the cuban salsa blog

The alchemy of attitude will allow you to turn even the worst situations into solid gold.

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire, La Bégueule

A guest post by Joe

We’ve all been there.

Happy at the end of a long day or week.  Maybe it was Murphy’s touch. Like the Midas touch, only instead of turning to gold, everything you touch becomes something brown and smelly.

One day I made a couple of bad decisions that proved Murphy’s Law.  At the end of that day I was debating going to CSF class or happy hour…

Despite temptation I went to CSF class and I messed up my lead on X turn pattern and my follow did not know what to do.  Perhaps it was because I was cleaning up mistakes all day, but what happened next was not what I usually do.   As a new lead in this position, I usually hit the reset button and start over in either closed or open position.

But this time we kept going, what mistake?

That’s when it clicked. The reason we take apart and explore turn patterns in class is so I can easily flow into something else if a mistake occurs.

I saw another example of this at a salsa social a few weeks ago when a follow lost control of her spin and spun a lot further away from her lead then she intended to, the lead adjusted his steps and caught her and they went on like it was exactly what they intended to do.

What made a real impression on me is that we don’t have to be perfect.  We always try to do it right in class (and it ALWAYS comes out perfect) but outside of class, if it doesn’t come out right, what mistake?  Only you and your partner may know what you intended to do.

Something will always go wrong, but that is not the test of how good you are at anything!

The real test is what happens next. Do you panic?  Do you start over?  Or, do you take a different approach, by saying “what mistake?”

I just have to remind myself that some of the things that I am most thankful for being in my life are the ones that I discovered by accident, what mistake?

First, leads learn to speak and follows learn to listen.

In the beginning of learning Salsa the Cuban way, it’s very important for the lead to learn how to speak to their partner with a very clear and deliberate “voice”.

During this first stage, I think the follow should concentrate ONLY on listening and doing exactly what the lead compels them to do.

You can’t just overlay interchanges of faux styling between partners to make it appear as if there is dialog going on! This is simply each person taking turns reciting what they memorized.

Second, leads learn to invite dialog and follows learn to recognize and respond to the invitation.

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**What follows is a great story! Now guys, you can save yourself a lot of heartache by coming to class and asking questions! Also, Tonia has informed me that The Clave Matrix has just been published. It’s chock full info and exercises for the more serious Latin dancer.  -Eduardo

By Reed Colver

What follows is a particularly long account of my journey to find the elusive clave.

The short version is this: The world of Cuban dance and music is entirely foreign to me. I went for months thinking I understood ‘enough’ about the clave, when I didn’t get it at all. Then, I went for months being mortified I couldn’t hear the clave. I was far too embarrassed to ask. I should have. Without it, I was missing a critical framework for my dance.
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Dance is discovery, discovery, discovery. -Martha Graham

A guest post by Reed Colver

Six months ago, I discovered that I was stepping backward in my basic walk at a time when I should have been stepping forward.

Apparently, I had been for quite some time. Lots of work subsequently followed to fix that particular issue.

Then, a few days ago during class a glance at my feet yielded a new discovery: my second step wasn’t going anywhere at all.
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