Latin dancers step three to five times on four beats. The root of the dances, the serious ballroom rumba has three very small steps done on beats two, three, and four--quick, quick, slow, and again. On the floor, the dancer does a break step, a replace step and a slow step, typically ending in a second foot position. The full basic dance movement takes a front and a back carried over eight beats.
As a nightclub dance, the salsa has three steps and a pause in four beats, with a foot tap coming down in the pause. In the mambo, also with three steps, the dancer breaks on two, does the replace step on three, and taps during beats four and one. Dancers take four marching steps in a merengue and five in a cha-cha-cha, with three quick cha-cha-chas.
All Latin dances have ball-flat footwork for all steps. Steps begin with weight on the foot. On each step, the dancer turns the foot out and places weight on the inside of the ball of the foot. No heels to step out. The foot moves out over the floor, with the toe pointed forward. A dancer's weight comes down to balance on the ball.
Perhaps more important than taking the steps, the dancer engages in full Latin action, dancing the motion up from the feet on the floor through the knees, and naturally shifts the hips in the classic up-and-down motion. On a step, the knee bends, carrying down the hip on the same side. The knee then straightens to carry the weight again, pushing the hip back up on a rise. The Cuban motion moves the dancer through all the steps.
The heart's rhythm leads more than one center in a Latin dancer. Movement comes from several centers, from the breast through the middle and hips. A dancer carries through multiple actions to move. According to Priscilla Renta with City University of New York, a tumbao rhythm underlies each dance. In the conga drum's gu-gang-pa salsa rhythm, the right hip lowers on gu-gang to open, and the step comes on the pa. The motion repeats for the back. Rounding the rhythm completes a clave of two movements in eight beats. Dance moves at the rate of 104 to 108 beats per minute for the rumba, 180 to 210 beats for the fast salsa.