I mentioned a while back that I bought 20 hours of private lessons after having completed my 1 year salsa course. Wow, you wouldn’t believe the stuff that I learnt on posture and weight transfer.
I have noticed that with Salsa you really learn how to use your body effectively. I was watching Buffy the vampire slayer the other day and noticed how she does one of this martial arts spinning-kick ( I think its called round-house kick). I managed to do one using my salsa spot turns. It wasn’t perfect, but it shows how learning to use your body is the root of great salsa dancing.
So now my teacher has asked me to do a competition with her. Well this requires super advanced private lessons where she really drills me on posture and nitpicks every little detail, but mind you this is only for my school’s summer ball and nowhere near the big times, but it’s a start. Learning to dance never stops. It’s fun.
Marie-B 11:12 am on May 21, 2009Permalink |
I’ve done 15 years of ballet before thinking of salsa and even though both styles are very different, weight transfer is a recurrent thing in dance… For me, when I dance with a guy if he transfers his weight properly, he won’t have to pull on me to lead I just feel his weight shifting and it makes the dance way smoother…
Where have you been taking classes?
Don Vaillancourt 11:19 am on May 21, 2009Permalink |
San Tropez. My private lessons teacher is Kassandra, a real cutie. She too has 7 years of ballet and 2 years of salsa. For a girl with only 2 years of salsa she knows a lot.
I have been meaning to ask her if she has carried any of her knowledge from ballet to salsa. Maybe you can answer that?
Marie-B 11:34 am on May 21, 2009Permalink |
When it comes to salsa, Liz and John from LA once told me something that I believe is very true: « The way you become better in salsa is by cross-training: by studying all kinds of other styles: Flamenco, hip-hop, ballet, tango, etc… and being able to mix all of them up
As a ballet dancer, it was almost natural for me to spin. Also, alot of my arm styling seems alot smoother than other salsa dancers because ballet teaches you how to be smooth, sensual and girly… It helped on the flexibility for the dips and lifts. Also ballet is very precise 45 degrees means 45 degrees not less not more…
So in a way it did help. What is the hardest thing is breaking what they call the ballet corset so basically getting the hip motion and my afro-cuban.
One other thing is that if you put too much ballet in your salsa, it looses it’s essence and it becomes difficult for the guy to guide you because the following part is really existant in ballet and too much styling is like not enough : BORING!
it’s all about nuancing things.
Btw, try taking a couple of classes with Corinne, she’s incredible: she’ll teach you so much!
Hope I answered your question well
Don Vaillancourt 12:05 pm on May 21, 2009Permalink |
I have seen Corinne dance once at Salsateque for fun and another time at Academy showing off their pro-competition routine. Really amazing.