Confusion (Part 5)

When I suggest to students that they learn both leading and following, one of the most common comments I hear is that it confuses them to learn both roles. This is certainly a fair point and learning both roles at the same time may result in neither one of them being picked up correctly. The obvious confusion is the fact that leaders start on their right foot while followers start on their left foot. Additionally, many other aspects are equally difficult to reconcile such as the difference in pressure points or the fact that leaders are supposed to think of the next move while followers should not anticipate anything. This certainly makes it hard to learn both of these structures simultaneously and it can be highly confusing and maybe even counterproductive to learning certain moves. However, I have equally met many people to whom it was helpful to learn both roles at the same time and who found it much easier to differentiate between the different roles this way. Ultimately, it is completely up to the individual how and when they want to switch roles and the level system we have created at Tiempo España Dance Academy allows people to go back to the beginner’s class at any point and learn the opposite role. We do not pressure anyone into trying this out nor do we suggest the timeframe when this should be done but we simply recommend to everyone who comes to their first beginner’s class that they should try out both roles as part of their salsa journey.

While I understand that it may be confusing at first, having struggled with this myself for many months, I truly believe that any dancer hugely benefits from becoming proficient at dancing the role they normally do not occupy. For leaders, it is helpful to understand how it feels to be led by other people so that they can reassess their own signals, their pressure points, musicality etc. Similarly, for followers it is very helpful to understand how to lead moves to be able interpret signals better and follow them more easily or even support leaders in key moments such as tornillo’s etc. In other words, it increases the general awareness of both followers and leaders around the dance buying them some crucial time that they can use in any dance to perfect their respective moves.

Tiempo España Dance Academy News

It has been a while since we announced all the changes around our dance school so here is a long-needed update around everything we have done lately:

We still write our blog on a biweekly basis, publishing a new article every Friday at 7pm and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. However, we are taking a break from our very popular “Rueda Hand Signs” series which goes hand in hand with publishing a new video on Youtube when it normally comes out. This is to gather some additional material and spend some more time on theoretical concepts to enhance our level 5 and level 6 classes where we still need to introduce a lot of theoretical concepts so we will focus on some of these in the coming months. Our plan is to re-introduce this series again in the future and publish more advanced moves accordingly.

With the addition of our latest teacher we currently have 10 people teaching classes at our various locations which is the highest number of teachers we had to date despite unfortunately losing some teachers over the last few years. This increasingly allows us to give students higher quality classes as we can tailor them to their level and needs. Our teachers are increasingly experienced, and a number of teachers are now training for level 4 or even level 5 which will give us more opportunities for advanced classes in the future.

Thanks to an increasing number of students reaching level 6 we now have various dancers who are ready for performances which is a tremenduous achievement and we want to thank all our advanced dancers for their time, commitment and dedication to our school. The first performances we have scheduled will be a guest performance on 11th October at a Ceroc social at Ceroc St Chads in Leeds. We will have another performance straight afterwards on 12th October at the Leeds Dance Studio where we run all our Leeds classes for their 10 year anniversary show and as a result will not be running any of our normal Leeds Saturday classes that day. We are very excited to be part of these performances and are impressed with our students that they have reached such a high level of dancing. Keep your eyes on the event page of our website to find out furthere details if you would like to watch the shows.

Rueda Hand Signs (Part 33) Enchufla Con La Mano Derecha

Enchufla Con La Mano Derecha is essentially the exact same move as the normal standard Enchufla performed in almost every Rueda with the key difference being that the leaders switch their left hand to their right hand. On the surface this may not seem like a huge difference and most advanced dancers do not consider this a separate move but rather a small variation of standard Enchufla. However, especially for beginner students it is a key element to learn especially since Enchufla is one of the most fundamental and popular moves that forms part of many higher level moves and Rueda combinations so learning how to lead it with the left and the right hand is an essential skill for any aspiring salsa student.

Even though advanced dancers will hardly even realise whether they are using their left or their right hand to lead Enchufla, for most beginner students this feels entirely different and has some important features that need to be learned to execute this correctly. For instance, it is important to have switched the left to the right hand by beat 7 of the prior 8 count before Enchufla is executed for this to work well. I.e. the Enchufla signal itself should be given with the right hand. This is a huge difference when compared to for instance Pimienta Con La Mano Derecha which is another fundamental move that can be done with the right hand, however, here leaders will still give the signal with their left hand on beat 7 and only switch it to the right hand on beat 2 while the move is executed.

