Christina: And I'm Christina.

Aaron: Coming at you today from Dance Times Square here in New York City. Today, we're

talking about the four elements of the cha-cha basic. Our first element is what we call walking

steps. Forward and backward. Forward, forward, forward, just as simple as that, and replacing

back where we came from. And walk, walk, walk and back, back, back. Just as easy as walking

down the street.

Now with our cha-cha we're going to be talking about a little bit of a different kind of

quality of action, this being a dance that's come over from Cuba in the late 1940's. We're

going to add a little bit of a Cuban action to this and place more emphasis, on putting

our weight on the balls of our feet. So we're going to dance this forward a little bit more.

One, two, three and back again, one, two, three.

Now our second element of the cha-cha basic is going to be a side step. We're going to

start in this dance with our left foot and we're going to start side, together, side,

together, side. And just the same back in the direction we were coming from, to our

right. Side, together, side, together, side. Again, with a little bit of that Cuban action,

as well. Side, together, side, together. Really digging down and back where we came from,

to our right. Again, side, together, side, together, side.

Christina: And the last element we're going to talk about is the rock step. You take your

left foot and you're just going to place it behind you. You're going to step back and

put your weight back on your right foot. So weight on the left foot, weight on the right

foot, and again, we're going to add that Cuban hip motion in. You're going to step back and

replace forward, back, replace, back, replace.

The trick to this move is, I'll show you from the side. You want to keep the movement underneath

your body, so you don't want to think of stepping back and forward. You want to keep it very

small. It's just going to be right underneath your body, back and forward, back and forward.

Great.

Aaron: Okay, guys. So just to recap, the four elements of the cha-cha basic were; walking

steps, forward, backward, sidesteps and the fourth element, the rock step. Now we're going

to take those, and put those together, and make up our cha-cha basic. Just like so, side,

rock, step, side, together, side, rock, step, side together side, rock, step. Now forward

and backward with the walking steps,cha-cha-cha, rock, step, cha-cha-cha, rock, step and side,

together, side.

Five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three, cha-cha, one, two, three, cha-cha, one, two.

Cha-cha, one, two, three, forward, two, three, cha-cha, one, two, three, cha-cha, one, two,

three, cha-cha, one, two, three, side together, side.