Latin dance is definitely different from Latin Fitness Dance.
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| internet source: Cardio Ballroom by Julianne Hough. I am sure you know her. |
Typically fitness dance aims to train the body equally and evenly; however, a dance may concern more about the artistic presentation.
Simply put, a fitness dance will work your left arm/shoulder/leg with a set of actions, then repeat the same to with your right arm/shoulder/leg; a dance will work a fan to a particular direction and not the other one.
Fitness workout may need you to lie on the floor and work your abs. And very unlikely, a Latin dance will require you to lie flat and cycle your legs in the air.
Simply put, a fitness dance will work your left arm/shoulder/leg with a set of actions, then repeat the same to with your right arm/shoulder/leg; a dance will work a fan to a particular direction and not the other one.
Fitness workout may need you to lie on the floor and work your abs. And very unlikely, a Latin dance will require you to lie flat and cycle your legs in the air.
Musicality:
The very distinctive feature for fitness dance is fast music for calories burn, slower music for toning. No matter fast or slow, it usually has a strong beat so it is very easy to follow. And even it is fast, seldom it goes as fast as 250bpm, it may put even improvers into risk as dancing to 200bpm for a continually one hour is really hard work. If it does so, the count may change to S(1) as a 2-beat call and the Q(&) as a 1-beat call.
Latin dance music sometimes have a very strong beat, however, it is not a guarantee- sometimes the '1' is lighter than the others. International Ballroom Rumba music has a rhythm hard to identify by an untrained ear; International Ballroom Samba has the count '1', '&', 'a' which represent different beat values and that's not easy for beginner to catch.
The very distinctive feature for fitness dance is fast music for calories burn, slower music for toning. No matter fast or slow, it usually has a strong beat so it is very easy to follow. And even it is fast, seldom it goes as fast as 250bpm, it may put even improvers into risk as dancing to 200bpm for a continually one hour is really hard work. If it does so, the count may change to S(1) as a 2-beat call and the Q(&) as a 1-beat call.
Latin dance music sometimes have a very strong beat, however, it is not a guarantee- sometimes the '1' is lighter than the others. International Ballroom Rumba music has a rhythm hard to identify by an untrained ear; International Ballroom Samba has the count '1', '&', 'a' which represent different beat values and that's not easy for beginner to catch.
Attire:
Needless to say, if you go to a dance workout class, you probably wear loose clothing plus a pair of sport shoes.
Needless to say, if you go to a dance workout class, you probably wear loose clothing plus a pair of sport shoes.
For the Latin dance classroom, you may find someone wear fantastic dance dresses, or practice dresses, some are more casual. But however causal they are, they will wear proper dance shoes, not neccessarily the 3-inches high heel Ray Rose, but anything they wear should be dance-proven with suede soles.
Well, if the two are so different, why do we name a fitness dance 'Latin'?
So, what is common between the two?
This is because we apply some dance patterns or actions into the fitness dance. For example, in my class, I use Salsa's QQS pattern, but without Cuban hip, plus a lot of arm actions (not styling), I use the zigzag but incorporating skipping actions. And I don't use music with the clave beats, because the class are ordinary people who just want to sweat and they can't identify the emphasis in the music. On the contrary, my Salsa class talks about Cuban hip action every time to ensure they know it, arm styling is styling but not punching actions or mimic of weight lifting action. And surely we don't skip and we have Salsa music.
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