Being appreciated is wonderful and I thank Miguel Mayana London from the bottom of my heart for this LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – see 2019-08-02: Que Rico Salsa Party at White Eagle Club Balham – Awards Night! for details.
I’m writing a book about my salsa life and here’s how it begins:
In 2003 at the age of 57, after 2 years of being parted from my first wife, I occasionally used to go to The Pyramids in Southsea to enjoy simulated Summer time on the beach. One night as I walked towards the car parked nearby I noticed a pub called The Frog on the Front underneath The Pyramids and had a look inside. I noticed people dancing and was intrigued. I found myself wanting to do what they were doing because they looked so good. So I talked to the lady running the session called Heather and discovered that she provided free lessons every week on a Sunday I think it was – it’s so long ago I can’t remember! I was told she was a local celebrity who wrote a column in The News every Thursday – on subjects like: “Mattress Mambo” and earned a living advertising equipment on late night TV advertisements on adult channels.
I joined the class the following week. The lesson consisted of Heather showing us 3 meringue moves and then letting us practise them to music. After that she showed us 3 salsa moves and then let us practise them to music. This was great fun but over the following weeks I discovered that every lesson was the same and we never learned any new moves. It turned out the dancers I thought were so good weren’t really very good at all but during those early weeks my love of salsa dancing developed and has never gone away.
I discovered that a lady called Tracie Gooch ran salsa lesson near Southampton in a pub on the way to Southampton it was – can’t remember it’s name – but I really enjoyed going there every week while my confidence at dancing salsa increased. I particularly liked the lesson policy of encouraging ladies only to follow what they were lead and not what they knew was coming next. However, I didn’t feel that my ability to “dance” was improving so I looked around for other places to go.
I then discovered a fellow called Renato de Fazio was running salsa lessons at Tiger Tiger in Southsea. Every week Renato taught us 25 new moves which were Cuban oriented rather than cross body. He always liked to teach all the moves he had planned no matter how long it took which to me was disappointing because the dancing had to end at 11pm so if he went on teaching past 10pm, as he often did, we didn’t get much freestyle dancing.
I was very disciplined. After each lesson I would dance the moves with one of the good dancers, one of the less good dancers and then one of the beginners. This was often quite hard to achieve until I discovered that Renato taught the same lessons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in 3 different locations. I started going to all three and by the time it got to Friday it was hardly surprising that I was able to lead the 25 moves to anybody in the room. I think I impressed many of my partners with my ability to learn so many moves so quickly and Renato kept my naughty secret as he was always pleased to see me and knew it was good for his ladies to have somebody around who could lead his lessons well.
However, I still didn’t feel that I was learning how to dance and was amazed to discover that most other people simply went to the lessons every week and were happy to have learned a few new moves even though they could hardly dance them afterwards (leading or following) and forgot them within a week! Some people even went home immediately after the lesson which amazed me even more – how did they expect to learn anything – particularly if they were only going once a week!
Heather (of Frog on the Front fame) advertised 10 lessons for £25 at a leisure centre in Cosham. I paid my £25 and it looked like she was going to give me what I needed – a sequence of a 8 or so moves which I could lead like an expert rather than a hundred moves which I could lead like an amateur with that look on my face I saw so often on the faces of other men – a confused look – indicating that they couldn’t really remember what came next or how to lead it!
Heather had a strange dancer-side manner though and used to make jokes while she copied and ridiculed people who got it wrong. Within 3 weeks all the others stopped coming but not me because she had something I wanted – that sequence of moves I could lead like an expert. Not only that but she was one of those salsa teacher who liked to lead from behind so to speak. She was very strong so I knew that if I could learn to lead her I would be able to lead anybody in the world!
After the following 7 weeks of hating every moment of my time dancing with this difficult lady, I had indeed learned to lead those 8 moves to her. They became totally automatic and I used only those moves for the next 5 years. I worked out that I needed to lead them to lots of different ladies in lots of different venues in order to become world class at these 8 moves. This would enable me to concentrate on interpreting the music rather than executing the moves. I started going salsa dancing 5 or 6 nights a week all over the place from Lewis to Bognor to Kent to London to Reading to Bournemouth to Southampton and Portsmouth of course. During the social dancing I lead the 8 moves that I learned from Heather’s 10 week course and no others even if I did the lesson.
