Meet Duncan

Picture of Duncan Dancing Salsa My name is Duncan. I have been teaching Salsa for 14 years... when I was at university I was doing a bit of DJing and one evening the Dance Teacher didn't turn up. So, I was talked into filling in. The teacher then didn't turn up again... so I carried on... and it kind of grew from there!

Do you offer private lessons? Yes. I've experience of doing this for individuals, couples and small groups. Please contact me directly if you are interested in these.
Do you do private party bookings? Yes; as I started out as a DJ you also benefit from my experience playing music and setting up good quality mood lighting to fill a large venue (a refreshing change from the traditional disco lights of many mobile DJs). Please contact me directly if you are interested in these.
I've never danced before, can I still come to your classes? Yes. The Absolute Beginners Classes (or introductory classes at my party nights) start by covering the most basic skills such as listening to the music and body movement and build to give a basic set of things to have fun with straight away.
What does this mean if I've danced before? You will still get a lot from the first couple of lessons in terms of improving your musicality and body awareness and learning Salsa-specific styling. Also, I have been around long enough to see the UK Salsa scene go through 3 or 4 fads... the current fashion is for a slightly limited set of moves and I can offer you some moves and combinations that you might not recognise.
Do you teach lots of routines? I have been teaching Salsa for many years and feedback from students has taught me that people want to learn more than this. I have responded and developed a teaching style based around basic dancing skills - this is how professional dancers learn and you deserve the same! I encourage you to improvise moves and sequences... and give you the extra skills you need to do this. There are some good reasons for learning routines (and we will do them sometimes)... but it is like learning to read whole sentences before you can read individual words. When learning to read your long term aim is to get used to jumbling all the words up to make new sentences. So, learning to read generally starts with individual words, then builds from very short sentences, and then onto longer sentences. I mimik this proven approach to learning with the way I teach dance.
Do you teach routines? Sometimes: yes. Generally: no. I will recommend that you develop your own favourite "routine segments" to build into your dancing. More importantly you will learn to see clear opportunities based on your position at a given moment in the dance... in English that means "you will learn more variety".
Will we learn really cool advanced stuff? You don't actually need advanced moves to enjoy dancing socially. However, lots of people want to learn them anyway so they can be flash and fancy! In Improvers Classes we will sometimes look at more advanced things... it involves a lot of effort for a relatively small benefit, although it is nice to have those "icing on the cake" moves to drop into your dancing sometimes.
So, what kind of advanced moves do you teach? I like to teach travelling turns in a cross-body lead, which can be combined to make really flash sequences (typical Strictly Come Dancing stuff that students normally recognise from the TV). Sequences of spot-turns are also nice - not so flash but for the people dancing they have an amazing flow - and they are increasingly not being taught any more in Salsa so it is nice to have some retro-moves that other people haven't seen before! Also, we sometimes spend some time on drops and leans (and other static-moves).
Do you teach dance full time? I spend about 1/3 of my time teaching Salsa (mainly doing private parties, workshops and lessons). I spend about 1/3 of my time working as a Maths and Physics Tutor in Poole and the other 1/3 is spent on other projects.
Can't see a question you are wondering about on here? All the questions on here are questions I've been asked... and I'm happy to add more if you can think of them!