July 5, 2007
Is this really summer? Is July supposed to be like this? I checked the weather forecast and then weather statistics for London and found that the temperature today was essentially par for July. Hmm. Were last few summers warmer than average then? Did we not have warmer days in April? I also checked weather statistics for American cities like New York and Portland. It confirmed my memory of Portland having really nice summers – it is a lot rainier in winter though. It feels really cold when leaving work late at night – it’s not so bad after a late night of dancing.
I didn’t leave for Club Salsa until after 9. I stopped by Sauce first – taking a seat with Pauline, Andrea, William, Clara et al. I’ve learned that Pauline and Andrea have been friends for 11 years. Like Andrea, Pauline will be moving away in September. It sounded like both of them might be back in Cambridge periodically though. Zern and Euvian arrived after me. Zern sat on my side while Euvian went to the other side beyond my hearing range. Speaking of hearing, isn’t it weird that hearing (or having conversation) is much easier with some people compared to others with high background noise?
Almost immediately upon arrival, Vishal talked to me about some girl dancing On2 and suggesting that I dance with her. So I started the evening of dancing On2. She was nice – I think she was definitely more solid with On2 timing than me. I ended up dancing with her twice. I also tried to talk some others into dancing with her, but I am unsure if anyone else tried.
The floor was very slippery. Usually I don’t mind and usually prefer slippery floor, but it was a bit difficult tonight. Let’s just say that it’s unnerving when you find yourself constantly slipping and losing balance because your dance partner is (unwittingly) being too stiff, giving too much resistance or not being responsive enough (I think this could be one way to describe a reason for someone being “heavy” as opposed to “light”), etc.
For the most part I thought I was in dreadful form tonight. Of all dances On1, I would have given passing grade to me for maybe two or three at most. At the risk of sounding a little pompous, I think people who I did not get to dance with tonight did not miss anything. I held off asking some people for a dance for a long time or altogether because of this perceived poor form. I also held off from dancing On2 on some occasions because of shortage in confidence. Some of it had to do with slippery floor as I mentioned above, but I think I don’t think it was the only reason. A little tired maybe? A little stiff perhaps? A little uninspired? A little bored with myself? I don’t really know why. If people who are away want to believe that this is because they are not here, feel free to believe it. You know who you are. I will neither confirm nor deny it.
It was a curious night in other ways too. Here’s a conversation illustrating the point.
Ivan – Where’s Sergio?
Me – He’s in London
Ivan – Where’s Cyrille?
Me – (shrugs) An even better question is where’s Raj?
Ivan – Yeah… Hmmmmm…
There was a nice opportunity for On2 Cha Cha. Euvian struggled with her timing early but seemed to get used to it fairly quickly.
My Salsa dancing ended with another one On2. By the way, I’m not trying to advocate that Eddie Torres On2 is superior to On1. I certainly don’t mean that I find On2 more enjoyable either. At this point I know and comfortable with On1 considerably more than On2 so I generally would have a lot more fun dancing On1 given best dance partners. However, given a choice between a typical average On1 dance and an opportunity to practice On2, I find On2 more engaging and stimulating – mostly because it’s something new and also because I feel I am making real and rapid progress with pretty much every On2 dance as opposed to at best occasional incremental improvements with On1 (and possibly regressing sometimes).
Having said that, my last On2 dance was exhilarating – I hope neither my dance partner at the time nor everyone else I danced with tonight mind me saying it. The reason why I say it was great is because it felt like one of those “breakthrough” dances – arguably my fourth breakthrough dance On2. The first On2 breakthrough was when I managed to dance On2 from start of the song to the end of the song. I must have gone off time perhaps 20 times during the song, but making it through the end was a victory. The second breakthrough was the time when I went through the song without constantly feeling that I was going to go off time – basically I was on time all the time when I was leading moves I knew well and sometimes even pulled off some moves I wasn’t sure with without going off time. Third breakthrough was when I did the same with someone I had never danced On2 with mostly mistake free. I consider this one the fourth breakthrough because the dance felt more than comfortable – words like natural, fun and flowing comes to mind. It was doubly great because I was expecting a pretty lousy dance given how poorly I danced most of the evening. In this case relative blandness of the song probably helped. It’s also notable that I have not seen any new On2 moves between my first and fourth “breakthroughs.” Many thanks for suggesting On2 (but please don’t leave a comment on this blog about it). Thanks also to Nicola for an (unintentional) assist.
The last dance of the evening was a Bachata – possibly because of Ivan’s urging.
"Random" note - I found my Frankie Martinez DVD after more than a week of searching - I also found just under 10 pounds of coins along with it.
Playing catch-up
July 2, 2007
The isolation portion of the class is quite physically taxing. I wonder if there are any others like it in England. Some instructors incorporate isolations as part of the warm-up but lasting only about 5 minutes. I have seen such warm-ups with Ivan and subsequently in workshops run by Joe Davids and Tony Lara, but they don't match the intensity or length of these Monday sessions. In England the only class which could be considered equivalent is one-hour body movement class in London with Irene Miguel. I imagine Irene Miguel would try to make her class appear distinct from Frankie Martinez. There are no pretensions of trying to look different from Frankie Martinez here - it's not an exact copy but this is probably due to limitations in ability and time (Frankie's isolation classes are 90 minutes long - we're doing maybe 50 minutes at most right now).
Sometimes I feel like I am flailing around looking pretty ridiculous. This especially true when the exercise involves moving in a way I am less used to. Simply changing the rotation of shoulders - say from backwards (which I am more used to) to forwards (which I have practiced considerably less) creates unexpected amount of difficulty. My left shoulder is much better than my right shoulder - I blame it on softball. I'm quite awful with chest movement and generally anything that involves movement of vertebrae. Much of the time I am not concentrating on making the movement look good but just trying to keep in time - I imagine I will be flailing about for weeks until I get used to the movements. Moving hip, knees, ankles were generally easier for me - presumably different people will find different things easy or difficult.
I was somewhat tired and not particularly in good spinning shape so it was probably a good thing that not as much double turns were done today. Sergio tried to throw in a shine - there was only one tricky and fast part to it, but he seemed to spend too little time on the difficult bit and seemed to give up too easily and too willing to change it. With partner work, I thought we tried to go too fast and too slow at the same time. After returning in June, we have done the following - cross body lead, cross body lead with inside turn for follower. I don't think the next logical move was preparation for turn (as if leading a double turn although it was so clear to me that a preparation for a single turn at this juncture was useful). Also Sergio went back into that odd routine of trying to explain moves in On1 timing before going to On2 timing once again - I had told him that this was not very useful when he did this back in March. If there's a technique to be corrected, do it On2 and hope that people will apply similar principles for On1. I'm not sure how much of Spot turn and Copa stuck on people's minds.
We are still working with the crappy sound system in the studio. I have no idea if this is causing additional problem or if this is more of a problem with some people not being very good at picking up beats in unfamiliar music. I wonder if using Cha Cha more would help also. As for live practice, it might be useful to take account of the fact that leads need to adjust a little bit to not doing his steps on follower's timing.
I stopped by Club Salsa briefly afterwards. Rajiv went too. It was very quiet - Aside from Danie, I did not know any of the girls by their name.
