the cuban salsa blog

Last night I had the privilege of attending a workshop taught by Alicia Pons, here on her 5^th visit to the Triangle.

A renowned Milonguera, she is known for all sorts of cool Tango things like her display of feminine elegance, precise footwork and the list goes on and on…

But for me, it’s her incredible PASSION for the dance that makes her a world-class instructor, a term that is used far too often and far too casually.

She outlined five basic principles of connection. These were meant for Tango, but they can and should be applied to any dance.

In dance, true progress comes from re-examination of the self. Not from patterns, tricks, techniques etc. Anyone can do these, and everyone does these.

Any good dance instructor should, first and foremost, lead students on a journey of self-examination.

Examine what you do over and over again, and never settle in or become too comfortable with your dance or the philosophy that underlies it.

1. Connect with yourself.

Be aware, plain and simple. Be aware that your are breathing. Far too often we forget that we actually exist while we are dancing. We become so focused on the next step that our own movement becomes lost and end up looking like choreographed machines.

2. Connect with the music.

LISTEN before you do anything. Resist the urge to just grab your partner and go through the motions. Music leads, always.

Sometimes, I think we fall back on a mental routine that tells us to activate some pattern simply because a certain type of music is playing.

3. Connect with your partner.

In the words of Alicia Pons, “The embrace is handmade”.

Of course it is! It’s woven from the thread of partner and music.

I think every dance should be handmade. I am in love with this idea.

If for nothing else, out of respect for your partner, tailor the dance to them and the music.  And if you view dance as a gift, is it really appropriate to give every partner the same gift?

4. Connect with the floor.

Cut the string, relax the shoulders, and break the egg.  Allow your energy to travel into the floor and avoid sustaining it all in the shoulders in one big ball of tension.

I was corrected on this one. It’s easy to do, so watch out.

5. Connect with other couples on the dance floor.

She didn’t touch on this one too much, probably due to time constraints. But, it goes without saying that you probably won’t be the only one on the social dance floor.

I think you should always exercise special awareness. Be aware of where you are in relation to everyone else.

I urge our readers to ponder the above points. Take a second to examine yourself, if your priority is growth and fulfillment as a dancer.

I understand that some “dancers” may view the above as total bullocks. These are usually the men out there who boot up and sequentially execute their dance routines like a Windows PC.

If you think this kind of computerized dancing is cool, remember that it’s usually the men who love to wrap their arms around technology and cool gadgets.

Women on the other hand …

I will leave you with my favorite Alicia Pons quote.

“Men, sometimes the embrace feels so good, it’s more than enough.”

If memory serves me right, there was not a single expression of disagreement from any of the ladies in attendance.

Following these 4 points will go a long way in making your social dance experience a little more fulfilling for both you and your partner. And isn’t that the whole point of social dance anyways?

1. Start slowly.

No matter what, accelerate slowly.

Take it step by step, feel out your partner’s capabilities and for the most part, stay within that range. Cheat a bit, but keep it to a minimum!

For example, if all your partner can do is walk to the music, you must work all of your magic within that walk. Take what they know -basic steps- and create a dance from her basic steps. Be creative and understand a tight lead can do wonders for even the most inexperienced dancer.

2 . Indicate that you are going to indicate.

Always lead early.

If you lead early, and she follows slightly late, there is plenty of time for musical play. Keep this in mind. Don’t just give her a prep, give her a pre-prep! This means an early indicator of an early indicator. How about that?!?

3. Keep secrets.

If she “messes up”, smile, smooth it over and make it a secret between the two of you. Don’t flinch. If you mess up, it never happened.

4. Use the minimum force required by your partner.

Use only what you need. This is totally dependent on your follow, and the song that the two of you are expressing together.

Please work to apply at least ONE of these points to your social dance. And that means you have to go out and actually dance.

Professional training + dance floor experience = tremendous dancer.

Salsa is great, but not that great.

It is a beautiful dance, a wonderful language that appeals to many, but in and of itself is only a tool for communication.

It’s the dancer that makes any dance look good, not the dance itself.

If Salsa snobbery causes you to spend all of your time staring at Salsa without even so much looking at another dance, you just might end up looking like a programmed bot hitting the dance floor and running through the gamut of standardized Salsa moves.

