I am going to try and learn the moonwalk and how to spot the salsa rhythm this week. Quite strangely, they are very similar in nature though completely different on the surface. The prominent effect of each is just a facade to what is happening underneath.

There are actually several rhythms to the salsa all vying for attention. The most prominent is the cowbell racket, which serves as the metronome for the whole track.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 &. 1...

Following the law of contrariness, it is the least useful for dancing the salsa. The Conga and the Clave are perhaps the most useful for dancing. Their relation pretty much stays the same in most songs:


The conga is the muted low "DU DU" with the high "tu". In around 80% of the songs I have heard thus far, it sounds at:
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 &.
1 & tu & 3 & DUDU & 5 & tu & 7 & DUDU

The Clave rhythm can be interpreted in two main ways (and I am sure, a million other ways). Simply, it's a beat that goes:
Pa Pa, Pa-Pa-Pa

In the west coast LA "On1" style (and in my class) we choose to hear the clave as a 2/3 Split:
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 &.
1 & Pa & Pa & 4 & Pa & 6 Pa 7 & Pa &

But NYC chooses to hear the clave on a 3/2 split or the "On2" timing which is just the reverse of what the west coast does. So typical!
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 &.
Pa & 2 Pa 3 & Pa & 5 & Pa & Pa & 8 &

Put together, all of it roughly sounds like:
Pa Pa DUDU Pa-Pa-Pa(DUDU) - LA "On1"
or
Pa-Pa-Pa(DUDU) Pa Pa DUDU - NYC "On2"

Isolating this thread of the conga/clave rhythm in the cacophony otherwise known as salsa is really quite complicated, especially with songs that have more instrumentation and variations than... well, a simple clave and conga struck together. The montuno or the piano melody is sometimes helpful because its repetition helps spotting the initial Pa Pa.

Altogether, all of this is driving me nuts... I was chanting the Pa Pa DUDU Pa-Pa-Pa DUDU all of today morning and realized that it was a good way to look like I had lost some marbles. I should have just added my moonwalk efforts to make it more dramatic and completely asylum-worthy.

I stomped into class all ready to walk out after the beginner's class but could NOT pull myself away from the oh-so-cool steps that Sean and Sarah were teaching the intermediate class. Energy-beam Mariposa made it 5x more fun than it already was. As a result, I am still in both classes and danced every step of my way home today.

I still can't find the correct beat in the music, still can't do any body isolations and rolls and still can't follow intermediate steps. In spite of all these glitches, dancing with Sean and Sarah is probably my most favourite 2 hours in the 168 hours of the week. My spins are improving with the new shoes though.

What is it that these two have?

Magic? It certainly feels like it. I am so hopelessly in love with their classes :-)

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PS: Come to Salsa for the Soul at Configuration Dance Studio (Lexington and Ashland) and experience pure salsa joy with Sean Ortiz and Sarah Hooper on Thursdays:
at 6:30 PM: For the rocket-launcher absolute beginner class.
at 7:00 PM: For the advanced beginner super fun class.
at 8:00 PM: For the intermediate insanely creative class.

I went to Hip Hop Yoga at Hand to Heart Yoga with Erin today. It was a very interesting experience and not at all what I thought it might be. By yoga standards, it was a very intense and very aerobic one hour. I don't know where it stands by hip hop standards. I will probably take a sample class of real hip hop at Verve this Saturday afternoon and report back.

I broke out into quite a sweat. Some of the exercises pushed the isotonic limits of my puny muscles and I could actually feel my muscle fibres and bundles twitching out of sheer disuse. Maybe this is what Neo felt like in the first Matrix movie before he learnt to fly 60 minutes later. But everyone knows that only happens on celluloid. Because 60 minutes later, in real life, I bought swiss cheese slices and ate it on toast. I really like swiss cheese. It has a whopping 20% calcium and 8g protein in one serving.

I also love Celia Cruz.

And I sorely, no, make that VERY SORELY missed her during the class. My muscles probably ached for her because I didn't dig the soundtrack to my exertions so much. I am not sure what the other yogis in class thought. Quite inexplicably, all of them were named "Sarah". Not that replication of names has anything to do with musical tastes... The point is, for me, without Celia's clave, everything was slightly off tune...

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Apart from reservations about the music selection, I really liked the class today. I am not entirely sure if it's hip hop, though. It could be... but to my untrained senses, it seemed more like a hybrid of yoga and aerobic dance. I will go again next Wednesday and see if my muscle endurance has improved any. Meanwhile, I am going to have to increase my consumption of egg whites and cheese if I keep up with all this dancing and hurrying about in knee-deep snow. Not an entirely unpleasant side-effect... :-)

I somehow drank a lot of chinese loose-leaf green tea today. By "a lot", I really mean A LOT - close to a litre or more. I didn't stop there. I went ahead and ate all the leaves as well because they tasted pretty good at that time - a flavour-packed cross between kale, spinach and mesclun. Their total packed volume equaled around 8 ounces (half my generous tea mug).

I shouldn't have.

Now my teeth feel as if they are about to fall out. It's not a dream. They really feel like they are doing one of those synchronized-in-a-row rockette kicks and getting ready to pop out, any moment now. It's not painful but it's such a peculiar floaty feeling - localized to the gums.

I am now wondering what chemical in those leaves has produced such a potent alteration of perception. I am just a bit curious if anyone else has had such an experience. But then, maybe I am being too optimistic about there being people out there who have actually downed a liter of green tea and eaten all the leaves after that.

I just hope they don't really fall out. I can't deal with being toothless tomorrow.

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On a side note, searching for "teeth falling out" on google images brings up a video-chat still of (e:paul) and (e:lilho) labeled "lilhowithbandwidthleprosy1090". 6th row from the top:

I posted the live salsa version of this earlier but I couldn't bear to listen to Chemaney going off-tune and murdering the Ricardo Montaner melody. It may have been great in his album but his live version annoyed the hell out of me. And the flamenco dancer was creepy and his jeans were ridiculous.

So here is the much-loved original.


Since I criticized Chemaney's ludicrous jeans, I feel it's unfair of me if I don't even comment on that beach-shot cover of Montaner's album. That has got to be the fake-est beach-shot ever, don't you think? He is sitting IN the water but his trousers are completely dry with the waves splashing all around him. What did they take Montaner's listeners for? Blind?