I had trouble spinning this past class. I always landed a bit to my right when I completed the spins... and got a bit dizzy.


I guess I need to practise something called "spotting". It is described in detail at this

Apparently...

It takes practice and you have to go verrrry slowly at first to get the hang of it... but you will be rewarded by non-wobbly turns, balanced stops, and a better feeling in your stomach all around.

Dancing is best learned visually, so I strongly suggest asking your teacher to teach you how to spot your turns.

You know how if you get motion sick, you're supposed to look at a stationary point? That's the idea behind spotting. If you're looking at something stable, your body will feel stable.

Here's a basic way to practice it without worrying about turn technique:

1. Facing straight ahead, find something to fix your eyes on that is eye level or slightly above. This is your "spot". It may be a wall clock, poster, anything that isn't going to move.

2. Slowly start to turn your body, keeping your focus on the spot *and your head stationary*. At this point your body is turning under your head, almost as if your head is floating. Once your body has turned as far as it can without moving your head, turn a little more so that your eyes are looking sideways at the spot. You are looking over your shoulder.

3. Without moving your feet, and keeping your body as still as possible, turn your head to find the spot looking over the other shoulder. This is the opposite of what happened in step 2 - now your head is turning above your body!

4. Always focussing on the spot, complete the turn with your body.

So your body starts the turn, your head whips around to catch up and go ahead of it, and then your body catches up. Your eyes are on one spot except for when it turns so fast you don't have a chance to get dizzy.

Practise this slowly, stopping at each step to make sure there is full separation between the head and body turn. Do it in each direction. Once it starts feeling familiar, do it without stopping the (still slow) rotation.

Then, do it for the types of spins you do, and work it up faster and faster. While practicing alone, you'll have to find a suitable spot in the room. If you're doing partner dancing, often you'll be spotting on your partner's face.

The other way of avoiding dizziness while spinning only applies if you are not generating the spin or unable to spot without disturbing your position; that is, if you are spinning in a lift, or in a super-fast spin where the partner is really powering it and you are basically turning on the spot. In those cases, you have to learn to "blank out" and not see the room, just sense your own balance and then focus as soon as you exit the spin. Those are special circumstances though!

But I am afraid all that detail sounds a bit like this right now...


Maybe I just need shoes that will not put a brake on my spinning all the time...

{Cue music!}

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

ahead for Buffalo.

But mainly, I wanted to dwell on just how awesome Etta James ALWAYS manages to sound.


I love that surly little grittiness in her voice.

I was listening to the song that (e:Paul) posted on his miss-you-already-(e:terry) post (e:paul,53129) today morning and I could only think of Etta James and didn't she capture the very feelings in her own twisty way so many decades back?!

I could hear this song so clearly in my head that I had to hunt it down!

Oh, and (e:libertad) reminded me of this one!

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

The NYC edition.



You have to appreciate how popularly arcane urban art can be! haha

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PS: I saw this video first in my salsa class. My dance teachers were fascinated by the new moves. I was fascinated watching them so immersed. I love how involved they are with dance. It's almost as if dance flows like art and blood through them and they live for the thrill of dancing. They inspire me so much it's hard to express in words. They ARE art.

I think I could be a massive hip hop fan (especially with southern roots, they are SO catchy!) IF ONLY they didn't insist on crooning out absolutely offensive and downright annoying lyrics with those really outstanding tunes.

Does it all have to be about crime or calling women all kind of juvenile names?! It irritates me so much because I really dig the whole rhythm and the complex multi-layered arrangements of several hip hop artists but I just don't want to listen to them singing about how they clobbered someone to death (and not in a black noir way, either) or how their guns and drugs are so cool.

Of course, I have the option of turning off the vocal frequencies, but the problem is the vocals are so much a part of the melody and rhythm in the song, the song loses a LOT if you eliminate the vocals.

Man, how I wish they all sang/rapped in French!

Hippety hop dilemma.

Okay, I spent every minute of my mp3-player time today playing traditional salsa by greats like Roberto Torres (and OMG-so-popular-its-POP Marc Anthony) and listening for this Clave Rhythm:

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

I am nowhere close to deciphering this elusive rhythm in real salsa songs. But the funny thing is I can now hear it clear as day in Prodigy's d&b hit.

(Yeah, I know. Weirdest video ever. And I have no idea what they are croaking on about in the middle of all those raving-loony-peeping-into-screen dance moves. They definitely need the hospital. Any hospital. But listen to that clave right there! Listen to that d&b clave!)

At this rate, I might start hearing the clave when people speak. Who knows...

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PS: Being a bit salsa-clave-overzealous nutcase here but I also found a software called "The Salsa Rhythm Machine" at this I am going to give it a whirl and report back.

PPS: The Salsa & Merengue Society's website is an absolute delight It's so plain and innocuous but every little corner is a nifty surprise!

Cue music!

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

I godzilla-stomped through Sarah and Sean's basic dance moves and yet, they made me feel as if I was their best dancer on the floor. They are probably the most amazing pair of teachers I have ever met.


At some levels, their class reminds me of the days I struggled to comprehend the molecular orbital theory. In fact, salsa and the orbital theory share more intricacies than you might think is possible. It's all about energy levels, subshells, orbitals and spins. Solo salsa steps closely mirror the energy densities of s, p and d orbitals.

