Salsa Concepts

[El Quimico De La Salsa]

Would you guys find this (rudimentary) description of salsa concepts useful (correct)?

Any suggestions for improvement?

http://almacubana.freewebsitehosting.com/salsa_concepts.html

El Quimico De La Salsa

[Vin]

Hey Chemist, welcome to the forums, I will give you my 2 cents.
Taken from web-page:

Complex salsa figures are composed of multiple salsa moves. But they still fit the phrasing of the music. They can take 16, 24, 32 beats, etc. There are no salsa figures that, like swing, take 4, 6, 10, 12 beats, or whatever. Salsa music is strictly structured, and salsa dance is structured to fit the music.

"Dancing on clave" means fitting your dance moves into the salsa music phrases: not rushing through them, and not being late to finish them. Each salsa move takes 8 beats of music.

It also means not splitting the move across two phrases. The move should start on 1 and finish on 8 of the same phrase.

my comments:
These concepts are difficult to distinguish and define, when has somebody finished one pattern and begun another? For example lately I have been playing around with a four count pause for myself to bridge some movements together, and to get cohesiveness with what I am leading my partner through the movement. The pattern ends up being a total of 12 counts. If I do two patterns like this I get back to the one shortly, is this wrong?
At first this really bothered me about swing versus salsa but I have begun to embrace it and incorporated the ideas into my salsa.

Taken from website
To be on time with the music, the leader should start right after 8, so that when "the 1" hits, he will already have finished the first step.

my comments:
on1, on2, on3, on4, on5, on6, on7, on8, who cares as long as you are moving with the music. Yes I agree there is a slight difference between being on1 and on5, but in reality if you feel the music you shouldn't need a rule like that to tell you when to step.

A couple general comments:
One, IMO the number one rule to becoming a good salsa dancer is learn to love the music, you must listen to it for it's own sake, not just to dance to it. When you connect with the music it shows in your dancing.
two: When describing combinations of movements It gives the impression that you should not try this. I disagree, I think that people learning should be encouraged to put the different elements of the dance that they know together in many different ways from the beginning.
This leads to faster improvement in both lead and follow skills.

Otherwise I think it is ok, I am not familiar enough with the technical aspects of timing to describe that.

[borikensalsero]

Technically speaking it sounds good, and I enjoyed reading it also. And it is pretty much the norm of technical side of salsa. But philosophically speaking it sounds more like rules, rules that shouldn't be broken. I’ve never agreed on structure with salsa. Meaning that I can break a move at any given time, the only rule being that my partner is with me when I do so. There really isn’t such a thing as a must start here and you must start there, I see them more as guidelines. I dance on2, but sure will break any move I want on any beat. The only rule I do not break is the CBL on the 2 or 6. I’m supposed to start the move on2 but if I desire a delayed look to play with the music I will hold the girl back then hurry her on the 4 beat to catch her on the 2 and out we go. I will hold a single move that goes over 2, or 3, counts of 8 specifically because I choose to. Because the music is telling me to hooooooooooold her. To savor that slow flute riff… To me the philosophy of salsa is more important that the rules and regulations of the physical movement of the body.

To me the only rule of salsa is plainly being on beat, not really where one should start a move and end the move. Those are more like guidelines to teach us structure, but once we reach mastery of structure then the structure of salsa becomes the limits of the music, and although the clave only counts to 8, there are times that the feel of the song or the lyrics of the vocalist will indicate to not end a move in 8, or to simply flavor the song as you wish, for the counts are only there to transfer information from the body to the soul. The soul makes up the meaning, not really the body nor brain making up meaning for the soul. For example, in a descarga, the 1 becomes harder to notice, which, means that salsa has pretty much lost all structure and has asked the dancer to “duel” the descarga with only the imagination as a limit, again, if solo, there are no rules, but if with a partner, which you shouldn’t be on a descarga anyhow, the rule is to keep the oneness of the two dancers. If you are good enough, you can jump, in and out of beats on a descarga with out ever loosing your partner. You can stay with the breaking the 2 and 6 as a guideline to keep connection, but the moves loose form/beginning/end and become formless. You can steal her 2 you can give your 6, you can pretty much to as you desire. She might keep her count but I use whatever the descarga gives me, and mesh it to her beat not to lose her.

I even slow down the music purposely and step as I wish, holding the girl to where I want. Yes, the structure that gets me back should be the signal of the 2, but I can skip that and go right on the 6. Or even the 4 or the 8, which I use to play with the tum tum and indicate we are going, hold on we are going for a ride.

I’m not saying that I didn’t like the description of the concepts, because I see them as fundamental for dancing, a little ballroomish, but still fundamental concepts of physical rules of dancing. But I don’t see dancing as the systematic make up of bodily movements, given a beat, but rather the connection of the dancer’s soul to that of the music, which in my terms means, do as you please for you aren’t following beats, but the overall connection of the music and your partner. I pretty much break all rules when it comes to salsa, I don’t care whether I start on the 2 or on the 6. I don’t care whether I end on the 4 or the 8. Again, the only rules I follow are being on beat, and CBL on the 2 or 6… The rest I fill in as I wish. Go passed the 8 count with one move or finish that move on 2 beats. Don’t matter to me really, all that matters is the portrait not of beats on my dancing but the overall feel of the music, with my partner at mind at all times, which means, I’m back to fundamental rules of physical salsa movement when the lady isn’t advanced. And why I would love to go back to the roots of percussion, and what it meant, instead of just bodies moving to beats.

The being on beat I see as stepping on the 2 or 6 for the lady on her back right, or me on the 6 if I wish on the back 6 or 2. Which is pretty much when its "time" to being a move.

[borikensalsero]

after all that, I forgot to really say that they were really good descriptions, and nicely thought out.

[El Quimico De La Salsa]

Thank you, Borikensalsero! Reading your comments I see the first thing I should do to improve my description of the concepts:

To put at the beginning in big letters (stealing from Robert Heinlein):

Rules are for the beginners, salseros do as they grok!

I certainly do not want Salsa to become a codified, rigid, stagnant ballroom dance. I enjoy the freedom it gives me. The motivation for such description of the concepts came from watching beginners strugle to rediscover the ideas that more advanced dancers take so much for granted, they no longer wish to abide by them!

I view these "rules" more as a pedagogical tool rather than a gospel to live by. Once mastered, the rules are to be broken! But for a strugling beginner, I believe it's a nice safety net to hold on to, while trying to convert a set of unrelated moves learned in a dance studio into a coherent dance.

Thank you for your feedback!

El Quimico De La Salsa

[Genesius Redux]

I certainly do not want Salsa to become a codified, rigid, stagnant ballroom dance.

:lol: Codified rigid stagnant ballroom dance? :lol: Don't think I know any of those. I must be fortunate in my associations.... :lol:

[borikensalsero]

Rules are for the beginners, salseros do as they grok!
El Quimico De La Salsa

Ooh, that sounds good to me. :D :D

Indeed you are correct, at the beginning we do need that structure to get us set in the world of mambo... Then God forbid, we even forget what a basic is supposed to look like. :shock: