Johnny Bravo - Death of Piers - Johnny & Serap Advanced

September 2, 2005

open hold
1,2,3 walk 1/2 clockwise to get into open cross body lead position – both facing same direction with follower behind and to right of the leader – hands are raised only on beat 2
5,6,7 lead follower to a traveling counterclockwise turn and stop further turn with R-L on follower’s R shoulder
1,2,3 lead follower to a pivot counterclockwise half turn to get back into open cross body lead position (leading is done predominantly with R-L on follower’s shoulder)
5,6,7 lead follower to a traveling 1 1/2 clockwise turn (= outside turn or right turn) releasing R-L and keeping L-R high and turn the other way clockwise to face the same direction as the follower while switching to R-R
1,2,3 open break on 1 and turn 1/2 clockwise with R-R going over high and behind follower’s head in clockwise motion and connect L-L low on 3/4/5
5,6,7 lead follower to a double turn with L-L high and turn 1/2 clockwise on 7/8 and try to reconnect with R-R on 8
1,2,3 open break and back into another open cross body lead position – L-L is kept behind my back at waist level for as long as possible
5,6,7 lead follower to a traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn leading with R-R and letting go L-L

open hold
1,2,3 walk forward – R-L is first raised and then placed on my R shoulder as I overtake and turn 1/2 counterclockwise
5,6,7 L-R is placed on follower’s L shoulder (which should be further away compared to her R shoulder) and lead follower to a clockwise half turn to get back into open position

There were unusually many good leaders and followers in class, especially for men (lineup included some of the best male dancers for LA style in Cambridge). Of course, it’s not like there’s a whole lot of superb male LA stylists in Cambridge aside from teachers (Johnny, Ivan, Sergio, Cristian, Jay) and ones from the Salsa team. Then again, I can say that the number of good Cuban stylist males is not much bigger than LA stylists – at least among the ones that make it to Club Salsa or Po Na Na. For me the class went just fine – I think I’m becoming so used to Johnny and Serap’s classes so that I’m picking their routine up much quicker than anyone else. There is a guy I think of as Sergio’s shadow because of extreme similarity in their dance style; by same logic some might start referring to me as something like Li’l Johnny as a joke unless I start to incorporate material from other classes. I don’t know for sure since I don’t watch myself dance (no mirrors, no video recordings). I somehow lost the ability to get the last part of the first sequence in class done by the time I got around to dancing with Serap, however. I’m guessing that I’ll have to make it a single spin instead of double for a little more time at least to start with. The club part was somewhat underwhelming.

I don’t know if I’m giving of appearance of having become too good or if I’m deluding myself about being very good or if I have a style that a certain type of people do not like or giving off “bad vibes”, but I am getting an impression that I might be on some people’s shit list. I wonder if I could get in people’s shit list by reducing the number of dances. I also wonder if I’m on certain people’s shit list because I don’t ask them for a dance or don’t do it frequently enough. Maybe I’m worrying over nothing – except I have been trying to become good enough so that I could get pretty much everyone to enjoy dancing with me – I’m not succeeding with everyone, however. Maybe I’m obsessing too much.

It is really nice finally to have some dance partners in Cambridge who stylizes regularly. Ladies styling adds complication to leading, and no one who still attends classes in Cambridge uses styling taught by Serap. This would not matter if my aim in learning Salsa was to simply be able to dance well in Cambridge (or even London for that matter). However, I am definitely interested in being able to dance well in bigger Salsa scene (e.g. New York, Los Angeles) so I feel that all challenges and complications are valuable experience. One of the things I only realized today came from a dance with Serap, who used a lot of stylized footwork in her dance with me. I mistakenly interpreted these stylized footwork as her desire to do shines. She saw what I was doing and told to me to lead her normally as if she’s doing the most basic footwork. I got this (wrong) impression because I’m so unused to anyone doing anything but the simplest things – I’ll have to remember this for my next trip to London as I recall dancing with people who, like Serap, do not stick to the most basic steps. Being able to dance with better followers now and then makes dancing in Cambridge so much more bearable because dancing only to improve Salsa standard in Cambridge would eventually drive me away to London more and more. Meanwhile, I really am getting great deal of practice leading unstable (e.g. moving during a stationary spins), erratic (e.g. unaware of lay of the line) and clumsy (e.g. combination of many factors – generally because of inability to keep their movements tight - resulting in collisions) followers. I can try to keep people balanced but I can’t do very much to get them to learn to balance themselves.

Johnny asked about Scala, which I didn’t attend last weekend. He said that Scala is very crowded between 11 PM and 3 AM – their club hours is from 9 PM to 6 AM, so that means 2 hours with space, followed by 4 hours without much space, followed by another 3 hours with space. I also learned that Johnny’s real name is something like Jose Bravo-Brana (or is it Branagh?) Ergo – Salsa Bravo!

On a sad note, there was an announcement about Piers passing away in a car accident last week, and there was a minute of silence on his behalf.