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We arrived just before 9am on Saturday.
I got us lost on the way there (this street is probably
a good idea... not ) and, as the
bootcamp was supposed to start at 9, we ended
up cutting it very close.
Registration went really smooth thanks to Silvia from
Salsa-Emocion.
In a previous life I have been involved with event
organisation and I have to say,
Silvia and Ibo did an amazing job organizing
this weekend.
Rarely have I seen an event go this well. I'm sure there
were some things that came up and had them running
around but as participants we never noticed it.
The
bootcamp started with
Edie introducing herself.
She told us how she started dancing Salsa (by accident,
who would have thought) and then explained how the music
is build up, using stories to make it more clear.
Aside from the fact that I though her stories were
hilarious I did indeed learn more about the music which
I'm sure will help me in the future.
Edie also spend some time explaining
something that I think is very important for a lot of
beginners, finding the 1 (no, not the beautiful girl
with long legs, the beat).
In my experience not enough attention is paid to this.
Just take a look at social dancing videos on
YouTube and you'll see how many people are
dancing off beat.
As I still have some trouble myself from time to time
(ok, regularly) I found this very helpful.
Finding the 1 didn't seem to present any problems for
most of other the people there which would have
completely blown me away normally.
60 Beginners instantly getting it. Wow!
As it turned out though, most of the people there
weren't beginners.
Out of 60 people there were 4 absolute beginners (they
had never danced salsa before) and another 4-6 people
that had been dancing less than a year.
All the other attendees had been dancing longer which
made me wonder what they were doing at a beginner
bootcamp.
I guess they wanted/needed to improve their basics or
maybe they just wanted to take
Edie's
bootcamp to see what it is like.
After the introduction we did the basic step for a
while.
I liked the way
Edie taught it a lot. The people that hadn't
done any salsa dancing before were doing a basic step
before they even realized they were doing. I'm sure this
helped bringing their anxiety level down.
When everybody had the basic down it was time for an
inside turn followed by 'he goes she goes'.
Everything that we learned was first practiced without a
partner.
And when I say practiced I really mean practiced!
It seemed like we would go on forever doing the same
things.
In the 5 to 10 minutes that we spent on it I've
practiced the lead for an inside turn more than I have
in all my time dancing so far,
This was probably also the most valuable lesson that I
learned that weekend.
Dancing, like martial arts, is about repetition.
If you keep practicing a move after you've become fed up
with it,
if you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders
have become tired,
If you keep practicing after your arms and shoulders
started hurting,
if you keep practicing after you've started wondering
why you wanted to learn at all,
if after all of that you still practice some more then
you will probably never have trouble doing the move
again.
Ok, so we didn't go that far but my shoulder did start
to get tired by the time we were done and it worked. If
I think of an inside turn now my arm will automatically
start leading the move.
While I was doing martial arts I'd never expected
anything else but I guess I thought things would be
different when it came to dancing.
Lesson learned, repetition pays off.
We then practiced Cross Body Leads (thousands of them?)
.
This was just more prove that repetition pays off as
nobody, including the new people, had any trouble
dancing them to music.
With these basic elements under out belt we started
combining things.
Everything went fine for a while but eventually 2 of the
beginners started falling behind.
I'm not sure whether that was because of the amount of
information they had gotten in such a short period of
time or because they didn't pay enough attention in the
beginning.
I do hope they had a good time regardless.
Edie,
Silvia and Ibo definitely made it a fun
filled day that helped correct a couple of mistakes I
was making consistently.
Would I recommend the
bootcamp to beginners? Definitely!
Although maybe not to people that have never danced at
all unless I know they are willing to put in the effort.
Posted by
Walter de Rooij
at
2:15 PM
_________________
SalsaFreak bootcamp day 2
Day 2 of the
bootcamp started relaxed.
We woke up early enough to enjoy a calm breakfast.
The workshop wouldn't start until 9 and by 8:30 we had
eaten, were all packed and ready to go.
Then it hit me. Daylight savings time !
Saturday night the clocks had gone forward an hour so
instead of having enough time we were suddenly very
late.
We rushed through check out, got the car, drove as fast
as we could (the whole 3 blocks) and ran inside.
By the time we got through registration and had made it
to the room it was clear that we'd missed a lot already
and we needed to catch up desperately.
