Seb's Hong Kong Salsa Blog

Over the years, I’ve seen a number of teachers teach on2, and even I, for a time, taught a transition class for on1 to on2 dancers. Each teacher, I found, places different emphasis on different things. Additionally, Ive often been told by people in the transition that they are not yet comfortable dancing on2 because they can’t “hear the 2″.

Before I explore my thoughts on the matter, I need to share some of my personal experiences in switching to dancing on 2, but first of all, a matter of terminology.

I read an article a number of years ago (I believe the article is still online somewhere, if we were to search for it) and I will paraphrase some of the key ideas. In dance terminology (not just salsa) you ‘dance’ on a beat of that is the beat you first step on. In the same terminology, you ‘break’ on a beat if that is the beat on which you change direction.
If you dance what is commonly called ‘on 1′, you step 1-2-3, 5-6-7. Hence you dance ‘on 1′. You also change directions between the 1 and 2, that is the break. Hence, dancing ‘on 1′ is both dancing on the 1st beat, and breaking on the 1st beat.
If you dance Eddie Torres style ‘on 2′, you still step 1-2-3, 5-6-7. However, the basic step differs in that you break on the 2nd beat. You are ‘dancing on 1 and breaking on 2′.
If you dance what I’ve heard called either ‘classic mambo’ or ‘Puerto Rican mambo’, your timing is 2-3-4, 6-7-8, you are dancing on the 2. And the basic is such that you also break on 2.
Here in Hong Kong, we predominantly dance on 1 or Eddie Torres style. The fact, as I just established, that dancing Eddie Torres style is actually dancing on 1 is relevant, as you’ll see further down below.

Now that little bit about my personal history. I started dancing in late 2000, here in Hong Kong. Like the great majority, I learned on1.
My first partial switch started in late 2001, with the help of Rogelio Moreno, a prestigious instructor from Los Angeles. I’d read that cha-cha-cha was ‘supposed’ to be danced on 2, and asked him about that in a private session I took with him. He helped me hear the conga syncopation, and since then I have been unable to un-hear it, and became physically incapable of dancing cha-cha-cha on 1.
I started switching my salsa to on2 in early 2003, mostly by studying videos I found online. Since there was no YouTube back then, you can imagine this was no easy task. About six months into that transition, HK was fortunate enough to have Jhon Narvaez, director of Salsamania, in HK teaching for several months. I jumped on the opportunity to learn from him, and it was then that I was explained the musicality of on2 (the clave and the tumbao) for the first time.

The point of this bit of exposition is that most teachers tend to align themselves to one end or the other of the issue on musicality. Some teachers will start with, and put heavy emphasis on, “hearing” the on 2. Others will hardly bother, teaching the musicality of on2 as more incidental than causal. In my learning, I’ve experienced both ways, and concluded mostly that it ultimately depends on the student. Some people, as soon as they “hear” the musical explanation, get it right away, and transition easily. Others need to ignore that hurdle and just focus on the steps.
As I’ve noticed, not “hearing” the 2 does not in any way prevent one from dancing on2, especially since dancing Eddie Torres is in fact dancing on 1, and you can easily dance on beat if you merely hear the chord beats (1-3-5-7)

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