Club Salsa - Wolfson College - Club Salsa

September 16, 2005

Serap is still away. Apparently both Johnny and Serap were away last week. I don’t know who the substitute teacher would have been last Friday had there had not been a flooding (Johnny speculated that it could have been Cristian).

Tonight’s lesson:

1,2,3 cross body lead start
5,6,7 complete cross body lead and turn 3/4 clockwise to get to basic position with L-R behind my back at waist level
1,2,3 full pivot counterclockwise turn with R-L raised
5,6,7 forward on 5 and half turn counterclockwise (to face away from follower) with L-R raised and let go – both of follower’s hand is to land on my R hand at waist level
1,2,3 open break on 1 and get to Titanic position (along the line as opposed to at the end of the line) with R-R and L-L connections outstretched
5,6,7 use R-R high (L-L kept low) to lead follower to a traveling counterclockwise turn (full turn) ending with follower facing away in front
1,2,3 R-R goes around by follower’s L side of head on 1 and return on 2,3 getting follower ready to travel along the line again
5,6,7 lead follower to a traveling 1 1/2 clockwise turn
1,2,3 R-R goes over follower’s head (hat) on 1 and is released with R landing on follower’s L shoulder and get into cross body lead position (L-L outstretched pointing to the line?)
5,6,7 lead follower to a normal 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn (helping with direction of turn with R hand on follower’s shoulder)
[more added Sep 18 - see below]
L-L hold for Copa
1,2,3 open break on 1, follower brought forward on 2,3 with L-L going over follower's head and then to point towards the direction from which she came from - positioning on 4 is what I have in past referred to as reverse cross body although this description is not quite satisfactory .. also refer to reverse cross body my feet positioning diagram except with follower's R foot stepped forward and overtaking leader's position. Also, R hand could be placed on follower's R shoulder to help in leading this move
5,6,7 lead follower to go back to her original position while turning essentially 1 1/2 turn counterclockwise (to a spectator, this will look like a very complicated double turn with change in direction going from beat 1 to 8)
1,2,3,5,6,7 (x2?) there were yet more routines, which I paid almost no attention to and thus cannot describe

There was more but I stopped paying attention as I decided to head off to meet with some friends to go to Salsa night at Wolfson College, which I had heard about from many different sources and I had wanted to check it out for some time.

The dance floor at Wolfson seemed pretty nice, especially compared to badly damaged floors at Club Salsa and Po Na Na. Pretty much everyone there was dancing Cuban style (or at least my idea of Cuban style). I thought neither the number nor the level of dancers were not particularly impressive although it’s quite possible that tonight was an anomaly; usually their Salsa night is held on Wednesdays. It was changed to Friday this week because of some Mexican holiday. I saw some of the familiar faces from Helen and Rhona’s CDC classes (also transplanted into their Rueda class). We didn’t stay very long (<1 hour total) because others in my party had to get up early tomorrow morning for a trip to Bath. I ended up dancing only twice while I was at Wolfson. I suspect I might have stood out because of lack of LA style Salsa dancers (I felt a little self conscious), but I don’t really know for sure. I don’t think I’ll go back to Wolfson College for Salsa on my own but I probably will give it some more try if I get talked into it.

I returned to Club Salsa (all in all, I was probably missing only for about 1 1/2 hour) just to catch the most crowded time of the night for more quality dancing. The evening’s dance essentially ended with a two-couple Rueda involving Johnny and two other occasional Rueda participants. A striking observation I made tonight was that sometimes (possibly depending on the song – it might have been “Ping Pong”) the follower might prefer a more forceful lead or interaction. I’ll have to consider this problem more thought.

One of what I jokingly referred to as my “fan club” berated me because I was too busy to dance with them tonight. They said they will be back next week. Yes. I am indeed in trouble.

A few tidbit from my conversation with Johnny. Johnny learned to dance LA style Salsa while he was in Los Angeles for one year (1997-1998), taking classes from someone named Albert Torres, who apparently taught Josie Neglia and Edie the Salsa Freak. This Alberto Torres (no relations to Eddie Torres) is now retired from teaching and is involved mostly in organizing various Salsa Congresses. Johnny claimed to know Josie also (I wasn’t clear in what context). Perhaps it’s technically incorrect to refer to Salsa dance style that predominantly uses cross body lead and dances on-1 as LA style (based upon my conversation with “Freddy”). However, since most of my routines (unless I’m using things from Casino Rueda) are from Johnny’s class, I think that I am perfectly justified in referring my dance style as predominantly LA style no matter what. We also talked about difficulty of transitioning from beginner classes to ntermediate class and then to advanced class. It is a problem for pretty much all classes but is more problematic in Johnny’s classes. Apparently Johnny and Serap realize this also and had talked about having four levels of classes instead of current three. On a slightly different topic, I mentioned to Johnny that he often overwhelm his dance partners with his large collection of moves, and he replied that sometimes he can’t help himself and that he might not be as good as he once was in being able to tailor his lead to varying level of follower’s abilities. By the way, my personal opinion on this is that dancing at or slightly above follower’s abilities is good (maximize and stretch).

My legs are not completely healed yet – I avoided doing any Sentada, but I didn’t really notice any discomfort once I was warmed up.