Luckily we spent quite a bit of time spinning during the
SalsaLife
workshop so catching up was relatively easy
for me.
Spin left, spin right, spin left, spin right... so far
so good.
Double spin left... ok. Double right... still ok
Triple sp... oops, balance gone! At least I managed not
to trip over my own feet and fall down so I still
consider it a small success.
It seemed I wasn't the only one that was having problems
and it seemed like there were more beginners than the
day before. Or maybe there were just more men and women
that weren't too experienced at spinning yet.
As we kept on practicing everybody seemed to improve a
bit more and after a while everybody could pull off at
least semi decent double spins. Most people were even
doing triples without too many problems.
That was when it was time for the ladies to practice
spinning with a partner.
As there were 3 times as many women as there were men at
this point the ladies made a big circle.
They alternated practicing their spins with a partner
and alone.
Given the amount of spins they ended up doing I was
happy not to be in their shoes.
I'm not sure I would have still been standing at the end
of the morning.
During lunch some of the men complained that the women
weren't making an effort and had to be pulled through
the spin but at the same time I heard that some of the
men didn't prep the spin or even waited for the girls to
be ready before starting the spin.
I think this might have been partially because of a
language problem.
Some of the men on Sunday spoke little or no English and
they didn't ask for a translation.
After lunch the Ladies Styling session started.
First
Edie tweaked the women's posture a bit. It's
amazing how much difference that makes.
After they were done they looked like completely
different.
As the afternoon progressed a some more men arrived but
there were still a lot more women. The ratio was about
2:1
Luckily
Edie had a solution for that.
While I was thinking that we would probably make a
circle again she explained that the men would be dancing
with 2 women at the same time. That would solve the
problem.
WHAT?!?!? The night before I had enough trouble trying
to lead just 1 girl and now she expects me to lead 2 at
the same time ? ? ?
For a second I thought she was kidding but no such luck.
She was serious.
I tried to figure out how to sneak out quietly sneaking
so I could hide in the hallway for the rest of the day
but it was too late, 2 women were already standing next
to me.
There was nothing left for me to do but dance.
The first 30 seconds were awful.
It wasn't that I was doing that poorly.
Edie was counting slowly and the girls knew
what to do so as long as I moved along in the right
direction I didn't really have to lead. It's hard to do
things poorly in a situation like that.
However, I was so nervous I could barely move.
As I realized I was doing ok I started to relax and
things got better.
Even though I messed up plenty of times and our dancing
was more circular than linear for a large part of the
afternoon I did learn a lot about leading and as my
leading improved it got easier.
Both for me and the girls.
I think I probably learned more about leading in a
couple of hours on Sunday than I have in last 3 months
together. It was a lot easier than it normally is.
I didn't have to worry about music (at least not in the
beginning) or about learning new moves.
All I had to do , once we started dancing to music, to
make sure that my lead was clear so the girls would know
what to do without running into each other.
As that was all I had to focus on it was much easier to
see what I was doing right and wrong.
Especially because leading slightly different with one
hand than the other showed completely different results
instantaneously.
So what did think of the bootcamp?
Edie is one of the best instructors I've seen
so far.
She's clear when explaining and always willing to
explain something 1-1 during the breaks.
Her energy throughout the bootcamp was amazing.
It was definitely a great experience and I wouldn't
hesitate recommending it to beginners.
Maybe it's not for absolute beginners (people that have
never danced before) if they are not willing to put in
the extra work (that is definitely required if you
haven't danced before) but if they are willing to put in
that extra little bit I think it will be a great
experience for them as well.
That said, they will be part of a large group so they'll
definitely have to be willing to ask if they don't
understand something or they will fall behind.
Do I feel it was it worth the money? Absolutely!
Even if Sunday hadn't been free (men didn't have to pay
as they were needed to help the women) just learning as
much as I did about my leading would have been well
worth it.
If you're not sure whether you would like to take a
bootcamp try to make it to a Ladies Styling
Sunday to get a taste for it. Keep one thing in mind
though, you may not have to pay an entrance fee but in
return you will be expected to work hard.
After all, you get to go for free is because you're
there to help the ladies!
Posted by
Walter de Rooij
at
9:53 AM
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