‘Rueda con dos mujeres’ means ‘Rueda with two women’.

In this structure one leader is dancing with two followers at the same time, one in each hand. Most standard rueda figures may be danced with this format.

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Followers position on spokes

Followers’ positions

The first impression might be that this structure is complicated to lead. Practice shows however that it is the followers positioning is a crucial issue. The general rule in any partner change is that the two followers in each triple should be on a line to the center, like a spoke on a wheel (see figure). This way the leader will immediately identify the inner and the outer follower. In “dile que no” the inner and outer follower swap positions, so the follower starting in the inner position ends up in the outer position. Also in the first part of enchufla (and several other figures) the followers swap positions. For the entire “enchufla” the follower starting in the inner position ends up in the inner position in next guapea (with e new partner), bacause positions are swapped twice.

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Guapea – followers’ left arm

Guapea steps in Rueda con dos mujeres are similar to the one in Rueda de casino. The followers free hand, however, does not have a free hand on the leader to match. Common variations are:

  1. The follower push lightly on the leader’s shoulder
  2. The follower push lightly on the leader’s hand
  3. The follower do not touch tyhe leader with her right arm

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Dame una

“Dame una” is similar to Rueda de casino, except for the leading with two hands and swapping positions of the followers. The leader leades a slight rotation so the the followers turn to the center and continue with “dile que no” with the next leader. Like this:

“Dame una”, beat 5-6-7

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Figures with partner change

There are a few alternative ways to lead the partner changes in rueda figures like enchufla and vacílala y dame:

  1. The leader travels inside both the followers
  2. The leader travels in between the followers
  3. The leader travels in between the followers on all combinations where it is possible to lead the followers specifically to each side of him, and he travels inside both the followers on other partner changes
  4. The leader changes only one partner in a partner change

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Workshops

At the SalsaNor Rueda Congress method 1 and 2 has been taught. Video from the 2014 Rueda Congress:

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Workshop in rueda con dos mujeres, Bernt Rygg

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Rueda with two men?

It is also possible two have triples with two leaders and one follower. The two leaders stick together, representing one arm each of the leader, and the follower try to follow as naturally as possible.

A challenge is often to have enough experienced leaders to make this work (twice as many leaders as followers).
A compromise is RUEDA TRIO CALIENTE, where every second triple is one leader + two followers and the others are two leaders + one follower.