Becoming a Salsero

What has happened during that time?
Quite a lot actually so this is going to be a long post.

I decided to take a 7 day workshop offered by SalsaLife.

The workshop turned out to be a chacha-salsa show that we got to learn in 7 days.
I say "turned out" as I didn't know this in advance.
Or rather, I did know about the 7 days. The Chacha-salsa part was new to me though.

Now don't get me wrong, this doesn't say anything about the people running the workshop.
However, it does say a lot about my ability to zone out when I'm tired and people are speaking German.
I guess I'm really going to have to improve my German but first things first, dancing just has a higher priority right now!

ok, so I sign up for a 7 day workshop only to realize afterward that I can't make it the last day.

4 Calendars !!!
One hanging on my kitchen wall, one in outlook at work, another one online and one that I usually carry around and somehow I still managed to forget that I won't be able to be there the last weekend. Sometimes I'm even amazed by my current ability to forget things.

Next weekend, instead of doing the last day of the workshop, I'll be attending one of Edie's salsa weekend bootcamps. This bootcamp will be hosted by salsa-emocion and will be right here in Germany, in Dusseldorf.
More about that though after I've been there.

Back to the workshop.
It took us 6 days to get the entire choreography down and finally be able to dance it at the proper speed.

Looking back it was quite funny.
When we were just starting they slowed the music down a lot.
This helped us concentrate on the moves without having to worry about the music too much.
That said, a lot of people, myself included, were still struggling with the pace.
Slowly the speed got turned up a bit. Every day we went a little bit faster until we finally managed to dance to the original version of the song on day 6.

After we had done that we went slowed down to the speed we started out on for one last dance and, everybody went too fast !

It turned out to be difficult for us to slow down to that speed again.
After a couple of combinations people were waiting for the music to catch up to them instead of racing to keep up with the music.
For most of us it was hard to believe we'd actually managed to come this far and we were therefor pretty impressed with ourselves.
A great feeling to end a day with.

The event itself was very interesting to me.
In some parts I think my experience was a slightly different from most of the other participants.
That is, I think the harder parts for me were at the end while for most others they seemed to be in the beginning.

We started out with the chacha part of the show.
Surprisingly this turned out to be relatively easy for me.
In my early teens I did a couple of years of ballroom and latin dancing and it appears that the chacha rhythm somehow got embedded.
As I didn't have to focus on the rhythm I could concentrate on the moves and keep up easily.

The second part of the choreography (the salsa part) turned out to be a bit harder for me while it seemed easier for the others.
Not only is the rhythm still not ingrained (I still sometimes have trouble distinguishing between 1 and 5), some of the moves were new to me.
This meant that I was trying to keep up with the music while trying to learn the new moves and the choreography.
This had me struggling for a while until I started counting.

"123", "567" made it a bit easier.
I still felt I was running around but at least I didn't feel like I was trying to catch up all the time, chasing after the beat.

On the 4th day I tried counting differently.
Or rather, instead of counting I used "quick, quick, slow".
I'm not sure anymore what prompted this but it made a tremendous difference.
All of a sudden I was dancing to the beat and seemed to have a lot more time to do everything.

At first this didn't make any sense to me.
I mean, why would '123.567." be any harder (or easier for that matter) than "quick, quick, slow"?
Then it hit me, "quick, quick slow" was another thing that went back to my early teens.
It's how we counted a Quickstep and I've done it thousands of times.
Skipping the 4 and the 8 while counting still feels a bit unnatural to me.
I guess that, without realizing it, I'm focusing on getting the counting right which takes some of my attention away from dancing the steps.
If you can think of another reason why "quick, quick, slow" made things easier for me please feel free to let me know.

With that problem out of the way I managed to get everything down a lot faster and started catching up a bit again.

This workshop also showed me how powerful video is.
Seeing yourself on video is completely different from watching yourself in the mirror while your dancing.
For one you don't have to focus on the steps so you can actually pay attention to the things you are doing (or not doing).
It's a great way to spot mistakes (why is my arm just hanging there?) and realize which areas still need improvement.

It also helped me in a completely different way.
I still feel pretty much clueless when dancing salsa.
Yes, I know the basic moves but that doesn't mean I'm completely confident doing them.
Seeing myself on video made me realize I'm not nearly as bad as I imagined myself to be (in all fairness, I don't think anybody can be *that* bad).
That gave me an extra bit of confidence which helped me get through the last days a bit more comfortable.

I'm curious to see the last recording that was made or rather, the last 2.
It's a good thing as well that there were 2 as we somehow missed a beat during the first taping, got completely thrown off by that and were entirely lost for a bit.
We were just standing there trying to figure out what the others were doing to find a place where we could jump in again :-)

The second time everything went more or less as it's supposed to go and we got through to the end on time.

As soon as I've seen those recordings I'll update again.

For now...

Hasta luego!

Taking private lessons turned out to be the best idea I've had so far.

After only 2 lessons I can say that for me it's been absolutely amazing.
Not because I learned more moves than I would in an hour of group class (I didn't) but because I got to go much deeper into details.

Foot placement, hip movements, shoulder movements... heck, any kind of movement.

As you have the instructor just working with you (s)he can correct you the instant that you're doing something wrong.
This way you don't get to build bad habits. Not only that, because you've paid so much attention to small details you feel much more confident (and because of that a lot less self conscious) when you are dancing.
You're not wondering whether you are doing things right or wrong anymore.
After all, if you did something wrong it was instantly corrected.

Aside from that you have the chance to be a lot more specific.
Are you having trouble with a particular move?
Ask the instructor to run through it with you and before you know it you'll have it down.
Having some problem finding the 1?
Ask your instructor to explain the music to you.
To some of you (I'm thinking musicians and people that have been dancing forever) it might seem silly but half my second private was spent discussing the structure and flow of the music, the instruments and how they interact.

Does that mean I can now always instantly find the 1?
Not at all but, I already realized that when I listen to music it is becoming easier.
I don't always find the one and sometimes I get distracted by the music and I forget to count which causes me to lose it.
That said, it's not as hard for me anymore now to find the 1 which helps me get back into the music a lot quicker.

Does that mean that private lessons are the end all solution for everybody?
No, I don't think so.

For one, private lessons are a lot more expensive than group classes.
Let's face it. We all have bills to pay and that should come first.
As much fun as dancing is, it's not worth getting your electricity cut off.
After all, it's a lot harder to practice at home without music ;-)
Luckily I have a bit of extra money at the moment that allows me to take private lessons so I'm taking full advantage of that at the moment.

Second, I think it helps if you've taken (some) group lessons.
It helps a lot if you know what you want so your instructor can tailor the lessons to fit your needs rather than just doing the same curriculum as in the group classes.
Not that there's anything wrong with that but I think you'll get more out of private lessons if you know exactly what you want.

So what's my verdict?
If you can afford private lessons and have had some group classes (or classes at a club) then by all means, go for them. It'll help you a lot.
If not... wait a bit longer.
You'll still be able to take private lessons next week, month, year.

Hasta luego!

After all, half the world seems to be doing it already (ok, maybe not half the world, just all the people that dance regularly).

Well, the main purpose of this blog is for me to keep track of my progress.
Don't get me wrong, if other people benefit from it or just enjoy reading about my experiences than that's great!
I'm more than happy to provide some entertainment. A distraction from work and/or other things that you should really be focusing on ;-)

So what's it like being new to salsa?
Well, I don't remember anymore . . .

Although I'm still a beginner I am a beginner that has the basics down pretty well. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm an extraordinary quick learner.
I'm not.
It's just that I am a beginner with lots of beginner experience.
I've started beginner classes 3 times before so this is the 4th time :-)

My first time was just about 8 years ago.
I signed up for classes with a friend as we both wanted to learn to dance salsa.
We had both seen demos and loved what we saw. The passion and excitement just left an impression we couldn't shake.
Classes turned out to be great fun too and things went well for a while. Unfortunately, about halfway through the course, work got in the way and we just couldn't make it anymore.
That was the end of my first attempt.

The next year my friend went to the US so I went out I found a new partner.
As she'd never danced before we went back to the beginner class and, the same thing happened, work got in the way and we ended up not being able to finish the course.

When I was just about to sign up for the new course I found out that I'd be relocating from Amsterdam to Luxembourg about 3 weeks into the course so I decided to wait until after I had moved.

However, once in Luxembourg it turned out that I had enough trouble just ordering food and drinks in a restaurant so I decided that it would be better to learn the language first. Learning the language quickly changed into 'discovering local restaurants and bars'.
To make a long story short, 6 years later I still don't speak the language (although I understand a lot of it) and I moved across the border, to Germany.

That said, last year we (my girlfriend at the time and I) found instructors that taught in both French and English so we decided to go and . . . take a beginner class.
Funnily (sadly?) enough, the same story repeated itself once again and work interfered.
If I could make it she often wasn't able to make it and that worked the other way around as well.

This year I've decided to take a new approach.

I started by expanding my comfort zone. I registered for a class by myself. No partner this time.
Sure, this makes practicing outside of class harder but at least the only schedule that can interfere with classes is my own.

Aside from that I've decided to take private lessons and register for several workshops, bootcamps and congresses.
This way it's already booked and I won't make other plans for those days.

I'm only 2 weeks into it this but it already seems to be working much better than my previous attempts.
Let's see how long it takes for me to be able to show my partner a good time on the dance floor with more than just a basic step ;-)

Hasta luego!