The isolation portion of the class is quite physically taxing. I wonder if there are any others like it in England. Some instructors incorporate isolations as part of the warm-up but lasting only about 5 minutes. I have seen such warm-ups with Ivan and subsequently in workshops run by Joe Davids and Tony Lara, but they don't match the intensity or length of these Monday sessions. In England the only class which could be considered equivalent is one-hour body movement class in London with Irene Miguel. I imagine Irene Miguel would try to make her class appear distinct from Frankie Martinez. There are no pretensions of trying to look different from Frankie Martinez here - it's not an exact copy but this is probably due to limitations in ability and time (Frankie's isolation classes are 90 minutes long - we're doing maybe 50 minutes at most right now).
Sometimes I feel like I am flailing around looking pretty ridiculous. This especially true when the exercise involves moving in a way I am less used to. Simply changing the rotation of shoulders - say from backwards (which I am more used to) to forwards (which I have practiced considerably less) creates unexpected amount of difficulty. My left shoulder is much better than my right shoulder - I blame it on softball. I'm quite awful with chest movement and generally anything that involves movement of vertebrae. Much of the time I am not concentrating on making the movement look good but just trying to keep in time - I imagine I will be flailing about for weeks until I get used to the movements. Moving hip, knees, ankles were generally easier for me - presumably different people will find different things easy or difficult.
I was somewhat tired and not particularly in good spinning shape so it was probably a good thing that not as much double turns were done today. Sergio tried to throw in a shine - there was only one tricky and fast part to it, but he seemed to spend too little time on the difficult bit and seemed to give up too easily and too willing to change it. With partner work, I thought we tried to go too fast and too slow at the same time. After returning in June, we have done the following - cross body lead, cross body lead with inside turn for follower. I don't think the next logical move was preparation for turn (as if leading a double turn although it was so clear to me that a preparation for a single turn at this juncture was useful). Also Sergio went back into that odd routine of trying to explain moves in On1 timing before going to On2 timing once again - I had told him that this was not very useful when he did this back in March. If there's a technique to be corrected, do it On2 and hope that people will apply similar principles for On1. I'm not sure how much of Spot turn and Copa stuck on people's minds.
We are still working with the crappy sound system in the studio. I have no idea if this is causing additional problem or if this is more of a problem with some people not being very good at picking up beats in unfamiliar music. I wonder if using Cha Cha more would help also. As for live practice, it might be useful to take account of the fact that leads need to adjust a little bit to not doing his steps on follower's timing.
I stopped by Club Salsa briefly afterwards. Rajiv went too. It was very quiet - Aside from Danie, I did not know any of the girls by their name.
Expanding circle?
June 29, 2007
The dinner at Charlie Chan was something of a complaint-fest ranging from tardiness, wine choice and Wimbledon. The jazz band added to the nice ambiance. Other memorable things included gawking at a striking 40-year old at the nearby table, seaweed, fortune teller and a little bit of dancing before leaving.
The music at the Fountain Inn was more Techno-like - not as good as jazz of two weeks ago but perhaps better than funk of last week. Cyrille tried to use his charm to bring everyone to Salsa dancing, but his effort failed - a rarity - he couldn't believe it. Getting Sergio did not seem like a sure thing either.
I was parked on the other side of Parkers Piece. On the walk there, we ran into a few people we know. We ended up giving a ride to Club Salsa for a couple, who live in the same building. All these people took the coach from Stansted. The guy spoke Spanish with Sergio upon learning their birthplace.
The arrival time at Club Salsa was somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. Our arrival prompted some people to stay a bit longer. No sign of Johnny, Serap and company - I think Jane might have substituted for them but I'm not sure. Otherwise, there were not very many people from Sergio or Cyrille's dance circle.
I generally liked the music especially later on. Probably the worst call was the too-fast too-long song near the very end, but it was more notable for there being a good number of nice calls. Two nice endings in a row for Vishal…
Perhaps the most notable thing was the large number of occasions when the three of us took new or unusual dance partner to the floor. I try to dance with many people, but seeing Cyrille and especially Sergio doing the same was striking. Usually I would dance with someone, and then Cyrille and/or Sergio would follow suit. However, sometimes the lead was taken by Cyrille or Sergio too. I thought we were something of a triple-threat - maybe me playing the part of a scout or a herald, Sergio playing the part of a guru, and Cyrille playing the part of - I don't know - a charmer? "Hot French guy"? I don't know. I'm just making this up on the fly.
I wouldn't try to compare tonight to last Friday except to say that it was fun in a different manner.
The dinner at Charlie Chan was something of a complaint-fest ranging from tardiness, wine choice and Wimbledon. The jazz band added to the nice ambiance. Other memorable things included gawking at a striking 40-year old at the nearby table, seaweed, fortune teller and a little bit of dancing before leaving.
The music at the Fountain Inn was more Techno-like - not as good as jazz of two weeks ago but perhaps better than funk of last week. Cyrille tried to use his charm to bring everyone to Salsa dancing, but his effort failed - a rarity - he couldn't believe it. Getting Sergio did not seem like a sure thing either.
I was parked on the other side of Parkers Piece. On the walk there, we ran into a few people we know. We ended up giving a ride to Club Salsa for a couple, who live in the same building. All these people took the coach from Stansted. The guy spoke Spanish with Sergio upon learning their birthplace.
The arrival time at Club Salsa was somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. Our arrival prompted some people to stay a bit longer. No sign of Johnny, Serap and company - I think Jane might have substituted for them but I'm not sure. Otherwise, there were not very many people from Sergio or Cyrille's dance circle.
I generally liked the music especially later on. Probably the worst call was the too-fast too-long song near the very end, but it was more notable for there being a good number of nice calls. Two nice endings in a row for Vishal…
Perhaps the most notable thing was the large number of occasions when the three of us took new or unusual dance partner to the floor. I try to dance with many people, but seeing Cyrille and especially Sergio doing the same was striking. Usually I would dance with someone, and then Cyrille and/or Sergio would follow suit. However, sometimes the lead was taken by Cyrille or Sergio too. I thought we were something of a triple-threat - maybe me playing the part of a scout or a herald, Sergio playing the part of a guru, and Cyrille playing the part of - I don't know - a charmer? "Hot French guy"? I don't know. I'm just making this up on the fly.
I wouldn't try to compare tonight to last Friday except to say that it was fun in a different manner.