Moreover, while it is possible to go back into a left-handed Dile Que No, most leaders will finish the move with a right-handed Dile Que No so the correct hand hold for this move needs to be found by beat 7 as described in previous posts.

Since most dancers do not even consider this version of Enchufla to be a separate move there are not a lot of leaders who will lead Enchufla social dancing and it is extremely rare to find this being called in a Rueda. However, adding this element as well as similar right-handed moves makes Ruedas as well as social dancing more varied, interesting and more fun not to mention that for spectators the two versions do look very different.

The Rueda signal for Enchufla Con La Mano Derecha is the same as the left-handed version except for the fact that the cantante will use their right hand to signal the move.

Confusion (Part 4)

To me one of the saddest side effects around the idea that men have to lead and women have to follow is that it creates an association between gender and the role people take on when they dance. While this may have been the way things had to be 100 years ago, I see absolutely no reason why this needs to continue now. There are plenty of other sports and social activities that used to be associated only with one gender and have become gender neutral over time so dancing by comparison seems to be stuck in the past. It creates this impression that in order to perform a partner dance one needs to be joining as a couple and ideally go out with that person which immediately denies this sport to a large group of people. I get at least one email a week of someone asking whether they can join our Cuban salsa classes despite the fact that they do not have a partner which makes me wonder how many people would like to join our classes but feel embarrassed to join on their own or simply do not even think of this as a possibility.

This question still surprises me every time as I think of dancing as a social activity that should bring joy to as many people as possible so to deny someone the possibility of even learning the dance for the mere fact that they do not have a partner seems paradox to me. That being said, I remember how I had my first ballroom dancing experience in high school where my whole class decided to try out a beginner course and I had to ask someone to be my dance partner for the duration of the course as you were not allowed to join on your own. Luckily, I was not rejected so from the very beginning dancing became an enjoyable experience to me but I can only guess how the left over people felt who did not get asked or who asked and were rejected. I certainly would not blame them if they never tried out dancing again in their lifes after associating this type of memory with the sport as a whole.

I would feel awful if I ever learned that someone has had any similar type of experiences in my classes and I have always tried to make lessons as inclusive as possible. However, I am ultimately fighting against the social stigma that people have had to deal with all their lives before they join their first salsa class so time and time again I have to convince people that they can join us on their own. In addition I try to make it clear to people joining as a couple that they do not represent a static couple in my classes and that they will be expected to switch partners and roles like everybody else. While this is something I tell every person coming to their first beginner’s class, it is usually a point that people take on board with a high level of scepticism, at least until the moment they see Confusion. When they finally get to the point where they see this and dance this move their last resistance seems to melt away and they no longer see themselves as single or in a relationship or a masculine leader or a feminine follower but rather a dancer that follows the structure of the role they currently occupy. Confusion is therefore one of the best moves I have at my disposal as a teacher to make Casino a truly gender neutral experience that lets everyone enjoy each aspect of the dance.

Confusion (Part 3)

As discussed in the previous post on this subject, it is a shame that even in modern times it is so uncommon for men to dance as followers or women to dance as leaders that most people will never attempt to learn a non-traditional role. Even though there must be plenty of men who would actually prefer following and plenty of women who would prefer leading they are simply denied the chance to do so by most dance schools not even acknowledging this option. The few isolated courageous people who give this a go despite hardly anyone else doing this usually have to ask their dance teachers whether “it is allowed” to switch roles and I have seen many schools deny this categorically. In fact, some of my own students who have moved to different cities have sometimes stopped dancing salsa altogether as the schools they joined subsequently made them stick to their traditionally assigned roles rather than letting them learn the role they wanted.