At the heart of all salsa steps is a return to a high energy center - the S orbital.


You step out of the center and distribute the energy a bit to the periphery capturing the P orbitals.

The d orbital is all those twirls and twists subtly layered on top of the p energy density distribution.


And if you didn't guess already, the f orbital houses the salsa shines and some of the inspired freestyles by Sarah!


The molecular orbitals or partnered dancing becomes easier once you get the gist of the atomic orbitals or solo salsa! Oh, and there is also this perplexing mystery of how exactly one picks up the rhythm of the clave in the music and decides to dance on-1 or on-2.


I spent a good chunk of time listening to the Salsa Beat Machine at the but the beat of this quirky instrument is one of the toughest to isolate in the middle of all the other instrument racket. I read somewhere that some people are born with the rhythm resonating in their bones. I think I can believe this easily of Sean and Sarita. There is something so very inherently rhythmic about the way they move. If one of them is dancing, they can make even the most waddly of partners look graceful and poised.

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PS: Drop by the Configuration Dance Studio (at the corner of Ashland and Lexington at 7:15 PM on Thursday evenings) for some super-stylish Salsa Chemisty with Sean and Sarah! Catch up with Salsa for the Soul at: and

I browse the Sartorialist for fun. I just saw this picture. The little kid looks somewhat like my brother... back in the day. I had to post it here, just so I could look at it and smile! :-)


From the Sartorialist, November 9, 2010

I am at home on a sunny beautiful weekday after a really long time. As wonderful as it sounds, it's not even remotely satisfying. Every 10 minutes, I am coughing out what looks like greenish-greyish-yellowish globs of primordial slime. I am sorely tempted to post a gross picture here but I am trying not to offend (e:libertad). :-)

The thing is I have dance class at 7:15 today. And these two are my instructors:


I know. It's intimidating, especially when you have cold and can't think straight. Last week, I was caught up in lab and crashed the intermediate class instead of the beginners class. It didn't do my confidence any good but it was fun to watch all the footwork and see Sarah and Sean dance. I am hoping that I am well enough to get there at 7:15 today.

Oh and before I forget, I can't really be at home for long because my cells need some TLC in the lab.

I have a terribly sore painful throat right now - probably a result of lecturing at the top of my voice for two and half hours combined with a pharyngitis causing virus. My throat probably looks like this:


What is worse is the nagging feeling that I didn't really give an interesting lecture. I wasn't feeling the joy I usually do and totally violating my personal rule of presentation zen. I was miles away mentally, worrying about my lab assays and data analyses while I was lecturing. I didn't connect with the students. As a result, I feel very fake and very ill right now and down in the dumps.

Maybe it's the impending cold or maybe it's just a realization that I didn't get all my energies out there conveying a simpler message to the students - always a sign of bad and graceless teaching. I feel as if I misused the time of those 25-odd students in the class. They definitely deserved a better lecture than this.

Sincerely yours,
Swimming-in-misery-and-throat-inflammation.

I am very depressed that my workplace decided to cut down all the full-grown trees in front of my office and build an ugly cement rink and footpaths that were completely unnecessary. It is true that some of the employees complained about suffering falls in front of the building because of the uneven footpath. Instead of advising caution while walking, recommending sensible footwear and non-invasively fixing the few uneven concrete slabs in the walkway, my workplace, in its infinite wisdom, hired an industrial-scale landscaping crew/demolition squad, dug up all the grass and uprooted the mature trees that had probably grown there for nearly 40-50 years, judging by their girth and root-size.

The trees brought character to the building and filtered light through their beautiful foliage. When they turned, they were awe-inspiring and soothing to the senses. More importantly, they were part of the natural air-quality control near the periphery of the campus where employees, who are probably blind to the ill-effects of smoking, continue to smoke like chimneys and blow out puffs of smoke all through the day. As far as I know, these four trees were causing no structural damage to the building. I would be interested in hearing why exactly they needed to be chopped down and uprooted for no reason other than to satisfy some dull and unimaginative aesthetic.

The "tree of life" - a sad-looking evergreen at the centre of the Kaminski gardens in the campus was structurally damaged during the October snow storm a couple years back. A million emails were sent out to the employees and everyone else to assure people that the pruning of that tree was only made in the good faith that it would grow again. However, there has been no word of explanation, or even acknowledgement that cutting down four healthy trees is a sizable and real concern.

It is not enough that our recycling program is so patchy, that the employees misuse paper as if it grows out of thin air and that we "are proud to partner with" coke. Now, we go and cut down trees that have slowly grown over 40-50 years. All of this, compounded, makes me think that we are a cancer fighting institution only in name. Through our actions, we are indirectly destroying the very environment that contributes to our state of health. Our non-existing conservation strategy and poor decisions subtly have a detrimental effect on the health of our neighbouring communities.

Deforestation can NEVER be justified by some perverted notion of aesthetics or urban planning. I am sorry, but whoever argues that landscaping justifies cutting down full grown trees is an environmentally oblivious selfish human.

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PS: The official suggestion box comments have been ignored since June. I'd be glad to hear what logic they could possibly have for cutting down the trees.