What's easier to remember - five moves or one move? Of course remembering one move is easier. Once you realize that most intermediate salsa moves are variations on 10 or so foundation moves, then you can group moves into families based on those 10 moves. Now five moves within a family become just one move done five ways.
See the list to the right? You may think I've listed dozens of moves. I did not! I listed 10 or so moves and then variations of ways to do them. That's the mindset you need to develop to simplify your salsa and get over that hump.
Let's take as an example the humble right turn listed at the top. There are many ways to do a right turn - I've listed seven different variations (and there are more). Each of these is very distinct. But it is still only one move, a right turn, done seven different ways, and not seven different moves.
Now apply that concept to all salsa moves. You can distill hundreds of moves down to families of moves that are based on common foundations. You may wish to organize them differently than I've done. But the concept should remain the same - grouping moves by similarity of the mechanics.
Another way to think about families of moves is from the followers perspective. Within a family, the followers footwork is often the same regardless of the variation. In our example above, the right turn, the follower's footwork is the same.
Simplifying the myriad of salsa moves into families of moves helps with recall. A single variation becomes one of a handful within a family of moves versus one of hundreds of all salsa moves.
It is also important to note that variations within a family often begin with different hand holds before leading the move. This is the basis for The Right Hold concept.
I know it's impossible to list all moves and variations as new one are being invented all the time. This is simply a list of fairly popular moves intermediate dancers use that I have listed to demonstrate how they can be grouped into families that have common foundations.
Note: I also have only listed led moves by the leader for the follower, and not moves for the leader themselves. Again, I'm not trying to make a list of all salsa moves, but rather show groupings to help demonstrate a concept.
|
|
|
|
