Carlos Segura

“Torsion is when you turn out to the side, like this. Right now I'm not using torsion — I'm only applying contraction and extension.”

Drawing the line between the pancake and torsion (twisting).

“Most of the body technique comes from zouk technique, and the basics, the rhythm, the music — most of that comes from bachata.”

Explaining where the technical elements of bachazouk come from

“It's what I call the oval — you connect all the dots and move like you're making a circular movement, and then you hit a certain point on purpose.”

Introducing the 'oval' as a bachata musicality idea — instead of hitting every beat, you stay in the flow and accent only chosen points.

“This turn is really easy. It gets complicated when you try to do something — when you try to help your partner, or try to turn yourself. That's when it starts getting hard.”

Teaching a turn and explaining that it actually gets harder when the follower tries to intervene on their own

“In terms of body technique, it's 90–95% the same as zouk. Not the footwork. There are differences in things like how you exit a turn, or the basic you use to create head movement, so we made small changes and adjustments to make it easy to fit this movement inside bachata.”

Explaining in detail how close bachazouk's body technique is to zouk, and which parts were adjusted

“She should always be right in the center of your position. You're not walking together.”

Explaining that the lead shouldn't walk along with the follower, but keep the follower centered on their own axis

“You need the weight on the metatarsals — the ball of the foot. Never on the heel.”

Explaining how the weight sits in the foot during the pancake.

“This frame stays here, and this frame doesn't change. The movement is this, and the elbow stays up — I don't bring mine back down to reset until my partner lowers their elbow first.”

Demonstrating how the elbow and frame hold their shape in the frame multi-turn pattern