Going back to old Johnny & Serap Intermediate class notes

September 18, 2005

During my conversation with Johnny, I claimed that I learned very little from their beginner and intermediate classes. This led me to look at the notes I took from their intermediate lessons from this spring, which then led to me making substantial corrections to certain routines taught - in particular notes for March 18 and March 11. Some, like notes from February 25, seem to be missing some vital information and thus are not completely decipherable.

So, do I still think I learned very little? Yes and no. A most telling vignette is that I still didn't know how to lead cross body lead properly in middle of December last year after having taken classes for 2 1/2 months. In our conversation Friday, Johnny recalled that seeing this - I responded, "Yeah, I know. I didn't manage CBL until attending SOS in January." (I should add that Josie Neglia's video also helped and that it probably took few more weeks of practice after SOS to perfect my technique ... all this can be gleaned in my "salsa history" prior to this blog, which i wrote in May). I see that many of the elements taught in the intermediate class are things I incorporated into my repertoire later on while others were things I had already learned from different classes (most notably Cuban routines from Rhona and Helen's CDC and Rueda classes and from Peter and Cinzia's classes, many of which unfortunately were taken before I started taking notes). What were obstacles to using Johnny's intermediate lessons? There are many including (1) lacking context - for example, how does one go from open hold to crossed hold in Copa and how does one go back to open hold thereafter without being a total klutz?, (2) not enough practice during the lesson to build confidence to try to use the learned routines during club hours (I had talked to Johnny & Serap about this many months ago so they have been more effort on this matter compared to when I started with their intermediate and advanced classes this spring). I would add that Cuban moves including ones taken from Johnny's intermediate classes were not particularly helpful in preparing me for more pure LA style taught in the advanced class.