip action. And hip, and center. So when you transfer the weight forward, you want to try and push the hip towards that direction. And hip, and center. And hip, and slide. And hip, and slide. A little faster. Hip, and hip, and hip. Same base Samba arms. So the arms are opposite of your front leg, nice and simple. And accent it out. And out.

And this time you want to exaggerate a little bit, because when you start going faster, your actual hip is going to go a little smaller. So now, exaggerate. Out, in. Out, in. Out and slide back. Slide, and slide, and slide, and slide back. Now let’s prepare to move a little bit faster. Keep a nice hip accent. Hip, hip, hip, and hip, and hip, and hip. Transfer the weight forward and bring it back. And step, and step, and step, and step.

Now let your torso react to the movement. Move about the head and the neck. The reaction and movement of the spine. And slide, slide, slide. And step. A little bit faster. And step, and step, and step, and hip accent, hip accent, step, slide, step, slide, step, slide, step, slide, step, slide. Hip, and four, and three, and two, and one.

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Samba [?], a side-by-side step. Very nice and simple, a basic step. What you want to think about is the energy comes from the ground. The knees are bent and soft through the whole time, and you want to have the weight on top of your hips as well. Nice and simple. Step to the right side, and we are going to slide the foot back toward the center. And the same thing to the left. Step open and slide back toward the center. Step open and slide back. Step open and slide back.

It’s a very nice, basic move, however, we are talking about samba, so we have to add hips to this movement. Hips accent as you step out. Hip accent as you step, and hip, and center, and hip, and center, and hip, and center. Don’t worry about it, because you can actually have a big hip movement and really accent weight out, and bring it back to the center. And hip, and bring it back to the center. We can start moving a little bit faster. Accents out, tah, in, tah, in, tah, in, tah, in, tah, in, tah, in, tah, in. And now the feet, a little bit faster. Tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah, tah-tah. And side, and side, and side. Allow your torso to react to the movement. And the side, the side.

Good, now let’s add arms to it. Hip, elbow, back center. Elbow, back center. And hip, elbow, out, and center. And hip, and center. A little bit faster. A taka-chicka, taka-chicka, taka-chicka, taka-chicka. Let your shoulders move and let your torso react to the movement. Now let’s look to the side that you’re pushing. To the left, to the right. Strong arm, strong shoulders, strong hips. And push, and push, and push, and push. You can add a nice, small circular move to your hips. Circle, and circle, and circle, and circle. Now your torso. React to the movement of your hips. Let’s go with the arms. And hips. And arms. And hips, and hips, and circle. Let’s do that one more time. And let the hips move and circle. And release. That’s your samba step side-by-side.

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How to do a short Samba routine.

So we already learned the basic Samba step, the basic footwork. We learned some step variations. We learned how to travel from side to side, forward and backwards. And we also learned how to turn. So now, we’re going to put everything together.

So let’s dance to the music. And remember, you always go back into basic footwork. That’s you home step. Right? Do your variations, do you turns, do you circles, do you sexy move, and then go back into basic footwork.

So let’s do it. Let’s do it together. Let’s start with the basic footwork. And! Let’s use the step-ball change! And now let’s Samba! How about traveling? Let’s travel to the right. And to the left. Let’s have some turns! Good, nice, beautiful, wise ladies! And give me nice, sexy move. And! Hip and torso! Shoulder! And turn, turn around! Remember the shoulders? Double. And! And Mother Famiga! So now give nice, big arms for your Mother Famiga. And! And do that again! And go back into the basic Samba step. So we can always use the turns, you can always travel side-to-side, you can do your step of change, and now let’s go back to basic Samba step. Now just enjoy the music. And do that every time.

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Samba pagode from Vajilla. What is it? It’s a combination of all Samba (?), all Samba roots, with (?) dance. It’s movement, shoulders, hips. It’s a little more aggressive and there is a freedom when it comes to movement. So the posture, actually we go through ups and downs, open and rounded shoulders and you have a little bit more of the cervical spine involved into the movement as well. So the head and the neck also follows the movement of the spine as well. This samba pagode from Vajilla, the music is very, very strong and it’s really high energy. Most of the bands come from a favela community and they do talk about that in their songs as well. The songs have different messages. It can just talk about the beauty of the Brazilian women and it can also talk about the hard life at the favelas, day to day life. Sometimes people say that you need a little bit of sadness to have a great samba song. We have everything. A little bit of sadness and all the happiness we can have and then we express that through the specific style of samba. That’s the samba from Vajilla.

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How to do the traveling move in samba. Samba is a social dance. You usually go to a samba party, you have a bunch of friends in there, your family, everyone is there. You want to interact with everyone, so you should be able to travel while doing the samba step, so you just don’t stop doing your samba step, and then walk over and then come back. I’m going to teach you how to travel doing your samba step, nice and easy.

Basic footwork that we learned already. Step back on the one, head of the musical phrase. Ready? Four, three, two, and step back. We learned the basic footwork that’s right here. You stay at your one’s place. Now, you want to travel. You want to go to the right side, and how to do that, you want to step a little bit bigger every time you step with your right foot. Right, and right, so it’s a little bit bigger every time you step with your right foot.

