Sending out an SOS for SOS

January 1, 2006

Alternate titles considered but ultimately not used.

London SOS can be worse than Cambridge Club Salsa

Fiesta of fiascoes at SOS

Wow! What a disaster! What a fiasco! I don’t think it can get any worse than this. At least I hope that it will never be worse than this.

I didn't really feel a great need to go to SOS because last night was very good. However, I liked the prospect of having both Leon and Tamambo being there to teach tonight, and I convinced myself that the replacement venue will be on the north side of the hotel (based upon a loose interpretation of Leon's words, "We'll be back here on the Jan 1st."

First sign of trouble. I stop by Mary Ward Hall on the way to the replacement hotel venue. There is a sign that says the replacement venue is on the south side of the hotel. I groan but what am I going to do? Go back to Cambridge? As I trudge down to the replacement venue, I say to Sean, “I hope it won’t be too crowded.”

I should add - be careful what you wish for because it might come true.

Second sign of trouble. It is indeed not crowded but this does not cheer me at all. At 7:15 PM, Tamambo announces, “We will be starting in 6 minutes.” There are a little over 40 people total, I don’t see anyone else coming in during this 6 minute interval. Sean asks, “Do you think there are more men than women here tonight?” Indeed this is true. I say to Sean, “I don’t ever recall seeing this many Asian men at SOS.”

I’m not sure if this is justified but Asian (I don’t mean Indian) men seem to have poor reputation as Salsa dancers among large number of people (observed from some Salsa Mafia posts).

Third sign of trouble. Tamambo is here but not Leon – this means Tamambo is teaching level IV and Mauro is teaching level III. I’m thinking that I might prefer to take a class with Tamambo instead but I decide to keep an open mind and stick with level III for now.

As a dancer or teacher, Mauro seemingly have the worst reputation among all SOS instructors (sources include posts at Salsa Mafia forum). I never had a class with him before.

Fourth sign of trouble. Class gets divided into four. There are 2 complete beginners and about a dozen people at level IV meaning everyone else is level II or III. Male to female ratio looks the worst for men at level III. I also look at who’s in level III and my reaction is, “This is not going to be any good.”

I’m now really regretting my decision to stick to level III, but once I make a decision I always end up going through it even if I know it will not be pleasant.

Shine of the day. This was okay – or maybe I just mean that I found it easy.

corrected version [January 13, 2006]
1,2,3,5,6,7 basic (probably end with R foot overtaking L foot)
1 L foot cross over in front of R foot
2 R foot cross over in front of L foot
3 L foot cross over in front of R foot
4 R foot cross over in front of L foot
5 R foot placed behind L foot and
6 slide backwards while leaving L hand behind til the end of the slide landing on R foot on toes (don't let heels come down)
7 transfer weight on L foot (or step on L foot) - there is NO PAUSE here!
8 R foot cross over in front of L foot
1 L foot cross over in front of R foot
2,3 R foot slide wide to R then slide behind L foot
4 weight transferred to R foot
5,6,7 L foot slide to L then to R then to R (long slides) while keeping weight on R foot
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Suzy Q (starting with L foot crossing over on 1) going slightly backwards the whole time with a R foot kick on 4 and on 6
1,2,3,5,6,7 basic

old, probably incorrect version of the shine
1,2,3,5,6,7 basic
1 L foot cross over in front of R foot
2 R foot cross over in front of L foot
3 L foot cross over in front of R foot
4 R foot cross over in front of L foot
5 L foot cross over in front of R foot
6 R foot kick
7 R foot placed behind L foot and
8 slide backwards while leaving L hand behind til the end of the slide
1 weight on L foot (in front)
2 R foot cross over in front of L foot
3,4 L foot slide to R then slide to L (short slide) while keeping weight on R foot
5,6,7 R foot slide to L then to R then to R (long slides) while keeping weight on L foot
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Suzy Q (starting with L foot crossing over on 1) going slightly backwards the whole time with a R foot kick on 4 and on 6
1,2,3,5,6,7 basic

Fifth sign of trouble. One of the women decided to play the part of a leader – no doubt she will turn out to be one of the better leaders in class tonight. I thought that she looked like the only one in the class who might be able follow a double turn comfortably (this supposedly is a requirement for level III) as the people were pairing up. By the way, I don’t recognize anyone in the class at this point in the evening – not a single friendly face. Eva is nowhere to be seen so Mauro decided to borrow one of the follower student for the time being – she apparently fell asleep next to the DJ booth. Level IV has more or less equal number of men and women by the way.

I’m thinking, “Why am I here? What drove me to this?”

Sixth sign of trouble. Partner work commences.

