Ceroc? No; Salsa!
I fancied a dance over the weekend and nothing really happened to plan so I went to a Salsa class. I had previously read Widipedia's entry on Salsa as my basis of knowledge about it. It was really quiet (which I hope for the lovely instructor's sake isn't a regular night). It took me a while to get into the feel of the footwork which is something like:
The basic movement occurring in the dance patterns of the various salsa styles is the stepping on the beat of the music. Salsa is best grouped in pairs of 4-beat patterns counted "1-2-3-...-5-6-7-...". The leader (male) starts on count 1 by stepping with the left foot. On count 2 and 3, he steps with right and left, respectively. On count 4, he pauses or makes an optional tap with the right foot. On counts 5, 6, and 7, he steps with right, left, and right, respectively, again followed by a pause on count 8. As a standard, every step must be taken with full weight transfer. The follower (female) part is identical, but with left and right reversed. In all patterns and styles, the leader starts with the left foot and the follower starts with the right foot.
So though I'm not going to make it a regular thing we went through the Mambo, Sidestep, Backstep, Backstep Across and, Mambo Twirl. I kept planning on changing moves mid sequence (i.e. on the fourth beat); which I couldn't do. However I did enjoy my dances even though they felt as hopelessly limited as my Ceroc did when I started that.
On top of the Salsa we also learned Merengue which was great fun. It's sort of like a march. It was interesting to see move similarities. The twirls were odd where it takes a full four beats to get around and the woman would do it and then the guy (under the same arched hands). There was also a double hand hold twirl were both people went under their hands and then lifted the other hand while dropping the raised one to complete a circle. There was a move where you turned opposite facings while lifting your hands over each other's shoulders and sliding down the arm into a hand hold (similar to a few ceroc exits just with it taking a bit longer and marching occurring at the same time). There was a move like a Basket as well except you started walking backwards when in the hold. All in all it was most interesting. I hope I can and least try a bit of Salsa at some stage in the next few weeks and see if I can still do the few moves I learnt :D.
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