A cue? At 7:30 PM on a Monday?

January 8, 2007

When I arrived ~7:35-7:40 PM, there was a cue outside the Club Salsa about 8-9 people long. I think it drew some stares from people driving by. When I got to the top of the line and have a little chat with Vishal, he said there were over 65 people already the end of the line was still well beyond the door. I guess he won’t lose money this evening.

Tiz was delayed presumably due trouble with the rail service. He has been here 4-5 times since his supposedly last time (or he came more often than not). This caused some scrambling at the start with shine section for improvers and intermediate being taught at the same time in very cramped condition. I think the move was called chuck and 8-ball chuck – I didn’t find the move aesthetically pleasing (at least not for me) so I ignored it more or less. Even by the end of the shine section, Tiz hadn’t arrived, so Joe went back and forth between improvers and intermediates for another 10 minutes or so. I was volunteered into directing people to practice one up one down maneuver for the intermediate class. I started with simply calling counts and coordinating switching of partners. After a few rounds, I tried giving some additional directions/details, which I have heard dozens of times before. Then I added Mambo basic and CBL to start the one up one down so that it’s not just all spins for followers all the time. I knew several methods of getting out of the position, but I decided against trying to teach any of them because I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to hijack the class in such a manner.

Intermediate with Joe

1,2,3,5,6,7 L-R open break and bring follower to leader’s R side with free R hand showing early for R-L connection and lead follower into traveling 1 1/2 clockwise over and under turn (let go L-R) to get R-L ending behind follower’s R waist – leader keeps his back to the follower’s line from 3 onwards and stay in that position
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L hand over leader’s L shoulder within follower’s reach (early connection is probably needed here) keeping both connection and bring follower forward on 2 behind leader’s back (leader is still facing away from the line as was the case from previous 3 onwards) and leader tilts his body bringing L-R low while bringing R-L high – use R-L to lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise turn with L-R kept low for touch-and-go like maneuver and ending with a late L-R connection to help prevent further turn by follower (also into next move)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-L draped over follower’s head and down to behind her neck to start (with L-R to help keep follower from turning needlessly) and finish with simple CBL

1,2,3,5,6,7 L-R CBL start with pull on 2 with free R hand showing in front – lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn over and under to get R-L ending behind follower’s L waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 something like a Copa start but ending with follower and leader ending more or less back-to-back with R-L down toward direction follower came from – bring R-L straight up along the corridor between leader and follower (like windmill) and bring it straight down on 5 (so… it goes up on 4 and comes down on 5? – and I thought the feel of the direction could even be slightly towards the leader on 5 – at least initially… I noticed that tendencies (wrong of course) for me and some others at least initially was to wait too long before bringing R-L down and/or letting R-L move towards the follower too much during the windmill move) – the idea here is that follower turns 1 1/2 counterclockwise with minimal traveling and ending with R-L across follower’s stomach at her front R waist – overall a very tricky lead, which I have seen couple of times before and had little success mastering previously) – get ready to make L-R connection in front
1,2,3,5,6,7 option 1. briefly shown only – lead follower to turn 1/2 counterclockwise and leader getting around and ending in CBL position – I suppose this could be considered a version of around-the-world – could finish with CBL (this wasn’t the move practiced – just mentioned briefly – it seemed nice enough)
1,2,3,5,6,7 option 2. (move practiced) Mambo jazz start and lead follower forward on 5 and into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn ending with wrists together
1,2,3,5,6,7 the starting position is same as if follower was turned full clockwise with all connections intact – open break and Copa with R-L going over follower’s head and L-R going over leader’s head – let go L-R and use R-L to lead follower into free 1 1/2 Copa turn and end with closed hold for…
1,2,3,5,6,7 something like a CBL or something

I had my doubt about being able to incorporate the material into my arsenal despite the fact that it didn’t seem very difficult. Most of the time, I was in self-preservation mode trying to keep my shoulders safe from injury (and not letting some tough followers not dislodge my arm out of my sockets). I am not kidding when I say that my shoulders were feeling pain more than half dozen times trying to lead some of these moves.

I was resigned to having very small number of worthwhile dances as the second half the classes got under way. Without likes of Euvian in attendance, proper practice to incorporate the material into my repertoire has been extremely difficult. Without consistent participations of likes of Cyrille, the material being taught has been somewhat limited – still nice enough in quality but probably more limited in quantity. Then Stephanie showed up – enough said. Just having two trial at today’s routine with Stephanie was basically enough for me to figure out how to lead it reasonably well at normal speed – at least when dancing with her. I also danced with ~4 other people scattered throughout the night (e.g. when Stephanie went to check out Vishal as a lead).

I learned more details about how Stephanie improved so much over last summer over the after social chat that went on for a while. I also learned more about what the Salsa scene in Germany (or city or cities Stephanie frequented) is like – supposedly quite insular with very few people changing partners and with small cliques. It sounded a bit like the way Tony described the Italian scene, except Italy seems to have a large number of good instructors within the country unlike in Germany.

Luis is still miffed about me not playing more Merengue on Fridays. I am only up to 4 songs – 2 songs seem unpopular and yet another is not an obvious hit material. I see little point in getting Elvis Crespo or other popular Merengue songs Vishal plays all the time because I am sick of hearing the same old same old. I don’t have any great ideas about how I might find or recognize good Merengue. The fact that I am not very interested in Merengue as a dance doesn’t help. If people know of great Merengue, which is not already overplayed to death, let me know. It's not like I get paid to DJ (or looking to get paid) – I collect Salsa CDs because knowing many good Salsa songs can help with my dancing and I DJ because it can be fun and do it as something of a public service as well as a vanity project. Perhaps it also serves to keep me out of trouble with this blog by providing me with a relatively harmless topic. Somewhat like this blog, DJing is both a source of amusement and a burden.

I decided to pick a couple of songs (from Vishal's collection) at the end of the evening for dancing with Stephanie. The first was Man's World by Ray Santiago, and we got to hear the end of the song for the first time - a little weird. The last was Philadelphia Mambo by an artist I don't remember hearing (and don't remember now). This too ended strangely - although this was probably because of bad editing when CD was burned rather than the song itself. In any case, I didn't like this version particularly - either of Cal Tjader's versions would have been vastly preferred. Also it made me regret that I did not get to find out how Toby's Mambo by Tito Rodriguez Jr. sounds.