The Origin of Dancing: Rumba

Hi everyone!

What's better than to start my very first informative post with some background of the ballroom dancing we know today? So, here is the origin of the sensual Rumba.

Meaning of the word 'Rumba'
The term 'rumba' may refer to two different styles of dancing. The first meaning is the Afro-Cuban Rumba, which I will not explain here. The other, of course, is the ballroom rumba.



Ballroom Rumba
Rumba is one of the five latin dances. The other four are Samba, Cha Cha Cha, Paso Doble and Jive.
The rumba is the slowest of them all. Typically, in competitions, the rumba is the third dance (exceptions not included).

Rhythm
The typical rumba rhythm is derived from a Cuban dance style, the Bolero-Son. Funny fact: both salsa and mambo find their origin of rhythm in the Son. However, only the rumba is an official ballroom dance.

In the 1930's the rhythm still was quite faster then we know it nowadays. Generally, a competition rumba has a rhythm of 25-27 bars per minute.

The emphasis is on count one, which is highlighted with a hip movement.

Character of the dance
Most of you might already know that the rumba is the dance of 'seduction'. The lady seduces her partner by coming towards him and then going away from him or 'rejecting' him. Simply spoken: it is some sort of 'hard-to-get'.

Characteristics
A rumba is easily recognized throughout a latin series, because of the slower rhythm.

Next to the slower rhythm, the rumba is characterized by slow hip movements. Generally, after every step, there is a movement of the hips.

The legs are stretched to a large extent. At very high levels of dancing, especially the ladies tend to overstretch their legs. Combined with the high heels, the stretched legs give a high amount of 'sexiness' to the rumba.
Every step is made with the ball of the foot touching the floor. To be exact, the ball of the foot (or in some cases it is more like only the toes) always touches the floor. This gives rise to a high stability, but also is very difficult to achieve. That is because you need to exert a lot of pressure to the floor with your feet. And of course, it is a whole lot easier to move your foot a bit and exert less pressure ;-)

Rumba to me
For me, rumba is wonderful to dance with my beloved dancepartner. I could not imagine to dance a sensual rumba with someone else, but that's because I lack a bit of imagination and courage to seduce another gentleman than my own ;-)

Because of the stretched legs, it is more difficult than it seems like at first. I am one of those ladies who tends to slide her feet slightly (which is 'forbidden'). Oops ;-)
Well, practice makes perfect, so, I'm still working on my feet, my hipmovements and the connection between Patrick and me.

To conclude, here is a video of a very nice rumba to me. This Rumba is performed by Frank Zegels and Laura Jottay, the 2014 Dutch Champions in Latin
Thanks for reading and enjoy watching!