Now, you want to go back and center to the left, so how do we do? You want to step a little bit bigger with your left foot, and left, left, and bring back center using the right foot. Let’s do that again. A little bit bigger when you go to the right, and the left foot steps a little bit bigger out to the side when you go to the left. Ready? To the right, and to the left, a little bit bigger, step out with the left foot, and back center.

So now, You want to go forward, you want to to talk to someone that’s right in front of you, so you step a little bit bigger on the step two. One is on the back, two is a little bigger, and one on the back, two a little bit bigger. One on the back, as you step forward, it has to be a little bigger, and then again, step forward a little bit bigger. If you’re traveling to the back, then step one has to be bigger, so step one back, and two, close, and step to the back, two, close, and step, two, close, and step, two close.

Let’s do that a little bit faster. Basics on the step, and let’s travel forward. Seconds two, step two, it’s a little faster, a little bigger because you want to travel front. Now, we’re traveling to the back. Step one is going to be bigger. Back, back, back, to the front, and forward, to the back, and forward, to the back. So now, let’s put it together. Right, to the right. To the left, and back center, and forward, and second step is a little bigger, now to the back, step big on one so that again, to the front, and to the back. Big step, and here we are.

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I’m going to show you some moves that you can do. You can add it to your samba routine. That’s going to spice it up a little bit and make it a little bit more sexy and sensual.

Let’s start with your hips and with your torso. Remember, we did a nice great warmup for your hips and torso, so now it’s time to use it. Let’s always keep the knees soft, and the hips will just do nice and small circular movements.

And, circular move. So, it’s just circle, and you want to hit all the corners in the room. So, it’s a nice, full circle, and, good.

So, now let’s add the torso, and let’s do the same movement with your torso. You’re going to hit each corner in the room doing a nice circle with your torso.

Basically we’re working isolations. We’re isolating the hips from the torso. Let’s do the hip again. Do nice, long circles. Now the torso. And, big circle as well.

Now, if we decide to put them both together, what it’ll look like. Let’s try hip and torso moving. Keep the knees nice and soft, and your shoulders are also circling to the back.

So, we’re circling the hip, circling the torso, and the shoulders. It’s a full body movement. Nice and easy, and very sexy.

A little bit faster. And, one, two, three, four, five, six. Let’s do it slow again. Enjoy that circle, it is delicious. Do a little bit faster. Good. Keep the knees soft, and release.

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Now it’s time to learn some samba variations, some different steps. We are going to learn the step ball change. Very easy, very very easy. You already have your samba base footwork step, so now we’re going to add some different steps, some flor ayos like we call in Brazil, to these steps.

So, nice and easy, stand with your feet together. You’re going to step the right foot back, step the left foot, and then bring them together. Nice and easy. Let’s do that one more time. Ready, and right, left, together. Again, right, left, together. Again, right, left, together. Last time, right, left, together.

But now we have to add hips. You’re going to do samba, it’s going to have hip work, right. So let’s do some hip. Let’s just add hip movement to this step. When you step your right foot back your hip transfers into the right. Then when you bring back forward the hip transfers. Then you close together. The hips come all the way back to center.

Let’s do that again. Transfer, transfer, center. And, transfer, transfer, center. Again, transfer, transfer, together. Last time, transfer, transfer, together.

So now you have the step, let’s do that a little bit faster. And, one, two, three. One, two, three. One. One. So remember, hip, and hip, as you step, and hip, hip, hip, and hip. Two more times, hip, and hip.

Now, let’s put together the basic footwork. So let’s do the footwork four times, and then let’s do the step ball change twice. Ready. Four, three, two, samba for four. One, two, three, step ball change. One, two, three. One, samba for four. One, two, three, and step ball change. And one, two, three. One, two, again. Samba, samba, samba, and step, step. Last time, and samba, and step. And step, two, three.

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So now we’re going to learn another variation on the Samba step. This step is a very traditional step in Bahia and Brazil in general, Rio de Janiero as well. It’s called Mata Formiga, so basically it means, ‘killing the ants.’ So you’re going to step and twist. Ready? So step the foot and twist. And step, and twist, and, and twist, last time, and twist. A little bit faster. Step, twist, step, twist, step, twist, step, twist. So now we have to relieve the back leg. Bend the knee and allow the hip to move along. So the hip goes out and in. Step and twist, and step, twist, step, twist, step, twist, step, twist. Now, you’re going to allow your body to move. And we add in a hip accent to the back as well. So both the hips, and right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Good, a little bit faster. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. Good, let’s do that slow again. And step twist, step, twist, step, twist. So now, think of doing, small little circles of moves with your hips as you step and twist and step and twist. Remember that torso move, that sexy move? So now we put it together. Step, twist, step, twist, step, twist, step, twist. And a little bit faster. Slow. One, two, three, and a little faster. And slow. And now just the feet. Step, twist, step and step, how about turning around? And turn, and turn, and turn. And step, twist, step, twist, step. And four, and three, and two, and one. That’s the step-twist, Mata formiga step.

