Salsa Locked Right Turn (Hammerlock)

The hammerlock — the standard English name for the locked right turn in salsa — is a foundational clockwise-rotation figure that keeps leader and follower physically linked throughout the complete arc of the spin: the leader retains the joined hand, guides it down and across, and seats it behind the follower's back in a constrained hold that gives the move both its common name and its distinctive silhouette.^[1] That unbroken grip sets it apart from a free right turn, where the hands release to let the follower spin independently; here the maintained connection shapes every phase of the rotation and demands precise timing from both partners to avoid compression at the shoulder joint.

As one of the standard right-turn variations of slot-based salsa, the hammerlock is a figure leaders are expected to guide cleanly across the social floor without breaking frame.^[2] Technique guides consistently place it among the core salsa turn patterns that social dancers should master, with particular weight on axial balance through the spin and connection control — too much tension in the locked arm disrupts the follower's rotation, while insufficient frame collapses the hold before it can seat cleanly.^[3]

The terminology varies by tradition. Among North American On1 teachers the figure is also labeled the pretzel, though that term can in other contexts denote a longer double-arm sequence; the simpler pretzel and the hammerlock are used interchangeably for this single locked-turn pattern.^[4] The most widely taught entry route is the pass behind the lock: as the follower initiates her clockwise turn, the leader draws the joined hands behind her and threads them to the small of her back, so the arm locks naturally into position as the rotation completes.^[5]

In Cuban casino the locked position rarely stands as its own named figure. Instead it is woven into multi-step combinations: Setenta (70), one of casino's canonical sequences, builds the wrap and its subsequent unwind directly into the choreographic structure of the pattern, so that the hammerlock functions as a transitional frame rather than a self-contained figure.^[6] From the locked hold the move resolves in one of two ways — an unwind that returns the follower to open face-to-face position, or a continuation into combination work that exploits the constrained frame as a point of departure.^[1]