Before you start dance lessons you may not have even heard of rumba. You may have heard of it’s Latin cousins such as salsa and bachata but rumba is certainly the lesser known style. This is interesting as once you start dancing it could very well be the style you use the most often due to it’s ease and versatility.
Versatility
Rumba can be danced in a way that moves around the floor and takes up space or it can be crunched down to fit the tiniest of dance floors available. It’s also extremely versatile in the types of music it can be danced to. As long as the music is in basic 4/4 timing you simply speed up or slow down your rumba to match.
Below are some example videos of Winston and I dancing rumba to;
- Country Music
- Latin Music
- Old School Classics
- Modern Pop Music
Country Music
Latin Music
Old School Classic
Modern Pop Music
Three Types of Rumba
There are actually multiple styles of ‘rumba’ as there often are with Latin styles of dance.
1. American Social or ‘Box’ Rumba
This is the style we teach here at QuickSteps as it is nice and easy to pick up and very user friendly for social dancing. Haven’t started yet? Head here to learn the basics!
2. Cuban/International Rumba
This is a competative style of rumba where the basic step is an elongated side to side action with a rock step on each end (cha cha without the ‘cha cha cha’ in the middle) – See the basic step for cha cha here. This is the style you would most commonly see on T.V. in competitions or dance shows such as Dancing With The Stars. It is generally slower than American Social and is more performance based or ‘over the top’.
3. ‘Salsa Cubana Rumba’
The third type of ‘rumba’ is actually referred to and used as a style of salsa… So, not sure how that happened!? 🙂 Here’s an example:
Now Try Some American Social Rumba for Yourself!
Start with the basic step with this easy online dance lesson.
Once you have some of the basics of your rumba feeling comfortable follow along with this video below in order to thread some of the basic rumba step patterns together.