Something about an empire
June 28, 2007
Intermediate/Advanced with Sally and Chris
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold CBL inside turn for follower (1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 double right turn for leader (3 o’clock turn followed by hook turn – R-L over leader’s head – switch ending with R-R at about shoulder level)
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break(?) connecting L-L underneath and lead follower straight forward on 2,3 with R-R over leader’s head (leader turns about 1/4 clockwise) – lead follower to 1 1/2 counterclockwise travelling turn with L-L (keep it straight extended away from follower) with leader turning counterclockwise
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader continues to turn until reaching CBL position (should be done by 2 without too much difficulty) – allow follower to step forward on 5 and lead her straight back on 6 to turn full counterclockwise for follower (this could be done with switch to R-L early or late – I liked late switch rather than the early switch taught in the class) to end with R-L wrap in CBL position
1,2,3,5,6,7 mambo jazz start – allow forward to step forward on 5 and then lead her straight back again on 6 for full counterclockwise turn for follower the same way using L-R to end back in same wrap position
1,2,3,5,6,7 mambo jazz start – lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise travelling turn to unwrap ending with leader turning counterclockwise (leader facing away from follower)
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns further 1/2 counterclockwise and reconnect L-L to lead follower into stationary clockwise turn
Some like Rajiv, Zern, Pauline and Andrea were at the class. Cyrille arrived at a funny time – after most of the class was done. Rajiv led the early party to the Sauce for drinks. Chatting away and getting distracted left and right, Cyrille and Zern led the stragglers. I ended up bringing a chair between couches occupied by Andrea and Rajiv. When Sergio and Natalie arrived, I stood up and chatted with Sergio and Cyrille.
I ended up having three opportunities for dancing Salsa On2 tonight mostly with unexpected partners. I found any practice dancing On2 to be more stimulating compared to most On1 dances. In fact, I was getting rather antsy and arguably a bit disinterested as the evening progressed until a couple of opportunities for On2 came up. I think I was more engaged with a series of On1 dance afterwards although the songs being more familiar and easy on the ears must have helped – as well as more space – and nice dance partners too of course. The social dance part of the evening closed with Sergio reminding me about how to prepare follower for a turn and with one more On2 practice.
I learned of a couple of upcoming changes. At Sauce, Andrea talked about an upcoming change of career and address for her coming up in September. During a nice low-key and chatty dance, Sam mentioned that she is going to have a change of address, which I imagine would not improve her commute. I don’t think there were any planetary collisions (not my words – convergence is not collision) but the absence of a need for safety dance afterwards was brilliant.
Intermediate/Advanced with Sally and Chris
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold CBL inside turn for follower (1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 double right turn for leader (3 o’clock turn followed by hook turn – R-L over leader’s head – switch ending with R-R at about shoulder level)
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break(?) connecting L-L underneath and lead follower straight forward on 2,3 with R-R over leader’s head (leader turns about 1/4 clockwise) – lead follower to 1 1/2 counterclockwise travelling turn with L-L (keep it straight extended away from follower) with leader turning counterclockwise
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader continues to turn until reaching CBL position (should be done by 2 without too much difficulty) – allow follower to step forward on 5 and lead her straight back on 6 to turn full counterclockwise for follower (this could be done with switch to R-L early or late – I liked late switch rather than the early switch taught in the class) to end with R-L wrap in CBL position
1,2,3,5,6,7 mambo jazz start – allow forward to step forward on 5 and then lead her straight back again on 6 for full counterclockwise turn for follower the same way using L-R to end back in same wrap position
1,2,3,5,6,7 mambo jazz start – lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise travelling turn to unwrap ending with leader turning counterclockwise (leader facing away from follower)
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns further 1/2 counterclockwise and reconnect L-L to lead follower into stationary clockwise turn
Some like Rajiv, Zern, Pauline and Andrea were at the class. Cyrille arrived at a funny time – after most of the class was done. Rajiv led the early party to the Sauce for drinks. Chatting away and getting distracted left and right, Cyrille and Zern led the stragglers. I ended up bringing a chair between couches occupied by Andrea and Rajiv. When Sergio and Natalie arrived, I stood up and chatted with Sergio and Cyrille.
I ended up having three opportunities for dancing Salsa On2 tonight mostly with unexpected partners. I found any practice dancing On2 to be more stimulating compared to most On1 dances. In fact, I was getting rather antsy and arguably a bit disinterested as the evening progressed until a couple of opportunities for On2 came up. I think I was more engaged with a series of On1 dance afterwards although the songs being more familiar and easy on the ears must have helped – as well as more space – and nice dance partners too of course. The social dance part of the evening closed with Sergio reminding me about how to prepare follower for a turn and with one more On2 practice.
I learned of a couple of upcoming changes. At Sauce, Andrea talked about an upcoming change of career and address for her coming up in September. During a nice low-key and chatty dance, Sam mentioned that she is going to have a change of address, which I imagine would not improve her commute. I don’t think there were any planetary collisions (not my words – convergence is not collision) but the absence of a need for safety dance afterwards was brilliant.
On2 on track
June 25, 2007
Gym shorts were fine. I'm less sure about football jersey though. We are now up to eight - with one person being away - thanks in part to someone taking a facebook plunge.
The format was similar to last week - isolations, footwork and partner work taking up about a third of the time each - if anything partner work as usual gets the least amount of coverage. Intensity of each of the sessions was higher than last week - especially footwork. Footwork and partner work portions are still review for me - some of the spins are getting pretty close to the level of intensity reached near the end of the spring sessions. Some of the footwork exercises were new, but they were more of an exercise rather than a shine and probably not worth recording.
Sergio was worried about people "still" struggling with timing - I found his concern amusing because most people there tonight were either there for the first time or had only gone through one session. It's a problem that will be solved only with a lot of repetition - practices outside the official sessions will help a lot.
Some of the group headed for Club Salsa afterwards. Good times. I managed a pretty good On2 dance and even finished with a pretty good Bachata practice - I don't really get much of those - thanks to a request made by Rajiv. It seems dancing Salsa On2 has gone from more-than-two-disruptive-timing-mistakes-per-minute difficult and nerve-wrecking to "Hey! This is getting alright!" mostly mistake-free phase; it has taken over dozen dances over course of few months.
I picked up a copy of Latin Nation and perused through it after the social. The magazine now has listing of heat winners for the Latinfest dance competition. So one now can see Cyrille and Stephanie's name on print as the Cambridge heat winner now. In addition, I saw two other familiar names on the list of winners - Domenic (he won the heat at Bar Salsa) and Sasha (she won the heat at Guildford). It's a small world.
Gym shorts were fine. I'm less sure about football jersey though. We are now up to eight - with one person being away - thanks in part to someone taking a facebook plunge.
The format was similar to last week - isolations, footwork and partner work taking up about a third of the time each - if anything partner work as usual gets the least amount of coverage. Intensity of each of the sessions was higher than last week - especially footwork. Footwork and partner work portions are still review for me - some of the spins are getting pretty close to the level of intensity reached near the end of the spring sessions. Some of the footwork exercises were new, but they were more of an exercise rather than a shine and probably not worth recording.
Sergio was worried about people "still" struggling with timing - I found his concern amusing because most people there tonight were either there for the first time or had only gone through one session. It's a problem that will be solved only with a lot of repetition - practices outside the official sessions will help a lot.
Some of the group headed for Club Salsa afterwards. Good times. I managed a pretty good On2 dance and even finished with a pretty good Bachata practice - I don't really get much of those - thanks to a request made by Rajiv. It seems dancing Salsa On2 has gone from more-than-two-disruptive-timing-mistakes-per-minute difficult and nerve-wrecking to "Hey! This is getting alright!" mostly mistake-free phase; it has taken over dozen dances over course of few months.
