Guinea pig number three

April 29, 2006

The phone rang at 11 AM. I got up and fished out the phone from my trouser pocket. As I predicted, it was Sergio calling to confirm. I said I will be ready in an hour.

I checked mail as I was getting ready. There was one international delivery for a CD by a Toronto-based Salsa band. There was just enough time for a quick import into my iPod and quick sampling of some of the songs. As I made my way to meet Sergio, my reaction to a certain special song was, "Mmm. This is more of a change of pace song. It's certainly not a big crowd pleaser and not for intense dancing. When would be appropriate time and situation to play this?" I guess I'm a bit wary of big crowd pleasers right now so not being a crowd-pleaser is not bad by my book. Also how many people are there for intense dancing? Heck, what do I know of intense dancing, and what does it mean anyway? Still, this is going to be a really big challenge for me.

I arrived at 12:05 PM. One of the first things I noticed was the big mirror on the floor. The mirror was bigger than I expected - a bit of overkill for practicing body movement, but I suppose a big mirror is handy for getting more than one person in the frame. Perhaps this was because of minor distortions but I think I ended up trying not to look at the mirror as much as possible and try to move by feel and how it corresponded to verbal descriptions and instructions given.

Approximately one half to two thirds of ~3 hour session (not including 20-30 minute break) was spent on exercises designed to do Mambo basic better. I don't think I should describe them - at least not until I am pretty certain that what I write is accurate. It does involve a lot of pushing against the ground with the balls of feet while avoiding placing weight on the heels. Sergio warned me that my feet will feel pretty sore by the end. I wouldn't say that they are sore now but they certainly were given a workout and I can feel it.

I discovered that I'm horrible at balancing standing on one feet - especially with weight on balls of my feet only (but I was stumbling with all of my feet firmly planted as well). Unfortunately, Sergio couldn't think of any exercise for staying in balance. Sergio commented, "No wonder you have such difficulty with broken left turn." Maybe it was not enough food - I did feel a bit feint walking after having lunch after the end of the session.

[Interlude 1: I stop typing to get up to test this idea. I'm not perfectly steady but am not wobbling as much standing on one foot now.]

[Interlude 2: I remembered that I was doing this with my shoes off earlier. I tried again with my shoes off. It's much more difficult now to stay balanced. Interesting... Maybe it's the extra padding… Yup, balancing is easier with normal shoes or with dancing shoes.]

By the way, Sergio said it's easier to observe what's going on with my feet wearing white socks (as opposed to black ones). Next time…

Some time was spent discussing some partner work - not exactly by design but prompted by me talking about some moves I have been leading or trying to lead recently and have noticed some difficulty with. Recently taught Copa move from this week (and also discussed last night) was the starting point, and this expanded into Copa and Copa fakes in general. Interestingly, Sergio had least amount of objection to the way I was leading this week's Copa. However, he disliked pretty much every other way I was leading Copa and Copa fakes. One particular Copa fake was considered particularly bad - I now wonder if the instruction was okay but if I misinterpreted it poorly (I could see this scenario unfolding in retrospect because of some subtleties tricky to follow in a group class with most people being unclear with proper level of tension). I have been using this Copa fake regularly with most people not complaining, but there were occasional highly surprising misses, which prompted me to bring it up to Sergio. Open break (tension issue) and around-the-world lead was briefly touched upon (not sure what led to the latter).

During the break, music was the main topic (which reminds me that I still need to break down different percussion instruments) - mainly about danceable music. While on the topic I decided to give my new CD a whirl. Sergio had couple of reactions I found funny such as, "It sounded okay until the vocals came on," and "I could picture Ivan dancing to this." Sergio as many people know is a tough critic so this should be taken with grain of salt. In fact, he considers many songs I enjoy either dull or terrible. I might add that it's often better not to know lyrics of many Salsa and Bachata music - it might be just too … special. Incidentally I guess there is something called "Toronto Style Salsa" if liner note is to be believed. I wonder how it compares to "London Style Salsa."

I guess the next time I see guinea pigs numero uno and dos, I'll have some fun things to relate and commiserate with.