Customer Reviews

Dance Hot Salsa DVD 2 (levels 3&4)

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For more views of this series, check out the VHS reviews. General consensus among reviewers is that this series is the current benchmark for LA style salsa instructional video. It is somewhat fast paced and contains large number (22) of steps and variations. Content-wise, I did not like this DVD as much as level 1 & 2 for several reasons. In general, I don't think use of instructional video(s) without lessons with real live teachers and multiple partners work well for learning salsa. This video more than any other video I have seen confirms this opinion especially because of vast differences in level of difficulty (and dangerousness) of moves in this video. Some of the steps (especially the solo steps) are too simple for advanced beginners to beginning intermediates, while some (in particular the dips) are too dangerous for advanced beginners to beginning intermediates at the pace of instructions given here. I think this video still works as a "reference" but I would recommend this video only to instructors or others who would like to have several salsa "reference" videos along with other videos in Josie's series (as well as videos by other instructors) because this video does not work well as a stand-alone.

Same faults that plague Josie's level 1 & 2 video are left uncorrected in this video. This DVD is not very fun to watch because of poor video and sound quality. On certain TVs (and TV settings), dancer's feet are nearly cut off at the bottom. The background is unnecessarily dark. Sound quality is abysmal (yes, the overdubbing 5-6-7 counting is still there!). I have not seen the VHS version but I suspect that the only improvement this DVD offers over VHS is the ease of going back and forth between moves or repeating a certain segment. To be fair, this probably is enough of reason to buy the DVD over VHS because with the fast pacing, you will find yourself repeating most segments over and over again.