Product Description

In Volume 1 for Beginners, we'll guide you through the very basic bachata dance steps, giving you a sturdy and comprehensive foundation to build from. We'll take you, step by step, through all the beginner patterns and techniques, and we'll leave nothing out! No experience necessary! 2 left feet? No Problem! We'll get you out and dancing in no time. You'll learn everything you need in order to become a great Bachata dancer! DanceCrazy Presents your complete step by step guide to Dancing the Bachata. Complete break down and instruction for men and women, including dancing to the music and essential tips for success on the dance floor. Sensual and Romantic. . . Over 16 weeks of Bachata Dance Instruction, and Countless private Lessons, all on one massive DVD. Features multiple camera angles, picture in picture, music to practice for each step! Plus detailed tips you can't find anywhere else. . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67014 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Full Screen, NTSC
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

About the Actor
SalsaCrazy.com is one of the world's premier Latin dancing websites. Founded in 1996, SalsaCrazy.com was born of a passion to dance, and a desire to show others how fantastic salsa and bachata dancing can be. As our first instructor told us, "It will change your life". Give bachata dancing a try, and you'll find a vibrant world of fantastic people, exciting nightlife, and perhaps a side of yourself you've always wanted to free. We've created a series of high quality DVD's to showcase how easy and fun bachata dancing can be! It's a dance that can be enjoyed by everyone, with fantastic music, a rich history, and an unbeatable, intoxicating, rhythm.

About the Director
SalsaCrazy.com is one of the world's premier Latin dancing websites. Founded in 1996, SalsaCrazy.com was born of a passion to dance, and a desire to show others how fantastic salsa and bachata dancing can be. As our first instructor told us, It will change your life. Give bachata dancing a try, and you'll find a vibrant world of fantastic people, exciting nightlife, and perhaps a side of yourself you've always wanted to free. We've created a series of high quality DVD's to showcase how easy and fun bachata dancing can be! It's a dance that can be enjoyed by everyone, with fantastic music, a rich history, and an unbeatable, intoxicating, rhythm.

Customer Reviews

Dance instruction of rare and outstanding quality!
To offer some context for this review, I study approximately 30 types of partnered dancing, focusing on lead-and-follow social dancing rather than choreographies. My library now includes a large collection of dance training videos, many of which I've worked-through. I am particularly interested in the teaching/learning process or pedagogy of dance instruction. I've studied partnered dances with dozens of dance teachers. Sadly, my assessment is that the majority of dance teachers may be excellent dancers, but are exceedingly poor teachers. This assessment also extends to dance training videos. The instructors who recorded this video stand as a refreshing contrast; this is a training video of outstanding quality. What makes this training video outstanding?
1 Both instructors teach! In most training videos, only one instructor teaches (usually the male) and the other partner is mute.
2 In this video, the instructors teach both to the men and the women. In most other training videos, instructors teach nearly only to the male and neglect or even ignore teaching women the dance skills which they need.
3 Both of these instructors teach outstandingly well. By "well", I mean that all of the little technical details of how to actually successfully dance together with a partner are explained, including dance floor etiquette, how to lead the partner to move, how to follow the lead's (man's) moves, where the muscular tensions must be applied, how to hold the partner and much more. I have never seen another dance training video containing so many of these details. In contrast, most dance training videos teach a much larger number of "moves", but don't provide beginner dancers with enough information for them to be able to actually lead these moves on the dance floor - a discouraging and frustrating experience. In contrast, these instructors are truly aware of what beginner social dancers need to know for their dancing to work. Many of the details presented in this training video took me years to figure out because so few dance instructors ever mentioned them.
4 Presentation of each dance "move" (a "figure") includes a demonstration of what the move looks like, then separate detailed breakdown of the man's part, the woman's part, technical pointers ("tips") and a demonstration to music.
5 Being a good dancer isn't about doing many complicated figures badly; that just ends up looking and feeling like a wrestling match and doesn't impress anybody. Good dancing is being able to dance fluidly and move as one body with your partner. This requires understanding how to move in a particular kind of dance to look and feel beautiful. These instructors presented an outstanding breakdown of how to do the basic movements ("basic step") of Bachata and greatly improved my understanding of how do dance Bachata despite the fact that I've been dancing it for years.
Some (mild) critiques:
1 These instructors make the same mistake most others make, in explaining figures facing the camera instead of with their backs turned to the camera, forcing the confused student to try to dance the mirror image of what they are doing. I can't believe that any dance instructors still use such lousy pedagogy, but most do. This is especially confusing to beginner dancers.
2 Since this tape is targeted at beginner dancers, the fact that the basic step is taught left foot first for the follow (the woman), even though they state that the follow always starts on her right, makes this doubly confusing.
3 There are only five figures taught on this video. I don't believe that this should be objectionable, because it is better for a beginner to learn five moves which they can actually pull off on the dance floor than to learn 15 moves of amateur wrestling disguised as dancing. If you think that this is too few moves, I'd recommend working through this video and then purchasing other Bachata training videos by the same teachers or other teachers. Working with different dance instructors will make you a better and more versatile dancer.
These dance instructors are among the top 10 instructors (for a beginner video) I've learned from over the years.

like it! like it! like it!
Being a Latina, I've always watched different ones in my family try to "do" the bachata, but I wanted to "really" learn it. This video is a wonderful start. The instruction is very simple. I'm not a natural born dancer, but after this video I got a little more confidence and an appreciation for the actual techniques. I would recommend this video to anyone that wants to learn it the right way, and not just bits and pieces of it.

superb!!!
Now this dvd is great. I have been doing ballroom and latin for a few months but I pick up dance steps very easily, perhaps because of this I tend to lean to dvd's that give me alarge volume of patterns even if the instruction is not detailed cause I can figure out what is being done. That said bachata is a dance that I was having a little more trouble with in terms of technique, so this DVD was very very good. I liked the instructors, they took their time and even gave you simple alternatives to use until you could actually get that ever so important 'triple hip' that the bachata is famous for. Now I plan to get the second dvd to learn even more patters to broaden my repertoire. In short...buy this!!