Bring in 'da noise, bring in 'da funk

July 6, 2006

Intermediate/Advanced combined with Sally assisted by Lindsey

1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL ending with leader doing hook turn ending with leader facing follower with L-R behind leader’s R waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower forward while leader goes around follower from her R side – the method here used more (optional) touches than I have seen done any other time. In this version, R hand touches follower’s R arm first then goes to follower’s R waist while L hand goes first to follower’s L shoulder then makes L-R connection – follower is led to walk backwards on 5,6,7 while leader gets into CBL position
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead Mambo jazz for 1,2,3 then lead follower into traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with leader turning 1/2 clockwise keeping L-R high
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower forward on leader’s L side – L-R down and switch to R-R which is brought up again for leading follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader does pivot clockwise full turn switching to L-R ending behind leader’s R waist – make R-L connection and soon afterwards L-R connection and lead follower into multiple stationary turn with R-L lead initially with L-R also going high and second (and third) turn led with R-L toss low across leader’s body

Sally had sent an e-mail earlier to her e-mail list informing people that the intermediate and advanced class will be combined. This was supposedly because Chris was ill and thus unavailable to teach. It was a nice gesture although it really didn’t matter too much to me one way or another today.

Thanks in part to the fact that the numbers were even for the second hour’s class, I was able to have a practice of some recent material from the LDA and the Joe's Monday class with Charlotte. As I expected, the LDA material provided a nice workout even though I suspect I am still fair bit more practice away from using the moves except in most ideal situations. I also had an opportunity to give a short demonstration of the LDA move to Sergio and Cyrille with help from Isabel.

There were quite a number of unexpected people tonight including Sam. If I were to believe things that were said, a good number of people who showed up will start their vacation in earnest and thus will be gone for significant amount of time for much of the summer.

I was feeling a bit funky and ended up doing some unusual stuff during social dancing. Sometimes I seemed to baffle my partners quite a bit. Some other times, I had very unusual and interesting dances. Overall, it was one of the most interesting nights in Cambridge in recent memory in terms of technique.

Sergio was doing some work to get others to join him on some body isolation exercises (primarily involving Cyrille, Rajiv and me at various times) when he wasn’t dancing. I cannot take all the credit but I thought I might have prodded him to dance more than he usually does. I suggested to him that he should dance with people more often so that they can get more accustomed to his leads and moves. Sergio replied that this would not work because once they get used to some of his moves, he would move onto doing other moves. Of course, this would depend upon whether the follower needs to get accustomed to Sergio’s style of leads rather than to various specific moves. I have very little experience as a follower but I would guess that the former is more important. I would also think that 2-3 miscommunications during a single dance would not be a big problem – I say this because having 2-3 miscommunications during a single dance is a rule rather than an exception for me. If everyone were perfectionist and were unhappy with any dance without mistakes, I suspect I would be I lot less popular than I perceive myself to be. A caveat here is that I am aware that not everyone enjoys dancing with me – at least not all the time.

I won’t be DJing tomorrow. It’ll be all Cristian and Vishal tomorrow – I’m not sure what long-term arrangement will be but it’ll probably all come down to what’s best financially for Vishal. I’m perfectly okay about it all because it means I can relax and concentrate on dancing and socializing. Heck, it also means I don’t have to be at Club Salsa every Friday if Cristian/Vishal combo continues for a while (Mmmm… maybe I’ll succeed in cutting down finally?). I am guessing that I will be at Club Salsa on Fridays more often than not for foreseeable future though, and I already told people I will be there tomorrow. Perhaps the most regrettable outcome is that Cambridge may have lost Enrique as one of the regular DJ because of me. In any case, I suspect I probably will act as DJ again in future in special occasions.