I picked up a copy of Latin Nation and perused through it after the social. The magazine now has listing of heat winners for the Latinfest dance competition. So one now can see Cyrille and Stephanie's name on print as the Cambridge heat winner now. In addition, I saw two other familiar names on the list of winners - Domenic (he won the heat at Bar Salsa) and Sasha (she won the heat at Guildford). It's a small world.
Time for a break?
June 24, 2007
I arrived shortly before the end of the classes. The first people I talked with Sean and Roger - we all wondered how long it will be before SOS goes back to Mary Ward Hall. One of the spoken thought was that having the event at the hotel (even the nicer North hall) makes it less likely for many of the better dancers from showing up. It did seem like there were less than usual large number of superb followers. It seemed like such thought on other people’s mind too - Rico also wondered when SOS will be back to Mary Ward Hall. In a later conversation with Ed, the “JV” talk came up again. I don’t think this was one of the better SOS nights, but an even more troubling thought is that SOS also was not very good for pretty much all of April before improving in May (at least on the days I attended and not affected by Scala). Things have been generally poor after moving to the hotel (although I did enjoy the one 2 weeks ago) or so I have been told on days where I wasn’t here. What if these lesser nights become the norm for SOS? From the earliest part of the evening, things did not look very promising tonight, and many times during the evening I wondered if I would have been better off staying home tonight. This is not to say there were no good moments tonight, but that’s not really saying very much.
I ran into Domenic, who apparently came here for the first time in a very long time. He and I talked about a couple of dance competitions he is entering (as a semi-pro at Vauxhall and as a semi-pro/amateur at London Latinfest) as well as some TV dance program to be shown around Christmas time. Also we both agreed that the end of the Friday at Club Salsa was great fun – Domenic said he hadn’t had such great time in a long time. Too bad many of the people who made it fun won’t be back until September or October (yes, we talked about you).
My first dance was nice enough, and my second dance was even nicer – arguably my favorite dance of the evening and I was quite happy with it.
Things went downhill from there though. Convergence of a good song and a good dance partner did not happen for a long time. I suppose that’s bound to happen when both are in short supply. I don't recall needing to scramble to find a dance partner so much at SOS - if you didn't have a partner after about 5 seconds after the start of the new song, finding anyone at all let alone a good partner was very difficult.
I did enjoy the opportunity to dance to Aguardiente (Mark Dimond). I don’t think it’s a great song, but it still was a pleasant surprise. The dance was only okay though. Okay dances are okay - there were some awful ones tonight.
For next hour or so, there were only a few partners I connected very well with, and these dances were marred by the fact that the songs were rather dull. I skipped songs like Caballo Viejo. A version of Agua Limpia Todo was played too – I wasn’t completely won over it and I did not dance to it. There was a Cha Cha for which I wasn’t able to find a partner – I don’t think the song was so hot. I did not feel like dancing to a Bachata (a version of Lloraras).
I ran into Liam for the first time since the week after Brit Salsafest. Apparently tonight was the first time Liam went out for Salsa dancing since last time I saw him. He finally gave me most of the petrol money for the Blackpool drive.
During the last hour, there finally was a dance with a nice enough song and pretty good follower. The dance went quite well until I bumped into one of the neighboring dancers and drew a complaint and making me feel like an idiot.
Next to the last song was Philadelphia Mambo (Cal Tjader), but again the dance was just okay rather than great. I was too tired and too uninspired by the last song and my decision was to dance to it was probably a mistake. It was my third dance in a row – the first one was danced to a song I’m guessing as Salsa Romantica (Louie Ramirez), which was unremarkable at many levels but still okay.
Over the course of the evening, I fell close to losing all interest in the dance – wanting the dance to just end. By the end I was just too tired and too uninspired.
I thought I had a very good control of my lead for the first couple of dances (or at least I felt I did). However as not-so-great dances piled up, I became less sure of myself. Over the course of the evening, I had maybe 3-5 occasions where I longed for the dance to end soon and had to struggle mightily to not look bored – I might not have been successful in some cases. In many cases, I think I was bored with myself (an alternative is to say that I was bored with many of the songs).
Perhaps the problem was that I went out dancing too much this week. Perhaps the fact that it was unusually interesting and/or unusually good all week long (for me Tuesday and Friday especially) in Cambridge made this subpar London SOS outing seem worse than it really was. I hope things will get better soon. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea for me to take a little break until they get back to Mary Ward Hall – or perhaps find out when Amir is DJing in advance so that I would at least know that the percentage of good songs will be higher.
I arrived shortly before the end of the classes. The first people I talked with Sean and Roger - we all wondered how long it will be before SOS goes back to Mary Ward Hall. One of the spoken thought was that having the event at the hotel (even the nicer North hall) makes it less likely for many of the better dancers from showing up. It did seem like there were less than usual large number of superb followers. It seemed like such thought on other people’s mind too - Rico also wondered when SOS will be back to Mary Ward Hall. In a later conversation with Ed, the “JV” talk came up again. I don’t think this was one of the better SOS nights, but an even more troubling thought is that SOS also was not very good for pretty much all of April before improving in May (at least on the days I attended and not affected by Scala). Things have been generally poor after moving to the hotel (although I did enjoy the one 2 weeks ago) or so I have been told on days where I wasn’t here. What if these lesser nights become the norm for SOS? From the earliest part of the evening, things did not look very promising tonight, and many times during the evening I wondered if I would have been better off staying home tonight. This is not to say there were no good moments tonight, but that’s not really saying very much.
I ran into Domenic, who apparently came here for the first time in a very long time. He and I talked about a couple of dance competitions he is entering (as a semi-pro at Vauxhall and as a semi-pro/amateur at London Latinfest) as well as some TV dance program to be shown around Christmas time. Also we both agreed that the end of the Friday at Club Salsa was great fun – Domenic said he hadn’t had such great time in a long time. Too bad many of the people who made it fun won’t be back until September or October (yes, we talked about you).
My first dance was nice enough, and my second dance was even nicer – arguably my favorite dance of the evening and I was quite happy with it.
Things went downhill from there though. Convergence of a good song and a good dance partner did not happen for a long time. I suppose that’s bound to happen when both are in short supply. I don't recall needing to scramble to find a dance partner so much at SOS - if you didn't have a partner after about 5 seconds after the start of the new song, finding anyone at all let alone a good partner was very difficult.
I did enjoy the opportunity to dance to Aguardiente (Mark Dimond). I don’t think it’s a great song, but it still was a pleasant surprise. The dance was only okay though. Okay dances are okay - there were some awful ones tonight.
For next hour or so, there were only a few partners I connected very well with, and these dances were marred by the fact that the songs were rather dull. I skipped songs like Caballo Viejo. A version of Agua Limpia Todo was played too – I wasn’t completely won over it and I did not dance to it. There was a Cha Cha for which I wasn’t able to find a partner – I don’t think the song was so hot. I did not feel like dancing to a Bachata (a version of Lloraras).
I ran into Liam for the first time since the week after Brit Salsafest. Apparently tonight was the first time Liam went out for Salsa dancing since last time I saw him. He finally gave me most of the petrol money for the Blackpool drive.
During the last hour, there finally was a dance with a nice enough song and pretty good follower. The dance went quite well until I bumped into one of the neighboring dancers and drew a complaint and making me feel like an idiot.
