Voltas and Bota Fogos

[Angel HI]

.....but if the body weight
is in the wrong place(s), then fancy footwork is irrelevent. Samba is the most difficult for lead+follow, but they don't teach (and probably don't know) how connection is achieved while moving the body.

Well said.

Please read carefully and pay attention at what the book says. Straighten the knee of weight leg, not the knee of free/moving leg.

Yet, we know from the 4 points of Latin movement that at no time in latin are both legs bent, but there is the point when 'both' legs are straightened (some Cha movement and Samba being the exceptions). However, in Samba, it is only an exception re the bent part. What the OP is pointing out is that Slavik seems to be missing the 'both' legs straightened part.

Remember Slavik & Karena is 2nd in World Champions contest.

Which means little in the vid and point in question.

 

[Partner Dancer]

Well, it depends. We have social and competitive dancers on the forum, so answers for various questions here are different for these groups. In my opinion, we should divide what is needed for dance to work "good enough", which is essential for social dancing, from what is needed to satisfy the judges on a competition, meaning your dance should also be a nice representative of a particular genre and interesting to watch

To me, there are skillsets needed in partner dancing that are basic
foundations, regardless of whether the goal is to please the partner
(socially) or the judge/audience (competitively). Good dancing is
good dancing. The proof of the pudding in the eating is in the implicit
"ratings" dancers give each other.

One of the primary differences between partner dancing and other
types of dancing is the ability to "work off each other's bodies."
This is done thorough connection. Even if the lead+follow is
reduced (through routines for instance), connection is still key,
as it determines how partners interact with each other (fluidity,
timing, cohesiveness, etc.).

Your assumption that social dancing only needs to be "good enough"
while competitive dancing has some "better" facet is just
a bias that has little to do with lack of connection in Samba, socially
or competitively. Unless people have decided Ballroom Samba is
just a line dance.

In case of competitive dance, it can work perfectly well for you and your dance partner, but it doesn't mean it will actually look as expected by adjudicators, as many things won't "just happen" the way they like them. So you can dance on latin competition for instance cha cha in salsa style, with bent legs etc, but even if you have better body movement and connection than other couples, you won't see the final. That's how it is

Even if you have "perfect" (to judges, whatever that is) leg movement,
you may not get into finals (because of bad connection, bad costumes,
whatever), because judges are fickle. It's the politics of dancing.

 

[Partner Dancer]

I agree that lead and follow is very important, and I do focus on that. But today, I'm focusing on arranging the deck chairs. While they may not be the most important part of the ship, I don't want my ship to have ugly deck chairs either.

The better analogy may be arranging the deck chairs after the ship has already
listed.

I'm all for microscopically examining vaious aspects of movement, but decades
of experience tells me that a large percentage of dancers never connect the dots.
An instructor who is still working on whether a student with 3+ years of Waltz
is doing heel or toe leads is hopelessly missing the big picture in the teaching
methodology.

 

[caw]

Please read carefully and pay attention at what the book says. Straighten the knee of weight leg, not the knee of free/moving leg.

And as I memtioned before, a dancer not only know the "rule" but also know what reason he must follow the "rule", if he breaks the rule, what happens?

The reason is that if he does not straighten the knee of weight leg in that action, he will have no bounce action, a very very characterized action in Samba.

Not looking on the knee of a dancer, just looking generally at his bounce action, the judge will know his problem.

Remember Slavik & Karena is 2nd in World Champions contest. And if judges do not affected by the fame/halo of Bryan Watson & Carmen, they would be the Latin World Champions in 2006-2007

You are correct. Now that I look more closely, they do straighten the standing leg as they push off of it, but they then bend it as they bring it across before placing weight. The book speaks about straightening the standing leg, and I super imposed my notion that if it's straight it would stay straight until it crossed. Nothing they do conflicts with the book.

But hasn't anybody else ever been told to straighten that leg before placing weight on it? To be in a position where both legs are straight before bending the new standing leg? I've heard it so often...

 

[Angel HI]

This is another "rule"! Please help me where I can find it?

Don't know if you can. This is probably more a rule of natural movement rather than a written rule of thought. This is to say that it becomes rule by rote movement as we practice the proper techniques of Latin dance.

I hope we don't fall into this trap again, as it is one of the biggest problems with "ballroom" dance... that so many try to dance it by engineered design, technical rule, and steps and patterns. Yet dance is movement, feeling, and interpretation put to, or better... developed into, design, rule, and rote. We can't forget which comes first.

 

[Partner Dancer]

as it is one of the biggest problems with "ballroom" dance... that so many try to dance it by engineered design, technical rule, and steps and patterns.

The engineered design is often pretty poor engineering anyway, as the attempt
to understand by piecemeal dissection as well as the attempt to create
uniqueness often ends up missing, and actually defeating, how the body works
"naturally." This is not to say Ballroom technique isn't useful, as collectively the
ideas have contributed greatly to the advancement (and enjoyment) of partner
dancing. But, the emphasis on copying others, on propagation of mis- or
inapplicable information, on others telling oneself how one's own body works,
or on only the mechanical aspects, obscures the ability to learn and improve
by "just doing it." There's a balance between being taught and discovering for
oneself (by simply trying/doing).

 

[RiseNFall]

I think I've said else where that I should be designated Special Ed for dance (and I say that as a high school teacher and don't mean anything derogatory by it). Once I get the feel for something, I'm fine, but it sometimes has to be broken down for me in incredible detail before I can begin to do it correctly to get the feel. And, of course, after it's broken down, we then have to work on putting it together in some sort of fluent fashion until it starts to seem natural to me. Fortunately, my teacher is both patient enough to keep on trying until I get it and knowledgeable enough to do the detailed breakdown. Some students can pick up dance more the way children pick up a language. Not me.