Hyperreal

Hey, just back from dancing, but it was different!

It wasn’t Ceroc, it was Salsa!!!

I’ve got myself signed up for an 8 week course, although I missed the first class last week due to illness… There were lots of people there for the first time this week, so it wasn’t so bad…

In fact it was a lot of fun!

Understandably, I guess I’m mainly going to talk about the differences between how and what we’ve been taught in Ceroc and what I’m learning in Salsa…

I think the key thing is that Salsa has this 1-2-3-pause rhythm and footwork. Before you stand a chance of getting complicated you’ve got to have that footwork sorted. At the same time, in order to teach you some fun stuff and actually get you dancing they teach Merengue, which doesn’t have complicated footwork, allowing you to concentrate on the rest of the moves.

So that’s Salsa and Merengue they teach… Oh, and Bachata… This has similar rhythm and footwork to Salsa, but (from what I can remember of what we were taught) doesn’t have the partner dancing and fancy moves of Salsa.

So… they teach you Bachata to help with Salsa footwork, and they teach you Merengue to help with Salsa moves. (At least that’s the cunning notion I have worked out in my head… I must ask the teacher next week if I’m right.)

So, because of the three different dances they are teaching, what actually gets taught doesn’t seem very much. And with lots of switching around between the dance styles I find it hard to figure it all out, and actually be able to say for sure what I’ve been taught tonight, and what I’ve actually learnt.

Here’s a few things that I found different between Salsa and Ceroc…

• Very little rotation of partners. Over the course of the hour or so I had three partners. Rotation is a very flexible affair too… “Get yourself a new partner!” Most people don’t seem to actually bother. To compensate for the lack of progression around the floor, the teacher would occasionally tell the couples at the front to move to the back and get everyone else to move forward.
• Girls leading. Girls are allowed to lead and follow as they partner up. No discouragement at all. At least this stops the problem of lots of “spare” girls, but in a lead and follow dance, I think it must make it harder for women learning to adapt.
• Lead and follow. Very little emphasis at all. OK, some people will say the same about Ceroc, but I think it’s ignored even more in early Salsa teaching. For the Salsa moves we were doing all my partners were back-leading to some extent. Where leading was mentioned, there wasn’t much talk of following… More like “the guys lead a step back, and the girls step back” – where is the connection?
• Frame and handhold. I don’t think frame was mentioned at all. The Salsa handhold is very different, but as we did our moves the handhold would change, either to the girl holding my hand (maybe she’s used to leading ) or into a more Ceroc handhold. But again, we weren’t given much guidance here.
• Format of the night. There was the class, afterwards there was music, but there was little or no encouragement to get up and dance. (Maybe that’s because we’re all beginners, only one or two weeks in!)
• Teaching of moves. Very different. Comes over as much more haphazard. In Ceroc every move is broken down into individual steps. The Salsa moves were taught almost as complete moves, just slowed down – and maybe split in to go with the two bars of music we were “dancing” to. I found it much harder to know if I was doing the right thing on each step as a result. Ceroc teaches a definite routine each night, we were shown a routine, but we didn’t get taught it all, and it wasn’t clear if what we were taught could form a routine in itself.
• Direction of teaching. Ceroc has the guys to the right from the stage and the girls to the left. In Salsa I felt like we were being taught backwards as it was guys to the left and girls to the right. Must take that into account next week when I find my position on the floor.

There are things that were quite similar…

• The “Guapea” basic move is rather reminiscent of Ceroc’s in-and-out in form and purpose.
• All the Merengue turns we did are very Ceroc-ish, including one which was was basically a Pretzel.
• The Bachata we started with was a lot like Ceroc Essentials, stepping sidewise and back, and even putting turns in.
• The teacher has two helpers who were in effect taxi dancers, sometimes helping on the floor, sometimes helping as a demo. But because there wasn’t so much rotation of partners, they weren’t able to help as much.
• It was a lot of fun!!!

I find footwork difficult – especially when I’m trying to do other things are the same time, or even think about other things at the same time. We were shown the footwork for one of the “Enchufe” moves we did, but trying to do that at the same time as leading my partner was next to impossible.

With the increased emphasis on footwork, there’s a corresponding emphasis on doing things with your hips (though not so much for the guys) and wiggly stuff in general. I’m not good at that in Ceroc, and thus no good at it in Salsa. Maybe though the Salsa lessons will help me look less like a tree-truck, and more like a snake-hipped dance god.

When we were doing the Merengue for the second time I thought I was doing quite well and I had a partner who knew how to do move her body, and we both seemed very happy with how we were doing. I told her I’d done Ceroc, which she said much account for how (relatively?) good I was. It was fun dancing with her.

At the end of the night I met another Ceroc dancer, so we got to compare notes a little… She was in the company of a good Salsa dancer though, and went off to dance Salsa. I’d love the chance though to dance Ceroc with her in a Salsa club.

The venue is a pub, but one that is well set up for dancing and teaching with a good floor and stage. On a Thursday night it’s not too busy, so we didn’t have too many “spectators”… I was impressed at the quality of the wooden dance floor, which was clean and even a bit too slippy. Surprisingly it wasn’t too hot and we weren’t bothered by cigarette smoke very much. So, it scores well there. Numbers… I’d guess there might have been around 15 couples. I’d guess there might only have been about 10 guys though.

Anyway, I really enjoyed myself and I’m looking forward to going back next week!

If I remember anything else, I’ll add it on here, in a comment or a new post, so watch this space!

Cheers!