- The mirror can be used in a studio when practising or in a lesson or at home getting that bodyroll down.
- You’ll invariably have chances to watch other dancers
- Sit ups are doable, and most runners, or health conscious folks will do a few fairly regularly (though i’m seeing the Wii Fit might hit an audience that might not normally do so!)
- Body isolations – wouldn’t know how much most people do them.
It’s definitely stressed much more in hip hop, and belly dancing for example, and used within group lessons i’d imagine.

Do most lessons or instructors let people film in class? I think I banged on about it a while back hehe.

For all the dvds out there, there is a paucity of actual easy to access cough (iPhone friendly) cough snippets for a move, with the basic angles.

An example. You’re wanting to recap on some old moves you’ve done or seen. You’re at home.
Where’s that side on view of a salsa slide to 1/2 turn?
2:37 into Chapter 13 of Strictly Come Salsaing DVD 2.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see what a salsa slide into a round the world would look like?
Let’s just get the Salsaero for Dummies DVD 3 out, Chapter 8, 2:39 in, or 46:23 from the start with the head on view.
Cue one up on VLC, one up on WMP… Hmm, looks good. And so on.

A slightly different angle on the normal salsa training video. Yes, part of a turn pattern, but one that can be created by bolting moves together…
And it’s coming back to how you learn. I have a recollection of a salsa article, describing how the first x bars worth of moves were the most important, to remember the pattern. (Less advanced moves would be shorter turn patterns, or able to break them down).
Want a hot new move? Bung video 25, 34, 45 and 56 together in a playlist, and boom, a new turn pattern. Ease of sharing that turn pattern, once dancers both have the necessary videos? Just a simple playlist file.

Who wouldn’t give a few quid to have a decent video library of moves they’d been taught in the past? It’s one of the topics that consistently reemerges when talking to leads. Yes, practise is the thing. But what if you can’t remember it to practise it again? Rely on those scribbly notes? No wai hosai!

But what about having video of turn patterns you’ve learnt/been taught/others have been taught?
Suddenly the salsa lesson instructor can become an open source teacher rather than a guardian of secret move knowledge. Do slowly learning pupils equate to more money for instructors? It’d be a brave instructor to demo the concept, but it’s not too far away.

What’s hindering the process?
Time
Hardware – the ability to film the moves, easily.
Software – how to edit, encode, share, upload the clips, and then have a system to use them in, rather than just a folder full of files like 080804.mkv …
Lack of need?/lack of ease of doing it
Pressure from instructors to not open source dance instruction

I’d put down a few dollars to say that in the not too distant future. the capability to edit video on a phone, or playback frame by frame/have a shuttle wheel multitouch like capability will arrive.

Who would have totally expected that you could fit:
A recording studio that included
1x 2 octave grand piano
High medium and low Tom drum, 2 high hats, 2 snare drums & a kick drum
1x 4 string electric guitar
1x Blues guitar, with
1x Audience

all into a phone? ((Band app) It isn’t just instruments, you can fit a fully working mobile music creation beat making studio in there, via BeatMaker app)

So you could potentially cluster these together. Get the ability jump to these sections. side on view? Click. Front on? Click. Follower moves w/o lead present? Click. Leader only part of the move? Click.
Having multiple little video segments might be a pain, and chapters within a longer video might do it.

Now, if you could intelligently link to chapter markers within 1 long video on a turn pattern, you wouldn’t need all the smaller files necessarily.

Another concept, for learning:

- Some reference videos of a given move are created, for the sake of the example, lets say with a front on and side on view. Doesn’t have to be 1 person making the reference move. This is crowd sourcing
- Given a standard known BPM was set, anyone who wanted to, could then record on a phone lets say, dancing to that BPM. ( using a metronome, or playing the reference song to get in time).
- Upload the videos
- Put the videos side by side, match the start, then use the sound from one video (probably the reference video, which would have a better coding/bitrate).
- Boom! You’ve got comparative playback, that could be private, or open.
- Using the right encoding, and you could also do a frame by frame fwd/bckwd option. Get an overlay for the beat, to display on say 3-4 frames worth per beat.

Even if this is an outlandish wish list, would the potential for a video clip library be tempting? Also, think “Sweded” videos! – A favorite move on a DVD? You can’t copyright a move, right? Think mashup ups, on a salsa move scale…

I’ve been told I had castle in the sky thinking previously*, but the predictions are coming true, and I thought i’d put these ideas out here, to see if anyone thinks they might be useful, if they could be made feasible.

Apologies for hijacking the thread