Por fin

May 24, 2007

Chris was back; I hadn't seen him in a while.

Intermediate/Advanced with Sally and Chris

1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold CBL lead follower into traveling full clockwise turn with R-L low and L-R high into wrap
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower back and to left on 1,2,3 getting L-R high and R-L low - position here is open CBL - then lead follower forward on 5 and into full counterclockwise turn on 6,7 with leader turning almost half counterclockwise to be nearly back-to-back
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-L slightly down on 1 to allow follower to step on her R foot then get R-L up again on 2 and get follower to have turned 1/2 clockwise by 3 - then lead follower forward using both R-L (with R-L going behind leader's head) and L-R on 5 then lead follower to turn full clockwise on 6,7 (it would be good to have leader's R arm pointing upwards at the end of the turn for R-L hat without release by 8)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-L hat without release and L-R still connected - Copa keeping R-L by follower's neck and lead follower into Copa turn (1 1/2 counterclockwise) with L-R getting behind follower's neck
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break (very small) and lead follower to turn clockwise on 2,3 landing on her R foot forward on 3 - face-to-face with follower with both facing the line - frame lead (rather than using arms) to lead follower to step forward on 5 then back on 6 and back to original position on 7

A shiny new laptop made me a happy boy. I can update my iPod with new music I purchased without giving considerations for their usefulness in my DJing gig, and I can write at home. I'm hoping it will make a lot of things more efficient. [note: one thing it did was to delay posting of this entry.]

I decided to stop by home during the second hour of classes. Zhenzhi honked at me as I walked to my car. Cyrille, Zern, Rajiv et al arrived after the end of the lessons.

It was an odd night as far as people who were there. Exam period showed its effect. Wow. I had five unusual dances! Two were highly satisfactory, and one of them, my second dance of the evening, was enough to make me decide instantly that I was going to be happy with tonight regardless of what would happen for the rest of the evening. I might call them "I can see light at the end of the tunnel type of dances." They took over 2 years to get to. Third one was pretty good. Fourth one would have been okay but for olfactare issues. Fifth one was a bit discouraging though. Other dances were generally alright, and overall it was "exceeds expectations" evening.

The other day I talked about risks of giving criticism (constructive or not) while addressing the so-called unlikely salsero's blog. I wonder if same could be said about giving compliments. Is it possible that too much compliments could cause some people to stop trying to get better? Maybe I could avoid it by not giving names - I think it's quite possible that the best lead for next year's Salsa team will be someone new to the team. This assumes that the rate of people improving will stay steady for next 12 months or so - something of a big assumption.

One of the funniest moment came at the end when I stayed behind to ask Sally a question. When she saw me standing and waiting to talk to her, she asked, "Did I do something wrong?" I never envisioned such question being addressed me in the Cambridge Salsa scene - certainly not by Sally. Most of the time such question is being asked around me, I would have expected that it would be me who would be saying it - it happened often enough. I was further amused by the fact that I was able to say something like, "I wouldn't exactly say you did something wrong. Nothing serious anyway." No more details except that it was about booking for the UK Salsa Congress 2007.

La Loma Del Tamarindo? I think it probably works at least as well as Cha Cha as well as Salsa.