The slow two step is a Latin dance, a round dance rhythm danced to slow, romantic music with either 4 or 6 beats per measure and a tempo of 16–32 measures per minute.

The nightclub two step or California two step was originated by Buddy Schwimmer, Lee and Linda Wakefield, and Ron Montez in the mid 1960s in crowded dance clubs on the West Coast as a dance that could be used for very slow love ballads that are otherwise difficult to dance to. While a more typical slow dance is to simply clutch your partner and sway to a slow tempo, using this for every slow song lacks variety.

The nightclub two step encourages you to draw out a side step and use up some of the "extra" time that way. Schwimmer taught the dance as a quick rock, recover, and then side, or a cross behind, recover, side. Slow two step was introduced to round dancing in the early 1990s by Bill and Carol Goss, but they presented it as a "slow, quick, quick" rhythm, with the side step done first and the rock/recover second. In 1992, they published a cue sheet for Kiehm 's "Are You Still Mine," and they wrote their own, "Even Now." Slow two step is slow and flat; there is no rise and fall.

Most choreography is written as though the timing of the figures is "slow, quick, quick," and if the music is 4/4, that is a good description. If you have a 6/8 piece, however, it would be better to think of the timing as "slow, slow, and", although even this representation is approximate. Out of the six beats of music, the first step uses three beats, the second uses two, and the last step is just one beat.