Next to the last song was Philadelphia Mambo (Cal Tjader), but again the dance was just okay rather than great. I was too tired and too uninspired by the last song and my decision was to dance to it was probably a mistake. It was my third dance in a row – the first one was danced to a song I’m guessing as Salsa Romantica (Louie Ramirez), which was unremarkable at many levels but still okay.
Over the course of the evening, I fell close to losing all interest in the dance – wanting the dance to just end. By the end I was just too tired and too uninspired.
I thought I had a very good control of my lead for the first couple of dances (or at least I felt I did). However as not-so-great dances piled up, I became less sure of myself. Over the course of the evening, I had maybe 3-5 occasions where I longed for the dance to end soon and had to struggle mightily to not look bored – I might not have been successful in some cases. In many cases, I think I was bored with myself (an alternative is to say that I was bored with many of the songs).
Perhaps the problem was that I went out dancing too much this week. Perhaps the fact that it was unusually interesting and/or unusually good all week long (for me Tuesday and Friday especially) in Cambridge made this subpar London SOS outing seem worse than it really was. I hope things will get better soon. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea for me to take a little break until they get back to Mary Ward Hall – or perhaps find out when Amir is DJing in advance so that I would at least know that the percentage of good songs will be higher.
What an ending!
June 22, 2007
No Salsa until around 12:30. Dinner at Shiraz lasted til 11:30 - good food and nice perks but not a place to go for a quick meal. There was a lot of Salsa music played there too - circa Club Salsa or Po Na Na couple of years ago. The Fountain Inn was very smoky, and the music was not as good to my ears as the previous week - jazz and latin sound replaced with synthesizers and quasi-funk/techno with touch of hip hop maybe. The general aura of the place was less inviting so returning to familiar environs of Club Salsa was a relief even though it should have felt passé given this would have been my fourth time out here in five days, which is a lot.
The first half hour or so was merely okay. A bit crowded. Some like Pauline, Andrea seemingly had been there for a while and left around 1 or so. The guest teacher from the other Friday - I think his name was something like Domenic (many people, whom I have talked with, like his style or more specifically musicality of his dancing) - was there along with Johnny, Serap and Kate. The team contingent comprising of Agnes, Stephanie, Haihan and Zoon arrived minutes after I did. Steve and Natalia were there too.
It looked as if it was going to be an okay night but nothing special. This felt especially true when Vishal moved onto Reggaeton promotion for tomorrow and people started leaving. And then voila! Vishal started playing a really great set of music and there was decent amount of space on the dance floor all of sudden. I danced to songs like La Salsa Nunca Se Acaba (Susie Hansen), Arinanara, Caravan (latter two by Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orchestra), and all of the sudden it was the end of the evening. Time just flew by - it was amazing. We were all talking about how great the end of the evening was - we in this case meaning people like Haihan, Agnes, Stephanie and Domenic. Johnny and Serap were there to the end too - I think I danced to Caravan with Serap and to Arinanara with Agnes.
One of the girls I danced with asked me about what one might do to get better. I think it's a tricky question to answer - aside from saying something like "You should work on getting your fundamentals right and then just practice a lot" there's no answer that fits everyone. Also almost everyone dislikes getting criticisms - even if they say they want an honest evaluation (forget about giving unsolicited advice if you don't want to make enemies - even a seemingly harmless comment could come back to haunt you). For absolute beginners, taking any drop-in classes in Club Salsa would seem to be a decent way to start, and private lessons probably will mean faster progress although it might be less cost-efficient for beginners. But how would one go about advising someone who has long enjoyed dancing at beginner, improver or even intermediate level and is thinking about ways to improve? Do they really need to know (or need to be reminded) that getting to next level requires putting in a lot of effort for a long time (for most typically many hours of instructions over months and years), and most people will lack desire, willpower, time, resources, money, etc. I think it's trickier for someone who long ago reached a comfort point and had not felt the need to improve for a very long time. A not-so-uncommon reaction to a difficult task is to quit - so telling them the truth means risking saying goodbye. Also it is not as if the reward for getting better is without negatives - being better than most people means there will be less number of people who would be able to dance with you at a comparable level. I probably could teach people to a pretty decent level if I tried (and there are some others in Cambridge who could do better job than me), but I doubt very much could be done unless the student is extremely motivated. To get to higher level, people eventually would have to reach out to instructors in other places like London or in other countries - there probably is no instructor that knows everything.
The evening ended with people outside the club chatting and still high from the nice end of the social dancing. I was mostly talking with Agnes, Stephanie and Haihan (all three of them will be flying to their home country on Saturday - we'll keep in touch one way or another) before we also started talking to another group of four people who were standing and talking next to us.
Oh, I almost forgot - it was a theme-party at Club Salsa tonight - beach party.
No Salsa until around 12:30. Dinner at Shiraz lasted til 11:30 - good food and nice perks but not a place to go for a quick meal. There was a lot of Salsa music played there too - circa Club Salsa or Po Na Na couple of years ago. The Fountain Inn was very smoky, and the music was not as good to my ears as the previous week - jazz and latin sound replaced with synthesizers and quasi-funk/techno with touch of hip hop maybe. The general aura of the place was less inviting so returning to familiar environs of Club Salsa was a relief even though it should have felt passé given this would have been my fourth time out here in five days, which is a lot.
The first half hour or so was merely okay. A bit crowded. Some like Pauline, Andrea seemingly had been there for a while and left around 1 or so. The guest teacher from the other Friday - I think his name was something like Domenic (many people, whom I have talked with, like his style or more specifically musicality of his dancing) - was there along with Johnny, Serap and Kate. The team contingent comprising of Agnes, Stephanie, Haihan and Zoon arrived minutes after I did. Steve and Natalia were there too.
It looked as if it was going to be an okay night but nothing special. This felt especially true when Vishal moved onto Reggaeton promotion for tomorrow and people started leaving. And then voila! Vishal started playing a really great set of music and there was decent amount of space on the dance floor all of sudden. I danced to songs like La Salsa Nunca Se Acaba (Susie Hansen), Arinanara, Caravan (latter two by Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orchestra), and all of the sudden it was the end of the evening. Time just flew by - it was amazing. We were all talking about how great the end of the evening was - we in this case meaning people like Haihan, Agnes, Stephanie and Domenic. Johnny and Serap were there to the end too - I think I danced to Caravan with Serap and to Arinanara with Agnes.
One of the girls I danced with asked me about what one might do to get better. I think it's a tricky question to answer - aside from saying something like "You should work on getting your fundamentals right and then just practice a lot" there's no answer that fits everyone. Also almost everyone dislikes getting criticisms - even if they say they want an honest evaluation (forget about giving unsolicited advice if you don't want to make enemies - even a seemingly harmless comment could come back to haunt you). For absolute beginners, taking any drop-in classes in Club Salsa would seem to be a decent way to start, and private lessons probably will mean faster progress although it might be less cost-efficient for beginners. But how would one go about advising someone who has long enjoyed dancing at beginner, improver or even intermediate level and is thinking about ways to improve? Do they really need to know (or need to be reminded) that getting to next level requires putting in a lot of effort for a long time (for most typically many hours of instructions over months and years), and most people will lack desire, willpower, time, resources, money, etc. I think it's trickier for someone who long ago reached a comfort point and had not felt the need to improve for a very long time. A not-so-uncommon reaction to a difficult task is to quit - so telling them the truth means risking saying goodbye. Also it is not as if the reward for getting better is without negatives - being better than most people means there will be less number of people who would be able to dance with you at a comparable level. I probably could teach people to a pretty decent level if I tried (and there are some others in Cambridge who could do better job than me), but I doubt very much could be done unless the student is extremely motivated. To get to higher level, people eventually would have to reach out to instructors in other places like London or in other countries - there probably is no instructor that knows everything.
