Conversation with Mauricio – Check your ego at the entrance

November 16, 2005

How should one dance Salsa? Aficionados have many different viewpoints and arguments regarding this. I have been reading various people’s opinions about this, and I had been thinking about writing a treatise on this matter except I lack an interesting central thesis. This line of thinking was rekindled briefly because of a conversation I had with Mauricio near the end of Cristian and co.’s classes and the beginning of the Club hours tonight. I had hoped that I could write about some of the discussions we had but even this seems daunting. Maybe I’ll have more time during my vacation starting next week. One thing that came out of the conversation was that I was inspired to dance a little differently than usual and make stronger effort to endow unique flavor or style as well as distinct move combinations to different dances with different dance partners. Generally this led to simpler dances with most people and made the dancing tonight interesting in a very nice way.

This is not to say there were no clunkers; one dance in particular was annoying, deflating and humbling all at once. In my estimation, my dance partner for this dance was a beginner who was taught cross body lead a few times but was not proficient with it – I thought her mechanics for cross body lead was somewhat similar to Dile que no because she was following it with a noticeable arc rather moving in a straight line as is standard in LA style. Because it quickly became evident that she did not know how to follow any but simplest leads and also because she did not seem to be a natural dancer who could move and follow more complicated moves without having learned the move, I decided to keep the dance very simple. I think I even stopped using cross body leads because the way it was done was unsatisfactory. To my surprise, keeping things simpler led to what seemed to be an indignation followed by her initiating moves that I did not lead. It is more unusual but sometimes some followers seem to prefer to be tossed around, overwhelmed and even treated slightly roughly rather than have a well-controlled dance. I don’t think I told her that she wasn’t doing cross body lead properly when she started saying that I should do cross body lead and that insisting that she knew how to do it – and to which I replied “But you’re not doing it well,” which I suppose wasn’t a diplomatic reply. After couple more self-leading and what increasingly seemed an increasing disdain and hostility toward me possibly as a dancer, leader and/or person, I in exasperation told her, “You know – I’m one of the best dancers in this club tonight.” She replied, “YOU are the best dancer here?” I said, “No, no. Not THE best. One of the better ones.” She then said, “Oh, I guess I should feel really lucky.” Ouch. Score one for her. I’m not sure what I could have done or should have done, but boasting certainly was not a good idea and was counterproductive. I should add that it was dubious claim in the first. What does being one of the best mean? Would being a top 5 in a room of 25 qualify? Different people will also have varying opinions who is good and who isn't based upon subjective criteria (sometimes without knowing enough to judge well). So what did I learn from this? Don't boast - it likely won't impress and I don't think it would be a good thing if it works.