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From: Enio Cordoba: Salsa & Mambo FAQ, http://www.laventure.net/tourist/salsa.htm

"Having trained in both Mambo and Salsa, I dance Mambo when the music has an edge to it. Mambo steps are cut. By that I mean Mambo has a quick feet-hold feeling while Salsa has a undulating feeling more like an ocean wave. While Mambo is a stop in the middle dance, many salsa dancers close feet on the end of the pattern (where most mambo dancers would rock fwd or back). An advanced Salsa basic is close, fwd, fwd pause, close back back pause. the feet have much less tone, foot arch, but the feet are much more active because they are always either flicking or dragging the slow.

Salsa dancers invariably break on 1 or 3. Untrained dancers hear the strong beat on 1 and step on it. The more Latin they are, the more they break on 3. Why? They usually hear it as SQQ because of the dead 2 beat. If you are dancing SQQ, to dance a slow you don't do Q, hold2, QQ-- you would move through the 1, landing on 2, which makes it a slow, and then do QQ on 34. (Yes that puts the feet on 2, 3, 4)."