The evening ended with people outside the club chatting and still high from the nice end of the social dancing. I was mostly talking with Agnes, Stephanie and Haihan (all three of them will be flying to their home country on Saturday - we'll keep in touch one way or another) before we also started talking to another group of four people who were standing and talking next to us.
Oh, I almost forgot - it was a theme-party at Club Salsa tonight - beach party.
Bear necessities
June 21, 2007
I suppose after today Thursdays will settle into full summer mode sans University undergraduates. Probably a lot fewer high-powered dances too. Perhaps it will mean more excuse to go to London more regularly because I really doubt there will be many days like this in Cambridge anytime soon. It seemed like there were many disparate groups of people today – many unexpected. But then again, quite a few of the regulars were missing too – strange. It was an unusual day in many ways.
The evening began and ended the same way – with Cyrille and Sergio in my car. In between was a bit of a blur and full of unusual vibes. There was a lot of dancing too – so much so that I started feeling tired quite early in the evening. Fortunately for me, I caught a second wind, which lasted me until the end of the evening.
A night of dancing these days for me typically entails a dance followed by a break (and repeat) – meaning I dance at most for about half of the songs. I suppose on some days about a year ago (or is it more than that?), I sometimes danced non-stop basically taking any opportunity to dance as much as there was a dance partner available. I don’t think I stopped doing this because of aging (although who knows for certain). I think the bigger reason has been to avoid overheating and to avoid becoming soaking wet. Probably I expend more energy for each dance that I was doing when I was more of a beginner. In any case, I think ended up dancing more than 2/3 of the time tonight.
I only had one On2 dance – with Euvian for the first dance of the evening. It looked like Sergio was leading more practice, but I’m not absolutely sure – I was too busy dancing. Songs I danced to tonight include Mentirosa, Noche De Salsa, La Llave, Mambo Gallego, Merecumbe (Los Titanes), Mundy Baja, Otra Oportunidad, Trucutu, Mambo Mongo. A version of Muneca was played too, but I wasn’t able to dance to it.
One of the more odd conversation at the end of the evening involved associating people with cartoon characters. Initially I was assigned a character from a Disney movie – apparently also given to some Big Brother participant although I fail to see any connection there (I suppose the connection to the cartoon character is just as tenuous). Cyrille was initially a mouse character, which seemed to go over well enough. But then Sergio became one of the chipmunks; ergo Cyrille and I also had to be one as well – I got the leftover – arguably the most annoying one – the troublemaker. Apt? Perhaps so.
I was asked how to one might say, “I’m sleepy,” in my native tongue. I’m very sleepy right now – and I’m not especially sleep-deprived. Writing this blog is no help in this regard.
I suppose after today Thursdays will settle into full summer mode sans University undergraduates. Probably a lot fewer high-powered dances too. Perhaps it will mean more excuse to go to London more regularly because I really doubt there will be many days like this in Cambridge anytime soon. It seemed like there were many disparate groups of people today – many unexpected. But then again, quite a few of the regulars were missing too – strange. It was an unusual day in many ways.
The evening began and ended the same way – with Cyrille and Sergio in my car. In between was a bit of a blur and full of unusual vibes. There was a lot of dancing too – so much so that I started feeling tired quite early in the evening. Fortunately for me, I caught a second wind, which lasted me until the end of the evening.
A night of dancing these days for me typically entails a dance followed by a break (and repeat) – meaning I dance at most for about half of the songs. I suppose on some days about a year ago (or is it more than that?), I sometimes danced non-stop basically taking any opportunity to dance as much as there was a dance partner available. I don’t think I stopped doing this because of aging (although who knows for certain). I think the bigger reason has been to avoid overheating and to avoid becoming soaking wet. Probably I expend more energy for each dance that I was doing when I was more of a beginner. In any case, I think ended up dancing more than 2/3 of the time tonight.
I only had one On2 dance – with Euvian for the first dance of the evening. It looked like Sergio was leading more practice, but I’m not absolutely sure – I was too busy dancing. Songs I danced to tonight include Mentirosa, Noche De Salsa, La Llave, Mambo Gallego, Merecumbe (Los Titanes), Mundy Baja, Otra Oportunidad, Trucutu, Mambo Mongo. A version of Muneca was played too, but I wasn’t able to dance to it.
One of the more odd conversation at the end of the evening involved associating people with cartoon characters. Initially I was assigned a character from a Disney movie – apparently also given to some Big Brother participant although I fail to see any connection there (I suppose the connection to the cartoon character is just as tenuous). Cyrille was initially a mouse character, which seemed to go over well enough. But then Sergio became one of the chipmunks; ergo Cyrille and I also had to be one as well – I got the leftover – arguably the most annoying one – the troublemaker. Apt? Perhaps so.
I was asked how to one might say, “I’m sleepy,” in my native tongue. I’m very sleepy right now – and I’m not especially sleep-deprived. Writing this blog is no help in this regard.
Man of the moment
June 19, 2007
I was mildly surprised to find the door locked little past 7:30. Wasn't this supposed to start at 7:45? I was only slightly less surprised by the fact that I was first to arrive - with the second and third arriving within a minute after me. Before anyone else arrived, signs of people milling about inside was evident and we were downstairs after a moment. There was another guy besides Vishal, Danie, Tony and Daniella so technically I wasn't the first. After initial greeting, Tony said they were wondering if I would show up. Why wouldn't I? I also told Vish last night (I meant to tell him earlier but I forgot) that I would be here.
Vishal announced that this was the fourth time Tony came to Cambridge (meaning Club Salsa) - actually it's the fifth time. There has been a lot of turnover since the first time. I think Rajiv and Vishal and maybe Caroline are the only other constants for all five visits. Only two other people (Danie and Mark) have been here for at least four of five visits. Almost 30 people were there for the first class (Bachata level 2) including Gordon, William, Louise, Laura, Andrea, Melania. For the second hour, another 20+ people showed up including Kate and her friends.
The first hour of Bachata class covered materials such as -
Body movement exercises involving shoulders, chest, hip … also body rolls.
Modified basic steps including side-to-side basic with up-and-down movement (I found this one more confusing for some reason - down on even numbered steps), side-to-side basic with chest rolls (I found out near the end of the evening that this is a lot more interesting when done during close contact - chest forward on odd numbered steps), minimizing side-to-side movement during turns by going backwards on 2 (and on 6) instead of moving to side throughout, zig-zag type of forward-and-back basic, interrupted spot turn (turning on 1,2,3 and pausing on 5,6,7 while only moving (or swaying?) knees (?) from side-to-side.
