The merengue is an extremely accessible dance, mainly because the level of co-ordination between legs and arms is less crucial to beginner dancers than, for example, in salsa. This fact is greatly responsible for the rapid uptake of the merengue as a dance worldwide. People can, with little or no instruction, merengue straight away. Ladies in particular can learn to dance it very quickly, so long as they receive a good lead. Dancing the merengue to time is easy because the beats are usually obvious, but the timing aspect of merengue is kept simple for a reason. It’s because the merengue is more than just about stepping on the beats. It’s about dancers expressing themselves to music, and the merengue’s flexibility is supposed to encourage just that.

A few examples are listed below: