UKSALSA CHAT | ON2 CHAT | SUZYQ CHAT 
Subject: routines
From: Dave F (Dave Fenton)
Date: Tuesday 25th February 2003, 9:56 am

 BEGIN QUOTE 
I have been going to classes about twice a week for the last eight months. I go to different classes and teachers so that I can get gain an all round experience of the different styles of salsa. What I have found without exception is that all the teachers teach salsa in a routine framework so that you could get four distinct moves or figures rolled into a routine. I have to say I'm getting fed up with learning salsa this way. Learning a routine in a class even with complicated moves is not a measure of how good a dancer you are but how good you are at copying the intructor and remembering. It is a challenge for observation and memory that is all, not dancing skill.

Sooo why teach salsa this way, is there not any other way? I have a salsa video tape which demonstrates each move seperately which makes it very easy to follow. Surely this method could be taught live in a class. The format could go as follows. The instructor demos the move. Then goes through it slowly until the class has got it. Then it is practiced with music even if it just four bars long. The students are then told to freestyle it in ther own time with music without any calling. Here the students might want to begin with a basic mambo. Okay so that is the first move learned. The second move is taught in the same way. How the students put them together is up to them. So there we have two moves learned which might take up to eight bars. I think eight bars of salsa is quite enough for one evening. Maybe four bars is enough even if the class only takes half an hour, at least that is one move the students can take home with them that they have got throughly fixed in their body/mind system.

At a salsa party if you are dancing spontaneously in the moment you do not dance class taught routines. That is dancing in the head which will curtail your natural expression.

flowrite

 END QUOTE 

I agree, most classes 'teach' (I use the word 'teach' very loosly, I prefer the to use the word 'demonstrate') long turn patterns lasting 20 or more bars, of that 20 bars there's probably about 6 or so distinct moves. Of this 6 there's probably only 1 or 2 that I like, the rest is just 'filler'. One of the reasons given for this method is it 'teaches' you to join combinations together, another is 'that's how everyone else does it'. By the end it's more of a memory challenge than a physical one. I personally prefer to teach much smaller combinations (looking back over my class notes they average around 10 bars (thats 5 cross bodies) of which there is usually 2 distinct parts joined together. If you're teaching the combination and not just demo'ing it and also reviewing the previous weeks combination then I feel for most people thats more than enough information to consolidate in a 1 hour session.

Just my thoughts but then again I'm not in it to make money, I just enjoy the teaching and dancing!

   
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