Chaps. One day I’ll know my password by heart. Not today, though (or yesterday, it seems).

Right, I now have pictures re: Monday’s classes, so I can take you through what we do and how we do. Any questions, comments, please don’t be shy, and leave word. I’m not an ogre, honest. I only play one on TV.

From 7:00-8:00 pm we do absolute beginner’s salsa . Amanda takes you from walking, into the basic steps and beats. The classes tend to be intimate and manageable.

An example of an intimate and manageable class. Amanda and her assistant (Giles) will guide you through the trickiest of moves. From the basic steps (one, two, three. Five, six, seven) into cuddles, spins, mambo, rhumba and turns. This class is pretty intense. You are kept moving, and turning. But Amanda won’t make you cheat (more on that anon). The structure of the classes are straightforward, yet effective. The first five minutes are spent doing directed moves to music, afterwards, the new moves are introduced, forty minutes spent going through the routines, and afterwards, Amanda uses the last twenty minutes to take us through the music. Spin my pretties, spin.

This course takes place over eight weeks, and costs £40.00. Contact amanda@todo-latino.co.uk for details.

After absolute beginner’s course, we then have the beginners salsa.  That’s from 8:15-9:15pm. For this course, it is assumed that you know how to do the salsa basics: as in,  rhumba, mambo, hold your basic, be confident in your steps.

a snapshot of beginner's salsa

For the beginner’s salsa, the structure of the class is similar. You warm up with a dance and directions by Amanda, and these are either shouted at or gestured to go to or fro, and lead into rhumba, mambo and shades of spins and dances inbetween.  In some of these pictures you might see some women dancing randomly. Are they abandoned? Unloved? No, alas, the answer is more prosaic: women cannot lead (unless they are instructing)  when learning to dance. As a result, it’s best for the partnerless woman to follow the directions and mark the steps alone. The good thing is, she won’t be alone for long. After five minutes and a complete rotation, Amanda directs you to, “Change your partners, please.” She’s SO British, OMG. Wilson is pretty much, “CHANGE COUPLES!”

At times, when dancing, Amanda will look and point at someone and say, “Stop CHEATING!” It’s really not her casting aspersions on your character, or being suspicious that you haven’t claimed on your taxes, etc. No, her cry of ‘Cheating’ means that you haven’t completed your steps, or you are doing a truncated shuffle instead of complete, fluid steps.

If you cheat on your diet or taxes, that’s up to you and your conscience, but if you cheat on your steps, Amanda will call you out.  For beginner’s salsa, as much as the course is four weeks long, you do find that people tend to stay in the beginner’s salsa classes for *months*. It’s not really anything to worry about if you find that you’re in the beginner’s salsa classes for a while, and you haven’t been invited to improves as yet. It is nothing to be ashamed about, it’s just that in salsa, you have to make sure that your steps are solid, that you are confident  enough before you move on.

stepping lightly

In addition, we find that some people who do the improver’s salsa classes (on Wednesdays) actually come back to Monday’s beginner’s classes just to make sure that their form is polished. Or, probably they like the fact that Amanda shouts, “You are CHEATING!” as she points to their feet. Oh, have you noticed the shoes that the ladies are wearing? They are either flat soled or short, squat,  stacked heels.  But that’s for another post.

Beginner’s Bachata takes place from 9:30-10:30pm.  This year, Amanda decided to review the beginner’s Bachata course, and extended it from four weeks to eight, for a few good reasons. The main one was the fact that a LOT of people found the course to be pretty daunting, and as such, they tended to shy away. So, Amanda went back, and broke it down into bite size chunks, so that there less tears all around.  The bachata follows the same format for the other classes.

Amanda looking for cheaters in the bachata group. Hmm, can you see any?

Amanda begins with a typical Bachata selection, something on this side of quick, but slow enough for you to mark your steps and follow directions, be it gesticulated or shouted.  She tends to make you form a line, so that she can walk behind you and see what you’re doing. Then point out the ways and means that you can do better. The routines are formed, and you’ll hear her say stuff like, “Forward!”, “Half,” “Three quarter,” and “Full LOOOOOPPPP!”.

Last night, Amanda tried to show the ladies how to hold on to their guys in bachata for turns and the rest of it. Remember a couple of posts back I told you that you have to stand ‘off side’ from the leader (ladies) so that his foot is in between yours? When he goes to spin you around, you need to latch on to his knee with the insides of your thighs and HANG ON! Because you might fly across the room! Seriously, it’s a dangerous world out there, and we teach you how to dance safely.

Oh, would you look at the time! I am working on having videos to link to this page, so you can see how we do what we do in real time, but youtube is being difficult right now.

I’m hoping to get links to the side page, and tweaking the website and the rest of it. So keep an eye on this space, y’hear?

Right, off to go and work tonight. I’ll be taking my camera and hoping to report on Tango and Kizomba tonight. So, look out for the blog posts tomorrow… and hope I remember my password.

Remember to keep practising. Until we meet again, remember: one, two, tree. Five , six, seven.

Abrazos!

jazz