Another eerily quiet Wednesday evening at Club Salsa

September 28, 2005

Tonight was another surprisingly quiet night. What’s going on? Granted that I arrived about 10-15 min past 10 PM (delayed by Texas Hold’em, dinner and Space Race), it was strange to see the place not jammed packed for second week in a row. My best guess is that some people are getting ready for the next new thing – Sally’s Thursday classes, but maybe I should try coming slightly earlier before the classes end next time if it can be managed.

It was an improvement over last Friday – then again, last Friday was about as bad as it gets. I was rather feeling quite rusty today, especially in the beginning, and it took me a while to warm up. Usually, up to five dances at the beginning (regardless of quality of my partners) are essentially warm-ups and helps me figure out how good my form is that evening. I don’t know if how much of it is mental or physical, and I don’t know if I will always feel tentative at the beginning of a night. If I take an enjoyable class earlier in the evening, the number of these warm-up dances goes down to one or two (or even zero).

I talked with various people who went to the UK Congress. Many of the people said they enjoyed the experience while others added that they were still feeling tired and not recovered (presumably from lack of sleep). A striking (but not surprising) comment from a reader of this blog that struck my mind was, “There were so many good dancers and I felt a little out of the league.” This comment made me think of another conversation I had with the same person where I was asked whether I would recommend going to London for Salsa. I think my reply might have been something like, “Wait - try to get a little better before going.” Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I completely agree with what I said. It probably would have been good for her to go once to see how good Londoners are. By the way, by London I really mean places like SOS and places of similar caliber; I really don't know the Salsa scene outside SOS. This could give her an idea about how much better she may want to become. Then with higher benchmark, she could take another 2-3 months to get better. At some point, her ability to get any better will be hindered by there simply not being enough good dancers in Cambridge. She could then take occasional trips to London (say once a month) to get to next level. In any case, same effect has been achieved by her trip to the UK Congress last weekend.

Anyone who’s any good in Cambridge probably benefited by trips to London (if they didn’t learn in London, New York, Los Angeles or another one of major Salsa scene. I would guess that someone like me who learned Salsa primarily and almost exclusively in Cambridge to get to my level is quite rare (I haven’t mastered any routines I learned at SOS (I could do them in class and sometimes after the class as well, but I couldn’t do them with people in Cambridge – this is not unlike some Johnny & Serap routines, which are doable only with very small number of people in Cambridge), but I did find London great for practicing what learned in Cambridge).

A reader of my blog (in fact the same person who made the original comment that led me to publishing my notes on the web) asked me about my shoes. A funny thing is I ended up telling very few people about my notes; now, I’m rather afraid to tell anyone because I’m writing too much junk that might end up upsetting someone for reasons I didn’t even think of. Somehow, more and more people are finding this blog (some by methods I can’t figure out). Many of these people live far away from Cambridge too! Creepy! Of course, what does that make me considering I keep on writing this crap? Anyway, getting back to shoes – I am now guessing that he might be considering getting dancing shoes. If so, I would first ask him (or anyone else learning Salsa dancing) whether he does a lot of turns. I think it might be good to get used to doing some multiple turns (I don’t necessarily mean double turns but possibly something like two turns in a row – a pivot turn on 1,2,3 followed by a hook turn on 5,6,7 for example) first using street shoes. It seems obvious but it is probably useful nevertheless to point out that having better shoes does not help in your ability to lead follower to move the way you direct her movement. Shoes become a big factor only after reaching a certain level. For women, I suspect she will get to this level sooner because she is always being asked to make turns after turns after turns, and having better pair of shoes means you can get away with using less power, which could help with staying in balance.

I think Vishal accused me of dancing Tango; he interrupted in middle of song to say, “This is not Tango.” I did take one Argentine Tango lesson earlier this year (Latin night by CDC), but I wasn’t doing anything remotely like things I learned in that class. It must be the traveling and exploitation of all that empty space.

Miscellaneous bits. Floorboards on the upper floor were being removed during the club hours and the place smelled like glue. Hmmm. I guess this may have had something to do with there being fewer people also? Late night and a rather empty floor led to demonstration and practicing of doing a triple turn (in 6 beats) by some night owls. It was amusing to watch (and join in as there were very few people watching to make fun of us). I started doing some mangled double turns during real dancing – might as well start doing it while there’s space!