At least in some of the Western countries I have danced in, there seems to be an increasing acceptance of women leading other women and especially in the salsa community this is something I come across much more frequently than when I started dancing. However, rather than this being a major improvement in dance attitude it is often simply a factor of there being a lot more women in dance classes than men. So rather than two women dancing together being a symbol for greater openness it is often a symbol of a “men don’t dance” type of attitude that is unfortunately still a mentality issue in various regions. I.e. Often women simply get fed up with having to wait forever until they receive a partner so they bite the bullet and start leading rather than making this decisions consciously to learn how to lead. It is therefore not completely uncommon for a class with say 13 women and 4 men to see one or two women leading. However, it is nearly impossible to find this in a dance class where the gender ratio is fairly balanced. Moreover, while women may lead other women it is very rare to see women leading men or men leading other men as the social stigma around masculinity seems to be even more prohibitive for men to try out following.

In summary, this type of attitude leads to most dancers never experiencing the other role even if they might enjoy it more and despite the fact that learning both roles would almost certainly improve every aspect of their dance.
The move confusion changes this attitude significantly and makes both men and women want to learn how to lead and follow irrespective of the gender of the partner they are dancing with.

Confusion (Part 2)

One of the aspects of dancing that sometimes seems surprising to new beginners is the fact that at least in the beginning stages most people find leading more difficult than following. This has nothing to do with gender and is maybe an unfair statement when analysing very advanced forms of any dance where the styling and musicality elements of following can be just as hard if not harder than leading. Nonetheless, most people would agree that in the beginning stages there are simply more factors happening at the same time for leaders which usually makes it more difficult to be picked up irrespective of whether this role is being learned by a man or a woman.

This would not be an issue per se if everyone accepted this from the beginning and both men and women were happy to go into a new dance class and learn both roles. However, what makes the role division problematic is the fact that internationally most women want to learn how to follow and most men want to learn how to lead. This is not because they have made a conscious choice that leading or following looks or feels better to them or that they want to learn a certain role for a specific reason. Rather, it is usually an unconscious decision based on the culture that surrounds them. I.e. if you never see a man following and a woman leading when you watch people dance on TV or at any social gatherings then you may not even realise that you have this choice when you want to pick up a new dance. Taking this one step further, there should be absolutely no reason why two men or two women cannot dance together but it is rare to find examples of either.

In my opinion this is a fundamentally flawed approach to partner dancing in general and makes aspects of dancing sexist and homophobic which is deeply shameful considering how much almost everyone who tries out both roles enjoys them as completely separate forms of dancing something that is virtually inaccessible to most dancers due to social stigmas dictating the way they are supposed to enjoy their hobby.

On the other hand, the move confusion changes this attitude entirely and suddenly makes it socially acceptable for men to dance as followers and women to dance as leaders as it makes everyone switch roles at the same time. Particularly, within a Rueda it immediately removes anyone’s worry that they will be looked at in a funny way or judged by the other dancers in the room as everyone within the Rueda is in the same position. This to me is one of the nicest side effects of this move. It is not only an incredibly fun way of spicing up your dance and a difficult and rare skill for dancers to switch from one role to another but it allows people to try out another role that they would usually not feel comfortable with.

Rueda Hand Signs (Part 32) El Uno

El Uno (meaning “The One”) is one of the many Cuban salsa moves that are named after a number. While there are many such moves that have no deeper meaning and are simply given their name sequentially, due to a lack of a better description, el uno is one of the few numbered moves whose name is more meaningful. In isolation this may not seem obvious but it is apparent particularly when comparing this move to another move referred to as “El Dos”. In El Uno we spend one entire 8-count in Parte El Brazo Con Dos Manos whereas in El Dos the same sequence is performed for 2 8-counts (as well as switching the position of leaders and followers). It is therefore the duration of Parte El Brazo Con Dos Manos, which is the key element of these two moves, that is responsible for the name.

El Uno starts by a Parte El Brazo Con La Mano Derecha for the first 3 steps at which point the leader picks up the follower’s left hand with their own left hand before going back to the original position. Keeping both hands, the leader does an Enchufla amd brings their right hand over the follower’s head while at the same time keeping their left hand low to finish the move by bringing both hands over both heads similarly to the end of Sombrero.

In terms of footwork El Uno is effectively an Enchufla Doble Y Quedate. It is therefore important that the steps are executed as such and no shortcuts are taken. In fact, one of the most common mistakes with this move is that dancers often do not turn properly to face each other when holding both hands in Parte El Brazo Con Dos Manos but the more they turn the better this move looks and feels and it is easier to maintain eye contact.

The hand sign for El Uno consists of the leader pointing their index finger upwards to signal the number one.