Towards the end of the class, a couple of short easy-to-do turn patterns were thrown in. The first one was called feel-her-up - turn follower around on first 1,2,3 - get her hands down to leader's side during 5,6,7 - back up again during 1,2,3 - bring hands down to her waist during 5,6,7 - follower brings her hands to behind and around leader's neck with optional hair massage on 1,2,3, etc. The second was like a cuddle basic (similar to once rueda step) starting from crossed hold R-R on top - start follower to half turn on 1,2,3 - then do cuddles going back and forth for a while - end on 5,6,7 leading with L-L ending with L-L hat for leader on 7 or 8 followed by R-R hat for follower during next 1,2,3 side-to-side basic.
I wasn't sure if I was going to take part in the second hour's classes. I wasn't very keen on doing Reggaeton. There was no reason to join in on the beginner Bachata unless there was a men-shortage; there was one, so I did that instead.
One thing I had forgotten was that Tony tries a lot of humor during the class and does it quite effectively. The one about height disparity was one of the memorable ones - not the least because I was at one of the joke. Then again, I suppose I could say that I was target of many jokes tonight - fine by me. The curry joke tradition also lives on.
Near the end of the class (I actually thought the class had ended and stepped out for a few minutes), I spotted Ivan and Nina and went to chat with them briefly. Ivan has one of those special dispensations from Helen once again so he'll be out again one more time this week. We also touched briefly on Cuban Carnival and SOS before I realized that the Bachata class was not quite done and thus rushed to rejoin them.
A few more people showed up for the social afterwards - including some minor surprises like Haihan, Stephanie and Agnes - apparently Ivan was once again a big instigator.
Vishal was the main DJ for the first half - playing nice music - not too intense (e.g. choosing Los Titanes version of Merecumbe over Johnny Colon's version seemed very appropriate - and I would not be saying this most of the time) or strange but also not the type of songs that makes some eyes roll. Actually he almost played one of those, but I think I stopped him. This came about because I had a strong feeling that Daniella was going to get me for a dance to the next song (she had already agreed to dance with Haihan - a La 33 song) so I asked Vishal what was next. I thought the music was pleasant throughout.
Daniella and Tony had a surprise performance - Salsa rather than Bachata. The song was El Titere (by Louie Ramirez … I think this was the version with Ray De La Paz but I'm nowhere near certain). Tony was dressed with tails while Daniella was dressed as a showgirl. Very good performance - I thought it was easy to see the difference between professional performers as opposed to amateur ones. Some of the Cambridge amateurs now do better job with music interpretation, but there was additional level of polish evident in this performance.
I tried to dance with many people of different level of abilities although there never was much chance of dancing with everyone. I still ended up dancing twice with a few girls. I also somehow ended up dancing two Salsa and two Bachata with Daniella - the Bachata dances (last two songs of the evening) were particularly memorable (so… this is how it's danced close… nice, but it will definitely require some comfort level and practice to become decent).
Tony used the microphone rather liberally tonight. Using some distortion effect during the class was amusing - I could foresee Vishal abusing this in near future. He also used the microphone to some comical effects - mostly to put me (or my dance partner) in an amusing spotlight - I suppose it'll be talked about for a day or two. Perhaps he was trying to say my name many times over with correct pronunciation to adjust for previous mistakes. In any case, many people seemed to get a kick out of it. I think the favorite for many was the supposed battle or rivalry between Haihan and me (Haihan wasn't even aware it was happening and as far as I'm concerned, it's not a rivalry - I don't think there is much of a contest).
The social must have ended around midnight although things lingered on for a while - first with a photo session, talk of cowbells, handclaps and boogaloo inside followed by a gabfest outside including about a mission I am now entrusted with. I think there was a group of five of us standing outside for nearly half hour - the other four seemed to go on for a bit longer as I drove off. I think some of them were nowhere near ready for bed.
I was mildly surprised to find the door locked little past 7:30. Wasn't this supposed to start at 7:45? I was only slightly less surprised by the fact that I was first to arrive - with the second and third arriving within a minute after me. Before anyone else arrived, signs of people milling about inside was evident and we were downstairs after a moment. There was another guy besides Vishal, Danie, Tony and Daniella so technically I wasn't the first. After initial greeting, Tony said they were wondering if I would show up. Why wouldn't I? I also told Vish last night (I meant to tell him earlier but I forgot) that I would be here.
Vishal announced that this was the fourth time Tony came to Cambridge (meaning Club Salsa) - actually it's the fifth time. There has been a lot of turnover since the first time. I think Rajiv and Vishal and maybe Caroline are the only other constants for all five visits. Only two other people (Danie and Mark) have been here for at least four of five visits. Almost 30 people were there for the first class (Bachata level 2) including Gordon, William, Louise, Laura, Andrea, Melania. For the second hour, another 20+ people showed up including Kate and her friends.
The first hour of Bachata class covered materials such as -
Body movement exercises involving shoulders, chest, hip … also body rolls.
Modified basic steps including side-to-side basic with up-and-down movement (I found this one more confusing for some reason - down on even numbered steps), side-to-side basic with chest rolls (I found out near the end of the evening that this is a lot more interesting when done during close contact - chest forward on odd numbered steps), minimizing side-to-side movement during turns by going backwards on 2 (and on 6) instead of moving to side throughout, zig-zag type of forward-and-back basic, interrupted spot turn (turning on 1,2,3 and pausing on 5,6,7 while only moving (or swaying?) knees (?) from side-to-side.
Towards the end of the class, a couple of short easy-to-do turn patterns were thrown in. The first one was called feel-her-up - turn follower around on first 1,2,3 - get her hands down to leader's side during 5,6,7 - back up again during 1,2,3 - bring hands down to her waist during 5,6,7 - follower brings her hands to behind and around leader's neck with optional hair massage on 1,2,3, etc. The second was like a cuddle basic (similar to once rueda step) starting from crossed hold R-R on top - start follower to half turn on 1,2,3 - then do cuddles going back and forth for a while - end on 5,6,7 leading with L-L ending with L-L hat for leader on 7 or 8 followed by R-R hat for follower during next 1,2,3 side-to-side basic.
I wasn't sure if I was going to take part in the second hour's classes. I wasn't very keen on doing Reggaeton. There was no reason to join in on the beginner Bachata unless there was a men-shortage; there was one, so I did that instead.
One thing I had forgotten was that Tony tries a lot of humor during the class and does it quite effectively. The one about height disparity was one of the memorable ones - not the least because I was at one of the joke. Then again, I suppose I could say that I was target of many jokes tonight - fine by me. The curry joke tradition also lives on.
Near the end of the class (I actually thought the class had ended and stepped out for a few minutes), I spotted Ivan and Nina and went to chat with them briefly. Ivan has one of those special dispensations from Helen once again so he'll be out again one more time this week. We also touched briefly on Cuban Carnival and SOS before I realized that the Bachata class was not quite done and thus rushed to rejoin them.
A few more people showed up for the social afterwards - including some minor surprises like Haihan, Stephanie and Agnes - apparently Ivan was once again a big instigator.
