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Susie Q Shine

A traveling heel-twist crossover shine adapted into salsa from the swing-era vernacular.

SalsaLevel: Improver2 min read3 citations

The Susie Q is a salsa shine — a passage of solo footwork that dancers improvise when they release the closed hold and step away from each other. One foot crosses over the other and the body travels laterally through a coordinated heel-and-toe swivel, the soles dragging across the floor to produce the grinding, scuffing quality that gives the move its line-dance aliases, 'heel twist' and 'grind walk.'[2]

The figure is not native to salsa. It belongs to the swing-era vernacular and surfaces across several related repertoires — the Big Apple, Lindy Hop, and jazz dance as well as salsa — where Latin dancers folded it into the shine section of the social dance.[1] Its name and motion descend from a 1930s novelty dance of the same name, addressed in the 1936 recording 'Doin' the Suzie-Q' by Lil Hardin Armstrong; the spelling has never settled, appearing as Suzie Q, Susie Q, Suzy Q, and Susy Q.[3]

Mechanically, the dancer plants the crossing foot in front on the first beat of the measure, then swivels both heels and toes to draw the trailing foot forward — the swivel of that second step is the 'heel twist' proper — and repeats the cross-and-grind to carry the body sideways. Because it is a shine, it carries no lead or follow: both partners perform it identically and independently, slotting it onto the standard salsa stepping cells across the 1-2-3 and 5-6-7 counts of each measure.

How it's danced

Lead and follow cues

CountOn1 — steps on 1-2-3 & 5-6-7, holds on 4 & 8 (cross on 1/3 & 5/7, swivel-side on 2 & 6). On2 dancers place the identical cross–side–cross cells on 2-3-4 & 6-7-8.

Lead

There is no lead — a shine is danced solo. Travelling toward the left, the dancer crosses the right foot over the left onto its ball on count 1, swivels both heels outward to release and steps the left foot to the side on count 2, and crosses the right over again on count 3; count 4 is held. Counts 5-6-7 repeat the cross–side–cross cell, the heel-and-toe twist on every weight change driving the lateral grind; direction reverses by crossing the left foot over the right.

Follow

Identical to the lead — the shine has no follow. The dancer crosses the right foot over the left on count 1, swivels the heels and steps the left foot to the side on count 2, and crosses the right over again on count 3 (hold on 4), then repeats the cross–side–cross on 5-6-7, swiveling on each transfer to travel sideways; reversing direction crosses the left over the right.

Song timingComfortable across foundational social salsa tempos, roughly 150-185 bpm, where the cross–side–cross cell stays clean; 190+ bpm rushes the heel-toe swivel and smears the grind. On1 dancers step on 1-2-3 & 5-6-7; On2 dancers place the identical cells on 2-3-4 & 6-7-8.

Learn first

Prerequisites

  • salsa basic step with on-time weight changes
  • comfort dancing shines / solo footwork without a partner connection
  • ankle and heel control for clean heel-and-toe swivels

Watch out

Common mistakes

  • Stepping flat instead of swiveling on the heels and toes, which kills the grinding travel and reduces the figure to a plain crossover.
  • Failing to travel — collapsing the cross–side–cross into a stationary tap so the step does not move laterally.
  • Rushing the swivel so weight lands off the beat, breaking sync with the 1-2-3 / 5-6-7 cells.
  • Over-crossing the working foot far past the support foot, locking the hips and stalling the next swivel.
  • Looking down at the feet, losing the relaxed upright posture the shine is meant to showcase.

Don't confuse with

Easily confused moves

  • Cross-body lead — a partnered traveling figure, not a solo shine; it shares none of the Susie Q's mechanics.
  • 'Paso cruzado' / cruzado — Spanish for 'cross step,' a generic label for crossing footwork, not this specific shine.
  • Mambo / heel-toe tap shines — superficially similar heel action but without the lateral grinding travel.
  • Susie Q as danced in country line dance — same name and root step, but set to line-dance phrasing rather than the salsa shine adaptation.

Around the world

Other names

  • Salsa shines generally (LA On1, NY On2, Miami, Puerto Rico)

    Susie Q (also Suzie Q, Suzy Q, Susy Q)

    the English term carries across English-speaking salsa scenes; spelling varies

  • Line dance / country-western

    heel twist

    attested alternate name; refers to the swivel action of the step

  • Line-dance teaching

    grind walk

    attested alternate name for the same traveling swivel step

  • Lindy Hop / Big Apple (swing roots)

    Suzie Q

    the figure originates in the swing-era vernacular from which the salsa shine borrows it

References

  1. 1.Suzie Q (dance move) — Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia
  2. 2.Suzie Q (dance move) — Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia
  3. 3.Suzie Q (dance move) — Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia

How to cite this article

Choose a style and copy the citation.

APA

Bailar Editorial Team. (2026). Susie Q Shine. Bailar Biblioteca. Retrieved June 29, 2026, from https://bailar.site/biblioteca/move/salsa-susie-q-shine

MLA

Bailar Editorial Team. “Susie Q Shine.” Bailar Biblioteca, 2026, bailar.site/biblioteca/move/salsa-susie-q-shine. Accessed 29 June 2026.

Chicago

Bailar Editorial Team. “Susie Q Shine.” Bailar Biblioteca. Accessed June 29, 2026. https://bailar.site/biblioteca/move/salsa-susie-q-shine.

BibTeX

@misc{bailar-move-salsa-susie-q-shine, author = {{Bailar Editorial Team}}, title = {{Susie Q Shine}}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {Bailar Biblioteca}, url = {https://bailar.site/biblioteca/move/salsa-susie-q-shine}, note = {Accessed: 2026-06-29} }

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