T he 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. In many places, instructors tend to teach off the merengue into salsa by introducing the armwork in the merengue and fitting the footwork later in salsa. This is a little unfair to the merengue, since learning dancers tend perceive the merengue as a poor person's salsa, instead of being a rich dance form in its own right. Apart from that inference there is little specific information currently available about the origin of the merengue. A couple's bodies can vary from being pressed together where only simple steps are performed, or with bodies further apart to allow for turn combinations.