1,2,3,5,6,7 cross body lead – L-R is raised to shoulder level by next 1
1,2,3,5,6,7 cross body lead with L-R at follower’s shoulder level through 5 – leader turns 1 1/4 clockwise as follower completes cross body lead so that leader is facing away from follower and switch to R-R. Footwork I preferred was R foot cross behind L foot on 5 and turn in one swoop. Mauro was telling people to take 3 steps on 5,6,7 during the beginning – this technique in my opinion is ridiculous in a real Salsa dance situation because it is too slow. I discovered my alternate solution right away so it was no trouble for me but it might have caused trouble for others. On the drive back, Sean also pointed out the same thing and said he also ended up spinning around in one go. Anyhow, my confidence in Mauro’s teaching ability has taken a considerable hit by this point because I found his instructions here overlong yet incomplete and misleading. By the way, I think this was the best part of the partner routine tonight in retrospect despite it all.
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and R-R goes over follower’s head as L-L connection is made on 2,3 then follower is led forward on 5 and follower is led into traveling full counterclockwise turn with all connections intact so that L-L wraps around follower’s R waist and R-R is in half Titanic pose
1,2,3 follower is turned around half clockwise (L-L is raised by 3 while R-R is placed by leader’s waist). In the beginning, Mauro instructed L foot cross over in front on 1. When 5,6,7 part was completed about 5 minutes later, footwork on 1 became L foot cross behind on 1.
5,6,7 leader turns 1 1/2 counterclockwise stationary keeping L-L connection intact throughout and end with reverse Titanic. This leader's turn is done best with full weight on L foot according to Mauro's instructions. A question. Just how often does leaders practice doing anything more than a full turn going clockwise? Answer for me – never. Such a maneuver coming into use never entered my head before tonight. Even a full clockwise turn (always done as a free turn) has been pretty rare. This was a big challenge that I was nowhere near ready for. And I stayed at level III because I was hoping to find fairly easy and useful material. For a while, I ignored Mauro’s instruction and stuck to a half turn because I was hoping to make something useful out of it until I decided that I won't be able to use it even dumbed down tonight and that I might as well practice this clockwise 1 1/2 turn while I’m at it. Sean by the way had a more positive reaction to this “challenge”. Also I wonder if that woman had much easier time doing this compared to the rest of us.
1,2,3 from reverse Titanic, L-L goes over leader’s head to R side
5,6,7 L-L is lowered initially on 5 then raised again to lead follower into a traveling full counterclockwise turn into Titanic position
1,2,3,5,6,7,1,2,3,5,6,7 A shine for followers involving a backward kick near leader’s genitals on second 3 followed by a half clockwise stationary turn with R-R

What exactly was the follower's shine? I wasn’t really paying attention. It could have been as simple as Suzy Q on first 8, then step back and back on 1,2 followed by a kick with R foot with the kick either not touching the leader or barely touching leader’s rear end on 3.

More was planned originally by Mauro (involving leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise (not sure?) on previous 7,8 to get in position for the next part of the routine. We ran out of time.

Seventh sign. Instead of a cool-down, Tamambo asks everyone to pair up – including people who were not in the class. There are over half a dozen men without partners. I’m also partnerless – I couldn’t be bothered because I’m already in low spirits so I didn’t search with enthusiasm. Despite a very late start, only a very small number of people have shown up by the end of the class. I’m thinking that this is going to be a long night. The alternative to the cool-down turns out to be a regular dance.

Comparing Saturday at Club Salsa and today at SOS, the sixth or seventh best dance at Club Salsa was at least as good as the best dance from tonight at SOS - I had about 12 dances Saturday night at Club Salsa and probably less tonight. The worst dance Saturday probably would have been considered average tonight. Even when I was dancing with good followers (these were in short supply by the way), the results felt perfunctory and were uninspiring. I suppose if I had some of dances like these 3-4 months ago, I would have been very pleased. I’m afraid that my standard has been raised considerably since then. By the way, Liam suggested to me that it is not useful to try to compare different nights and that to try to concentrate on the dance at hand all the time instead. Good advice, but I’ll keep complaining for now.

For every two ‘yes’s to my requests for a dance, I received one ‘no’s tonight. Sean also experienced the same thing – something new at SOS. I can’t believe that SOS became a poor imitation of Club Salsa. I didn't need a long commute for this.

Near the end of the evening as I was standing by myself and perhaps was looking not especially pleased, Tamambo came around and told me to stop thinking and start dancing. Nice try. The trouble was that there never were very many people I felt like asking for a dance, and by this time I had either (1) danced with them but did not enjoy the experience enough to inspire me to ask them again, (2) asked them once or twice already and had been rejected and had no desire to ask them again – possibly ever again, (3) did not bother asking them because they looked like Mafia supplicants or because they were teachers or performers. So I decide that the most palatable option was to try asking one of the teachers or performers. I don’t think I was ever apprehensive about asking teachers for dance but I had never felt the need to ask them at SOS. Unfortunately this did not work out either – they either got asked first or were in deep conversation and obviously done for the night or had collapsed to the floor in sheer exhaustion (By the way the one who decided to lie down on the ground was my primary “target” until I saw how tired she looked.)

There was a show by Tamambo and (presumably) his regular dance partner. It was okay. I was more struck by another couple dance on the dance floor without fanfare later in the evening. I turned to Liam to ask him what he thought of this couple’s dance but he apparently wasn’t watching. Later in the evening, the guy was revealed as Laith Sami, who is producing a Salsa musical called Land of the Apes opening later this week. Laith wasn’t the only outside performer to stop by SOS tonight but he certainly was the flashiest.

I think at least a small part of the problem tonight was that SOS tonight had large number of intermediate-student-level (or worse) followers, rather small number of good followers (I could call them middle class as this is usually the largest proportion of people showing up at SOS), and usual number of teachers and performers and their thralls. At one point, I saw maybe 20-30 men standing around not dancing while the number of women standing around was about 3-4. Another major factor was the small dance floor (only about twice the size of main (lower) floor at Club Salsa) and people there not being used to dance in crowded conditions (I might add that it was not very crowded by the Club Salsa standard).

Of my last five trips to London including three excursions to SOS, I was pleased with only one. Unbelievable! One very good trip. Two underwhelming trips. Two nightmarish trips. Tonight was the worst. Maybe I'm going to SOS too often nowadays. I think I may not go back to SOS until they are back at Mary Ward Hall.

Half the drive was spent complaining about how bad the evening turned out. Sean agreed with me that last night at Club Salsa was much better than tonight at SOS. When I got on M11, I told Sean to come up with a new topic because takling about SOS was beginning to get depressing. From the latter half of the drive, one of the more amusing tidbits I learned about Sean – his birthday is one day after mine and is two days before Enrique’s birthday (if Enrique was being completely accurate the other day).