I'll be in Spain the majority of this summer and one of my goals is to learn how to dance salsa, merengue, and any other spanish/latin dances. How shall I begin this endeavor? I have read of some clubs that give free lessons. Do you actually learn a lot from them?

To be honest, Spaniards aren't known for exceptional skills in salsa or merengue; those are more "Caribean" areas. Nonetheless, there are clubs in Spain that give lessons early in the evening before everybody else gets there. It is a great way to try to learn the basics and try to practice throughout the evening. One of my roomates ended up dating the dance instructor. :p

You probably won't get great in asummer, but you will learn the basics and have a wonderful time. Have fun!!!

Hi!.

The Disco I prefer for dancing salsa (in Madrid) is Trinidad, in Tutor street because is not as overcrowded as Randall (Ferraz street) / Azucar (near Atocha) or Tropical House (Spain Square).

All the Discos I know (in Madrid) are in this web site: Discotecas de Salsa

If you want to learn (in Madrid), you should take a look at Salsa Classes

Last year I was learning at MaxLatino. It was small but cheap. Circulo de Baile is more elegant and wide, but it is more expensive than MaxLatino. Another friend of mine is learning at Madrid 47 and she enjoys it very much.

In summer you'll find intensive courses in those academies. I know that in Randall they teach you free (almost during the summer) on Fridays night, but I went twice and I didn't learn anything (too much people).

By the way, are you boy or girl?. I ask you it because in the discos there are always a lot much girls than boys so, for girls is more difficult to find a "free boy" to dance with.

Bye!

I would not try too many intensive courses at the same time, my experience is that more than two hours of classes of different dances are the limit. I would start with merengue it is the easiest of the three big Caribean dances here:
Salsa
Merengue
Bachata.

Cheers,
Andrés

Thanks everyone for the information.

hombre_gizon--where in madrid can i find MaxLatino and Madrid 47? The website did not appear to mention their addresses.

Hey RayRay!.

The address and the phone number of Madrid 47 appear in the second link (Salsa Clases). Both of them (Max Latino and Madrid 47) are next to Manuel Becerra's Square.
Madrid 47: C/ Jorge Juan, 127. (Metro O´Donnell). Phone: 91 401 07 14.
Max Latino: Doctor Gomez Ulla street number 8. (Metro Manuel Becerra).

I don't agree with Andres. I would learn Salsa because is "The King" of the Caribbean Dances. Of course, is more difficult than merengue or bachata or cha cha cha. I would go to an intensive course of salsa two hours a day during almost a week (and after the course going out to practice). Just salsa.

One of the board memebers email me the following information (tried to email you too RayRay, but your address isn't posted on your profile apparently)

"I agree that we spaniards are not specially good at salsa or merengue.

However, this happens because, no matter the african-Spanish roots of these songs we are not living in the latin music environment since kids, like latinos.

However, we have, according to my experience in salsa classes, an ease to learn such dances (compared to my ocasional anglo mates at class). In Spain you can find that there is a LOT of people who dances latin dance and who do it well (I'd like to believe I am one of them). There is a significant percentage of people (maybe 10% of the people going out? maybe 30% of the over-thirty?) who can dance those fairly well.

In Madrid there are lots of salsa discos and many bars which are full every weekend and many weekdays. E.g.: Bailódromo Latino, Ramdall, O Zona, Serrano 41, Azúcar, La Riviera (sundays), Empire, Puerto Plata, la Comercial Cubana, La Reina de Cuba, and many others (these are the big/average discos), then the small ones: Parche, El solar de los aburridos, Keros, La negra Tomasa, and tenths more.

Recently one of the actresses of 'Betty la fea', a series going in TV, clombian, who recently visited Spain, recently declared to press she had been very surprised that a spaniard could teach her some salsa, as it happened when she came. In my opinion, this happened because here we dance Cuban style, which is much more lively and full of spins, that is more spectacular, and, in my opinion, true to origins, than the South American one you can learn in Colombia, Perú or Argentina.

Free classes in discos are good enough to learn fast and have a reasonable knowledge, but if you want to take time and do movements with real style, you should take paid classes with any of the many cuban teachers (or some spanish) that teach here.

Unfortunately the usual is one class a week, which does not allow people to progress as softly as with several ones. With a good teacher it may cost about 25-30 $ a month one weekly class. But if you take, let's say three in a week you learn not three times but much faster (I did it), but then you are paying 75-90$ a month (of course, much less months)."

C'mon Ray Ray! When in Spain, do as the Spaniards...and learn some Sevillanas or Flamenco! There are a multitude of "academias" and even clases particulares for these dance styles, which are infinitely more "Spanish".

"...se coge la manzana...se come la manzana...se tira la manzana..."

WOW! I can't believe all the great responses I have received. At least I already know that my evenings in Spain are going to be busy. Hopefully, by the time the summer ends, I will be an above average latin/spanish dancer.

I guess my plan is to learn as much as I can from the free lessons from the numerous discos and take an intenstive course here and there. I would like to take regular classes, however, I will be traveling all throughout Spain the majority of the summer

hombre-gizon, andres,: does the intensive program consist of one or more 2-hour classes? also, what exactly will I be learning in the intensive lessons, one style or more?

CaliBasco: I didn't mean to leave out those dance styles. I don't know if I'll be able to learn all these, but it will be a great time trying.

Thanks everyone!

Hi RayRay.

When I was in MaxLatino last year, there were two different kind of intensive courses. In one you JUST learnt salsa and I went 1 hour by day during 15 days. The other course was for learning three or four different styles (Merengue / Cha cha cha / Rock 'n' Roll / ?) and it was also a 15 days course. As you can image, in this second kind of courses, there is too little time for learning too much dance styles.

The best you can do is to learn salsa (and if you want you can learn merengue and cha cha cha) and spend all your evenings at the discos practising it.