Now if Salsa is your first dance, and you’ve only studied for a short time, it’s cool. Sometimes it’s good to get a strong base in one dance form first.

But if you’ve been at it for a while and have never thought about cross-training in modern, ballet, African or any other form of dance, you may never get to see your true potential!

Ironically, the strength of Salsa in comparison to other dances is its sheer flexibility. The structure and general attitude of movement allows you to integrate almost anything, so take advantage of it!

Be mindful of Salsa snobbery guys.

You turn your nose up at that waltz or swing dancer and you miss out on new ways of traversing the dance floor, or styling your closed position. Watch other styles of dance, and don’t blink or you might miss something.

And if your Salsa dance has no real African accent to it, how can it even be called Salsa?

Just the other day I observed an aerial dance class. The way they were exploring movement in three-dimensions made my jaw drop. I was struck by the lines they were creating with their bodies…and I took note.

Watch out for inspiration, it could come from anywhere. Aim to become a dancer, not simply a Salsa dancer.

If you are a new dancer, don’t spend all day watching Salsa on YouTube. Spend time watching other forms of dance and draw inspiration from there as well.

Express yourself to the best of your ability, and keep your mind wide open to other forms of dance.

**Follows: It is imperative that you feel the exact speed, and type of turn through your lead’s arm. In the Cuban style of Salsa, the arm in the air is not a visual signal to let you know a turn is coming. It is a line of communication and all details are contained in your lead’s fingertip pressure. You have to listen with your body.

A guest post by Joe

In class we spend a lot of time working on connection and how to lead and how to follow. The fundamentals.

Eduardo and Stephanie have devoted several blog entries to connection and our roles.  And as a lead I have a lot of things I need to do.

Sometimes it seems overwhelming.

I need to react to the music, keep tempo, keep my follow safe, remember the turn pattern that I am about to lead, and not bore her just to name a few things.

A follow with intuition that recognizes when something is not quite right and can recognize what we leads are telling her through physical connection is just…super.

All of the above hit home for me recently during a dance at Cuban Revolution.

At one point in the dance I had a lot of space available on the floor and wanted to start a turn pattern, as soon as I started to prep her, I noticed another lead hop into the space right behind her that I was about to lead her into.

If we kept on going my follow would have had a hard collision with another lead, and she couldn’t see it coming.  Since screaming “look out” didn’t seem appropriate my instincts said to lighten up the prep and not to move my arm much.

Without missing anything she recognized not to step back very far and when I continued to lead she continued to do the turn pattern.

She understood something was wrong, and what I “said” to her, when all that was going through my conscious mind was look out, and OH NO! Here comes a chain reaction of collisions on the dance floor.

Follows, we leads appreciate you and what you do.

In my case, a light prep and my arm not moving much told my follow, “Warning! Danger! There is something behind you, don’t move back very far.”

When considering that one simple gesture said so much I recognized the importance of connection at that point more than ever.

“Oops. i’m sorry!”

“Did that feel ok?”

“Actually you should do XX when I do XX”.

The nervous laugh and look around.

Sounds like an adolescent make-out scene. But step out of memory lane for a second.

All of the above are examples of what we call validating gestures or VGs for short.

Validating gestures do just that, they validate or confirm, that what you just did was in fact OK to do.

In the land of dance, leads and follows both can easily fall prey to VG, excessive apologizing, stopping the dance,  or looking around after executing any pattern to make sure it was ‘ok’.

In my opinion, you should remove all validating gestures from your pool of habits. I can almost promise your dance will be more fulfilling.

There is no need to apologize unless pain is involved.

You don’t need to laugh nervously after each move, and you don’t need to stop dancing and apologize if you think your turn pattern was screwed up. And you definitely don’t need to talk crap if she fails to read your lead.

It’s so un-latin.

When you are out on the dance floor, doing your thing, and being yourself,  there is no wrong or right, and you don’t need to validate anything!

Last night in our beginner 3 class, I pulled the plug on all validating gestures for one song.

It was amazing how much was accomplished when we didn’t allow dancers access to this safety net.

The creativity was flowing, mind and body were focused, and there was no comfort zone to latch on to. Students performed movements and that was it. No discussion, no apologies and no validation.

If you are confident in what you are doing, you won’t feel the need to validate yourself.

I think it works the other way around: if you stop validating yourself, you’ll probably become more confident in what you are doing.

Give it try.