SalsaFreak bootcamp day 1
We arrived just before 9am on Saturday.
I got us lost on the way there (this street is probably a good idea... not ) and, as the bootcamp was supposed to start at 9, we ended up cutting it very close.
Registration went really smooth thanks to Silvia from Salsa-Emocion.
In a previous life I have been involved with event organisation and I have to say, Silvia and Ibo did an amazing job organizing this weekend.
Rarely have I seen an event go this well. I'm sure there were some things that came up and had them running around but as participants we never noticed it.
The bootcamp started with Edie introducing herself.
She told us how she started dancing Salsa (by accident, who would have thought) and then explained how the music is build up, using stories to make it more clear.
Aside from the fact that I though her stories were hilarious I did indeed learn more about the music which I'm sure will help me in the future.
Edie also spend some time explaining something that I think is very important for a lot of beginners, finding the 1 (no, not the beautiful girl with long legs, the beat).
In my experience not enough attention is paid to this. Just take a look at social dancing videos on YouTube and you'll see how many people are dancing off beat.
As I still have some trouble myself from time to time (ok, regularly) I found this very helpful.
Finding the 1 didn't seem to present any problems for most of other the people there which would have completely blown me away normally.
60 Beginners instantly getting it. Wow!
As it turned out though, most of the people there weren't beginners.
Out of 60 people there were 4 absolute beginners (they had never danced salsa before) and another 4-6 people that had been dancing less than a year.
All the other attendees had been dancing longer which made me wonder what they were doing at a beginner bootcamp.
I guess they wanted/needed to improve their basics or maybe they just wanted to take Edie's bootcamp to see what it is like.
After the introduction we did the basic step for a while.
I liked the way Edie taught it a lot. The people that hadn't done any salsa dancing before were doing a basic step before they even realized they were doing. I'm sure this helped bringing their anxiety level down.
When everybody had the basic down it was time for an inside turn followed by 'he goes she goes'.
Everything that we learned was first practiced without a partner.
And when I say practiced I really mean practiced!
It seemed like we would go on forever doing the same things.
In the 5 to 10 minutes that we spent on it I've practiced the lead for an inside turn more than I have in all my time dancing so far,
This was probably also the most valuable lesson that I learned that weekend.
Dancing, like martial arts, is about repetition.
If you keep practicing a move after you've become fed up with it,
if you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders have become tired,
If you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders started hurting,
if you keep practicing after you've started wondering why you wanted to learn at all,
if after all of that you still practice some more then you will probably never have trouble doing the move again.
Ok, so we didn't go that far but my shoulder did start to get tired by the time we were done and it worked. If I think of an inside turn now my arm will automatically start leading the move.
While I was doing martial arts I'd never expected anything else but I guess I thought things would be different when it came to dancing.
Lesson learned, repetition pays off.
We then practiced Cross Body Leads (thousands of them?) .
This was just more prove that repetition pays off as nobody, including the new people, had any trouble dancing them to music.
With these basic elements under out belt we started combining things.
Everything went fine for a while but eventually 2 of the beginners started falling behind.
I'm not sure whether that was because of the amount of information they had gotten in such a short period of time or because they didn't pay enough attention in the beginning.
I do hope they had a good time regardless.
Edie, Silvia and Ibo definitely made it a fun filled day that helped correct a couple of mistakes I was making consistently.
Would I recommend the bootcamp to beginners? Definitely!
Although maybe not to people that have never danced at all unless I know they are willing to put in the effort.
I got us lost on the way there (this street is probably a good idea... not ) and, as the bootcamp was supposed to start at 9, we ended up cutting it very close.
Registration went really smooth thanks to Silvia from Salsa-Emocion.
In a previous life I have been involved with event organisation and I have to say, Silvia and Ibo did an amazing job organizing this weekend.
Rarely have I seen an event go this well. I'm sure there were some things that came up and had them running around but as participants we never noticed it.
The bootcamp started with Edie introducing herself.
She told us how she started dancing Salsa (by accident, who would have thought) and then explained how the music is build up, using stories to make it more clear.
Aside from the fact that I though her stories were hilarious I did indeed learn more about the music which I'm sure will help me in the future.
Edie also spend some time explaining something that I think is very important for a lot of beginners, finding the 1 (no, not the beautiful girl with long legs, the beat).
In my experience not enough attention is paid to this. Just take a look at social dancing videos on YouTube and you'll see how many people are dancing off beat.
As I still have some trouble myself from time to time (ok, regularly) I found this very helpful.
Finding the 1 didn't seem to present any problems for most of other the people there which would have completely blown me away normally.
60 Beginners instantly getting it. Wow!
As it turned out though, most of the people there weren't beginners.
Out of 60 people there were 4 absolute beginners (they had never danced salsa before) and another 4-6 people that had been dancing less than a year.
All the other attendees had been dancing longer which made me wonder what they were doing at a beginner bootcamp.
I guess they wanted/needed to improve their basics or maybe they just wanted to take Edie's bootcamp to see what it is like.
After the introduction we did the basic step for a while.
I liked the way Edie taught it a lot. The people that hadn't done any salsa dancing before were doing a basic step before they even realized they were doing. I'm sure this helped bringing their anxiety level down.
When everybody had the basic down it was time for an inside turn followed by 'he goes she goes'.
Everything that we learned was first practiced without a partner.
And when I say practiced I really mean practiced!
It seemed like we would go on forever doing the same things.
In the 5 to 10 minutes that we spent on it I've practiced the lead for an inside turn more than I have in all my time dancing so far,
This was probably also the most valuable lesson that I learned that weekend.
Dancing, like martial arts, is about repetition.
If you keep practicing a move after you've become fed up with it,
if you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders have become tired,
If you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders started hurting,
if you keep practicing after you've started wondering why you wanted to learn at all,
if after all of that you still practice some more then you will probably never have trouble doing the move again.
Ok, so we didn't go that far but my shoulder did start to get tired by the time we were done and it worked. If I think of an inside turn now my arm will automatically start leading the move.
While I was doing martial arts I'd never expected anything else but I guess I thought things would be different when it came to dancing.
Lesson learned, repetition pays off.
We then practiced Cross Body Leads (thousands of them?) .
This was just more prove that repetition pays off as nobody, including the new people, had any trouble dancing them to music.
With these basic elements under out belt we started combining things.
Everything went fine for a while but eventually 2 of the beginners started falling behind.
I'm not sure whether that was because of the amount of information they had gotten in such a short period of time or because they didn't pay enough attention in the beginning.
I do hope they had a good time regardless.
Edie, Silvia and Ibo definitely made it a fun filled day that helped correct a couple of mistakes I was making consistently.
Would I recommend the bootcamp to beginners? Definitely!
Although maybe not to people that have never danced at all unless I know they are willing to put in the effort.
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