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Now we are going to learn how to turn with the base samba step. It is very
easy. You want to the side that you are going to turn. So if you are going
to turn to the right, you want to start with your right foot. If you’re
going to turn to the left, then you have to start with your left foot.

So let’s just start with the base same step, the base footwork, right like
that, two, three, and left, and right. Now we turn to the right, right foot
back, and turn. You want to turn nice and straight, the precise turn facing
the direction you want to go. To the back and one more turn to the right,
right foot back. Nice. Precise turn and back to center. One, two three;
one, two, three; one, two, three; and one, two, three.

So now let’s turn to the left side. Therefore, we start with the left foot
back first. Basic samba step four times. Prepare and turn, and turn to the
back, and step, and the last turn facing forward. So now we are going to do
that a little bit faster. Basic samba step double time which you should
learn how to go from slow to fast so now let’s supply it. Ready? Right foot
back, one and two and three and turn. And one and two and three and turn.
And one and two and three and turn. And one and two and three and turn. And
one and two and three and four.

Let’s do the same step, but let’s just have two samba steps back. So we’re
going to turn every two. Ready? Right foot back. One and two and turn and
turn and turn. Let’s do that again, facing front and turn. Nice, precise
turn. So step in the direction you want to go. So now it’s in the two count
so let’s do half turns. You really must look where you are going. You’re
going to turn to the back. So turn your head. Prepare and turn and turn and
turn and turn. One more time, turn and turn.

And that’s how to turn the samba steps.

Transcript

So now let’s talk about changing the speed. So, let’s talk about changing the rhythm, changing from slow to fast. So, lets start slow with basic footwork, basic Samba step. Let’s start slow. The most important thing to remember the head of the phase is the one we want in the back. So, I’m going to step with the right foot back for me. Nice and slow. One, and one. Now, to double the time, you’re going to have to move twice as fast. So, think of the right leg and the left leg needs to reach back in the air a little bit faster, so we have to move the feet a little bit faster as well. So, again, let’s do the basic step again, slow. Right leg back. Left leg back. And let’s double time. One, two, three. Let’s do it slow. One, and two. And fast. One, two, three, four. And slow. One. So, basically, two slow steps for four fast Samba steps. Slow. One and two, one and two, and fast, fast. Again. One and two. Slow and fast. Double time. So, you’re getting each one in the back a little bit faster. And slow. And slow. And then fast. And two, and three, and four. And that’s how to change from slow to fast with the Samba step.

Transcript

So now we are going to learn two different variations of hips. How to use your hips with your base samba step. The first one is a nice clean hips facing forward, so the hip bones are in the same alignment facing forward through the whole time. The second one is actual allow your hips to turn as you step back.

So lets do the first one nice and slow. Lets have your hands on your hips, and lets step back on one. Make sure your hips are facing forward and the base samba step base foot work. Step back left and forward. And step back and bring back forward, and again so you transfer the weight and you close.

The second variation is your going to allow the hips to turn as you step back. So lets go left to right first. Start the hips slightly turned and then as you bring forward bring back center. And left leg back, and bring back center. And right, and bring back center, and left and bring back center.

So lets try that with music. Nice and easy and maintain the hips facing forward, should keep you nice and clean. Small little steps. And one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one and the second step. The hip turns, and your given the side of your body. And the hip, turns a little bit faster one. One and two and three, second version. Hips turn and again the side a little bit more. First one, hips facing forward. Last time lets turn the hips, and turn and turn and turn. There are some variations for you hips, while doing the samba step.

Transcript

So, now, we’re going to learn how to use the arms with the samba step. So, very natural, just like walking. Arm in opposite of the front leg. So, when you start your right leg back, your right foot back, you’re going to bring your right arm forward. Step and place. And then as you switch, let’s switch arms. Naturally. Front arm in opposite of your front leg. And step, and switch, and step, and switch. The arms are closer to you, keep the feet very natural. It’s a very natural way of samba. Arms close to your body. So, this is when you go out and socially dance samba with your friends and family, this is the type of arm you’re going to have. This is also very commonly used by men. Women and professional samba dancers have two other types of arms. And I’m going to show to you right now. So, the first one is a more classic look. When you step back, you’re going to place your arm and you’re going to reach to the opposite arm nice and long. And you want to reach out. And you want to look great, the posture of the chest is open. And really place yourself. As you switch, switch arms and, switch. And switch arms and switch. And switch arms and. The hands come right in front of your chest bones, just your right front of your sternum. And you want to place it then, and keep your chest nice and wide. And again. And switch. And switch. But one’s about a little bit faster. And… And we want to reach the arms as long as you can. Open the chest. Lift it up. Now, there was another second variation. And we call that flodeo. The hand comes in front of you. And it makes a little flower. So, we are going to do that as low first. We are going to step back and the hands will sit right in front of your chest. And then you’ll switch sides, switch hands. And do that again. And do that again. The two more elevated, and it’s called flodeo. Let’s do that a little bit faster. And… So, remember, men, keep the arms close. Elbows close to the ribs. Ladies, open up. Use your arms, lift your chest up. And just dance.