I'm trying to understand the cha-cha, specifically to play and write music with that rhythm. In my research, I've come across two ways "the cha-cha" is taught: as a dance and as a musical rhythm.
I'm confused because it seems like the dancers count/say "one two cha-cha-cha - one two cha-cha-cha", etc. But it seems like the percussionists are counting and playing more like "one two three four-and-one two three four-and-one", etc.
I haven't found anything online yet that tries to match up the dancing and music to show how it lines up, so I'm hoping someone here has experience with the cha-cha along with dancers. I've tried watching dance videos with music but things tend to go by really fast.
The two possibilities I've thought of are either the dancers and musicians put the "one" in a different place (i.e., when dancers say "one", musicians are saying "two"), or the dance goes "cha-cha-cha" and the music goes "dum-dum-dum" at different times (i.e., the last "cha" is at the same time as the first "dum"), or I'm totally wrong and the counting actually lines up and I've misunderstood something basic.
So how does the dancer style of counting the cha-cha line up with the musician style of counting it?