Rueda Hand Signs (Part 11) Bayamo

Cuban salsa continues to develop and the number of moves in existence today are well into the thousands even if no-one knows for sure how many moves there are. It is increasingly difficult to come up with new names and hand signs for new moves as well as their variations and while a lot of the original move names and signs were often humorous or meaningful and usually came with an origin story, in recent years a lot of the move names and hand signs have been less well conceived.
Some systems have emerged where moves are named after people, places or numbers and while the original moves still had a meaning (i.e. dancers form the shape of a seventy with their arms when performing the move Setenta and the move Echevarria is believed to have been invented by someone whose surname was Echevarria) there are no obvious meanings behind some of the more modern moves that follow this system (i.e. Setenta y Cinco contains no element that looks like a five so this is believed to have been named simply based on the fact that it is a variation of Setenta and the name Setenta y Cinco was still available at the time – it is like saying let's do the fifth variation of Setenta).

A similar naming convention has emerged where moves are called after places supposedly based on the fact that the move was invented in a particular town or region or that the person who invented the move had an association with a certain place. Since little is known about when and where a certain Cuban salsa move was invented, let alone who invented it, it is hard to say whether this line of thought really does hold true for a significant number of moves that were named after places. However, given that Bayamo is one of the oldest and most original moves that were named after a place it is highly likely that the move was invented in Bayamo or by a dancer or dance group from Bayamo.

Bayamo is the capital of the Granma province and one of the largest cities in Cuba. It is associated among other things with the national anthem of Cuba called “La Bayamesa” or “El Himno de Bayamo” first performed at the Battle of Bayamo and composed by Perucho Figueredo. Hand signs for moves named after places are usually something descriptive with respect to the place they are used for. In the case of Bayamo the caller will usually touch their left shoulder with their right hand and then bring the right hand in the air towards his right hand side to signal a salute most probably in reference to La Bayamesa i.e. saluting the country with respect to the national hymn or even a symbol to signal a soldier’s salute relating back to the Battle of Bayamo.

To see a video of the move Bayamo as well as the hand sign, please click on: https://youtu.be/VZsa1qDMUtA

Health Benefits of Dancing

There are many health benefits to any form of dance although depending on the type of dance they can be stronger or weaker. Cuban salsa in particular is a very fast and complicated dance form so a lot of the health benefits are more prevalent in Cuban salsa dances compared to say slower and simpler dance forms. Some of the benefits to dancing are shown in the following list

• Losing Weight. It is estimated that dancing burns between 5 to 10 calories per minute depending on various factors as discussed in the previous post “The Salsa Diet”.
• Lubricated Joints. Dancing regularly keeps joints lubricated which can help to prevent arthritis.
• Strong Bones. Dancing improves bone strength and aids in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.
• Fitness. It has been shown that at an advanced level of dancing the breathing and muscle exertion rates of dancers are equivalent to those of athletes such as runners, swimmers or cyclists. A study at the University of Hertfordshire which compared ballet dancers with swimmers found the dancers to score higher than the swimmers in seven out of ten areas of fitness.
• Core Strength. Dancing helps us to improve our balance, posture and reflexes by strengthening our stabilising muscles which makes us less likely to get injuries in daily life.
• Keeping In Shape. Dancing exercises your body and allows for increased circulation. It improves your stamina, the heart, the lungs and increases endurance and motor fitness.
• Coordination. The central and peripheral nervous systems are kept in shape by the connections formed between our body and our mind through dancing, helping us improve our coordination.
• Well-being. Dancing can improve general and psychological well-being, by giving us greater self-confidence and self-esteem as well as better social skills
• Mental Health. Dancing requires a lot of different factors to be learned or committed to memory. Particularly in Cuban salsa there is a huge amount of steps, patterns and moves that need to be learned as well as the signals and the names of these moves so that they can be followed in a Rueda. For non-Spanish speakers the effect is even more prevalent as they have to learn completely new words in a foreign language to advance. This improves your memory and keeps your mind quick and alert.
• Cholesterol. Dancing aids in blood sugar control which is great for diabetics. It also improves lipid control which raises good cholesterol (HDL) and lowers bad cholesterol (LDL).
• Emotional Well-being. Dancing makes us feel social and happy by elevating the endorphin levels which helps us deal with stress and depression and any related illnesses. 

Leaders Misconceptions (Part 2)

One of the many misconceptions that most leaders have when social dancing is the idea that they have to constantly change their moves to impress their followers or even just to keep the dance interesting. I have had this idea myself from the very start and still get a lot of leaders asking me how many moves they need to know before they can give the follower an interesting enough dance.
The answer is most followers will be quite happy to dance at all, meet new people and often enjoy other aspects of the dance more so than a succession of different moves. While leaders tend to get a lot of enjoyment out of the number of different moves they do, followers often get more enjoyment out of aspects such as styling, ability to respond to signals, music and timing etc. Of course everyone is different and it is not fair to put all leaders and followers under the same umbrella but it is definitely not worth stressing out over some arbitrary number of moves that someone may throw around that should be learned as a minimum before leaders dance socially. If leaders are nice people who follow the general etiquette, are considerate dancers, and do not lead forcefully but rather try to be on time and lead as clearly as possible, then most followers will prefer the resulting dance to the opposite type of leader irrespective of whether the moves are constantly varied and advanced or whether they repeat quickly and are more basic by nature.

Finally, a common misconception is that leading happens predominantly by the leader giving the follower a “strong” signal with their hands. As discussed in part 1 of this mini series the hand signal itself can be very subtle but as long as it is accurate the follower will have no problem picking it up. However, it is not only the hand signal that is important for leading, but also the body position and the timing of the leader which will give the follower the direction they need to figure out what is coming next. Most moves in Cuban salsa are led on the 7th beat as that way the follower has just enough time to prepare for the next move which starts on the 1st beat of the next 8-count. Getting the timing wrong even just by one beat is highly confusing even for experienced followers so this aspect is just as important for leaders as the signal itself. Similarly, the body position is key to leading and can in certain instances be the most important cue to signal the next move. It is in fact possible to lead some elementary moves such as Vacilala or Exhibela using only the body position as a guide where the leader and follower do not hold hands at all but can nonetheless communicate moves to each other simply by the way their bodies are aligned.