Vishal was the main DJ for the first half - playing nice music - not too intense (e.g. choosing Los Titanes version of Merecumbe over Johnny Colon's version seemed very appropriate - and I would not be saying this most of the time) or strange but also not the type of songs that makes some eyes roll. Actually he almost played one of those, but I think I stopped him. This came about because I had a strong feeling that Daniella was going to get me for a dance to the next song (she had already agreed to dance with Haihan - a La 33 song) so I asked Vishal what was next. I thought the music was pleasant throughout.
Daniella and Tony had a surprise performance - Salsa rather than Bachata. The song was El Titere (by Louie Ramirez … I think this was the version with Ray De La Paz but I'm nowhere near certain). Tony was dressed with tails while Daniella was dressed as a showgirl. Very good performance - I thought it was easy to see the difference between professional performers as opposed to amateur ones. Some of the Cambridge amateurs now do better job with music interpretation, but there was additional level of polish evident in this performance.
I tried to dance with many people of different level of abilities although there never was much chance of dancing with everyone. I still ended up dancing twice with a few girls. I also somehow ended up dancing two Salsa and two Bachata with Daniella - the Bachata dances (last two songs of the evening) were particularly memorable (so… this is how it's danced close… nice, but it will definitely require some comfort level and practice to become decent).
Tony used the microphone rather liberally tonight. Using some distortion effect during the class was amusing - I could foresee Vishal abusing this in near future. He also used the microphone to some comical effects - mostly to put me (or my dance partner) in an amusing spotlight - I suppose it'll be talked about for a day or two. Perhaps he was trying to say my name many times over with correct pronunciation to adjust for previous mistakes. In any case, many people seemed to get a kick out of it. I think the favorite for many was the supposed battle or rivalry between Haihan and me (Haihan wasn't even aware it was happening and as far as I'm concerned, it's not a rivalry - I don't think there is much of a contest).
The social must have ended around midnight although things lingered on for a while - first with a photo session, talk of cowbells, handclaps and boogaloo inside followed by a gabfest outside including about a mission I am now entrusted with. I think there was a group of five of us standing outside for nearly half hour - the other four seemed to go on for a bit longer as I drove off. I think some of them were nowhere near ready for bed.
Here we go again with On2
June 18, 2007
The new location for the On2 session seemed nice and spacious. The sound system was rather crappy - very bass heavy. It also got rather warm. It was recommended that clothes like jeans be avoided (unless you feel safe to do splits wearing jeans?). I was the only one wearing a long-sleeved shirt - I probably should wear something shorter next time. Looking at the mirrors I thought I should get a haircut.
It was good to get more people involved - there were seven tonight. If we had remained the same small group, perhaps we could have moved faster and cover more new material. However, to make the On2 scene viable, even more people will need to be involved. This is so that there will be more opportunity for practice outside the classes. In my opinion (not having consulted with anyone else) having at least six leads and six followers would be nice. Even larger number of people would be good although I suppose having too many people would make it difficult to keep the instructions detailed and with a lot of feedback. It also probably would be better to get everyone started at once (and sooner the better) to avoid repeating same material for new people every time (with caveat that repetition could be beneficial too).
Perhaps over half of the two-hour session was spent on isolation exercise - it's still pretty tough to do and I suspect that it will be tough for a good long time before I won't feel completely useless or inept doing some of the exercises. Most of the rest of the time was spent on basic footwork and basic turns. Relatively short amount of time was spent with basic partner work. Doing isolation exercise with other people is nice because it helps with motivation. Same with footwork even though it was all review for me because it's rare that I would do this type of exercise for more than few minutes on a given day and it won't get done every day. Partner work was all review of things I have seen before although I did get one new detail about how to lead cross body (a subtle preparatory motion on 1).
Next session will be on Monday again from 7-9 PM. There is nothing concrete planned after that - although continuing with the same time slot is a strong possibility. I suspect that most people who might be interested know who to talk to - the best one of course is the person who's giving the instruction.
Rajiv and I were at Club Salsa for the social part - the classes were not done when I arrived even after a bit of driving back and forth I did for Cyrille.
The routine being taught by Joe for the intermediate class seemed a bit different than ones I have seen over past year - perhaps there was a bit of tweaking done to the 20-week syllabus.
There were some nice people to dance with - some unexpected. Probably the best description for my dancing form might be hyperactive - this might have much to do with the music (I have heard this CD before and did not like it very much.
My opinion of the songs I listened to for the second time did not change much - indifferent to slightly negative and possibly a little better second time around for some of the songs. Some of the songs I had not heard before later in the CD (~2 songs in track ~8 to 11 range) were alright.
I was wearing my glasses for a change - it became relavant on couple of occasions. It's not bad, but it's probably easier without it.
The new location for the On2 session seemed nice and spacious. The sound system was rather crappy - very bass heavy. It also got rather warm. It was recommended that clothes like jeans be avoided (unless you feel safe to do splits wearing jeans?). I was the only one wearing a long-sleeved shirt - I probably should wear something shorter next time. Looking at the mirrors I thought I should get a haircut.
It was good to get more people involved - there were seven tonight. If we had remained the same small group, perhaps we could have moved faster and cover more new material. However, to make the On2 scene viable, even more people will need to be involved. This is so that there will be more opportunity for practice outside the classes. In my opinion (not having consulted with anyone else) having at least six leads and six followers would be nice. Even larger number of people would be good although I suppose having too many people would make it difficult to keep the instructions detailed and with a lot of feedback. It also probably would be better to get everyone started at once (and sooner the better) to avoid repeating same material for new people every time (with caveat that repetition could be beneficial too).
Perhaps over half of the two-hour session was spent on isolation exercise - it's still pretty tough to do and I suspect that it will be tough for a good long time before I won't feel completely useless or inept doing some of the exercises. Most of the rest of the time was spent on basic footwork and basic turns. Relatively short amount of time was spent with basic partner work. Doing isolation exercise with other people is nice because it helps with motivation. Same with footwork even though it was all review for me because it's rare that I would do this type of exercise for more than few minutes on a given day and it won't get done every day. Partner work was all review of things I have seen before although I did get one new detail about how to lead cross body (a subtle preparatory motion on 1).
Next session will be on Monday again from 7-9 PM. There is nothing concrete planned after that - although continuing with the same time slot is a strong possibility. I suspect that most people who might be interested know who to talk to - the best one of course is the person who's giving the instruction.
Rajiv and I were at Club Salsa for the social part - the classes were not done when I arrived even after a bit of driving back and forth I did for Cyrille.
The routine being taught by Joe for the intermediate class seemed a bit different than ones I have seen over past year - perhaps there was a bit of tweaking done to the 20-week syllabus.
There were some nice people to dance with - some unexpected. Probably the best description for my dancing form might be hyperactive - this might have much to do with the music (I have heard this CD before and did not like it very much.
My opinion of the songs I listened to for the second time did not change much - indifferent to slightly negative and possibly a little better second time around for some of the songs. Some of the songs I had not heard before later in the CD (~2 songs in track ~8 to 11 range) were alright.
I was wearing my glasses for a change - it became relavant on couple of occasions. It's not bad, but it's probably easier without it.
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