Most of the time I avoided doing lessons altogether because I didn’t need them any more though sometimes at a new venue I would help out with the beginners or do the improvers lesson just to get to know some of the ladies. Ladies always prefer dancing with men they have met with during the lesson. What I avoided like the plague is taking part in so called advanced dancing lessons which just made me think too much about what I was supposed to do next rather than just dancing in the music. I only forgot this a few times and regretted it for because my confidence almost died for a while before I got over myself . . .
I discovered the importance of weight transfer technique when I regularly went to Guildford on Mondays with Marchant and Davina. I noticed how smoothly Marchant danced and examined his style in detail whenever I got a chance. Please see www.wake.co.uk/my-salsa for more information about my discovery that good salsa dancing is as easy as waiting for a bus! An interesting result is that this leads to the break being so subtle that the difference between doing it On1 or On2 becomes academic. I have been to the party nights of many weekenders where the front of stage at the party night was occupied by On2 ladies waiting around to dance with performers. Invariably if I asked one of them for a dance they would say or finger: “1 or 2?” and invariable I would reply: “Let’s try one and see how it goes!” I say “party nights” because I tried a whole weekender once and didn’t like it at all. Spending all day learning new moves which I don’t need and all night dancing was totally exhausting and without useful purpose as far as I was concerned. When I dance I only think about interpreting the music with the partner I am dancing with and not about the moves which I find come naturally as we dance in the music. Infinite variations arise when you do that and the dance becomes for me something unique to this particular partnership for this particular track on this particular occasion.
I never allowed myself to dance with the same lady twice for many years. Once I had danced with a lady the challenge was over after all. If I danced with her again she would start anticipating my moves which did not improve my leading in any way. It did improve the dance in many ways and I would enjoy dancing with some of the ladies again after I had danced with all the others but first things first. I didn’t add a single extra move for several years and then only when I thought it was lead-able and would only lead that new move when it arose naturally during the dance so it depended on how good the lady was, the nature of the music and how confident I was feeling. Sometimes I made a mistake – or rather the lady didn’t do quite what I lead – and that became a new move because it worked so well. One facility I developed in cases where the lady didn’t execute quite what I lead was to adjust my position in such as way as to give the lady and any watchers the impression that she had executed the move correctly. Several ladies have mentioned how much they appreciated my doing this as it gave them more confidence to execute the move correctly next time rather than just feeling they got it wrong. I usually try to improve my lead for that particular move for this particular lady on the basis that any mistake in following is the lead’s fault not the follower’s. The most important policy of a good lead must be: make the lady look good and then you will look good too!
Sometimes I have been accused of being rough but this usually only happened with ladies who weren’t as good at following as I thought they were and surprised me by going the wrong way. Being a firm lead these unexpected mistakes could lead to the lady feeling that I’m being a bit rough and whenever it happened I realised that I had misinterpreted the lady’s ability to follow and adjusted my leading accordingly. Over the last few years I have worked on the moves where this was likely to happened and have virtually eliminated it happening by ensuring that the lady holds my hand rather than my holding hers. Sometimes I hold the lady’s wrist instead where I need to give firm direction but strangely enough there are ladies who don’t like this at all. I have to admit I prefer dancing with strong ladies with strong wrists. Those who have done jive or rock & roll are the best . . .
When I dance with a new partner I always start off with a certain sequence of moves which are designed to discover what the lady can do best. This way I can lead what she’s good at until her confidence increases and then get more adventurous. This includes discovering if ladies prefer Cuban like moves, moving anti-clockwise (cross body leads) or moving clockwise (reverse cross body leads.) This build up of confidence applies to experienced dancers as well as beginners. Even when I dance with one of the best dancers of all, Joanna Wosk, we always size each other up for about 10 seconds before we take off together on our flight of fancy!
In the early days I used to have the occasional really bad dance and would become depressed. However, I came up with a way to tackle this. I used to look for the saddest looking lady in the room and give her a dance. If I made her smile I would become happy again and my confidence would return and I would build back up to dancing with the good ones. After a while I decided that it was good for my motivation to go home as soon as I had what I regarded as the best dance of the night. This would usually be towards then end but occasionally happened in the first hour. I would always follow my intuition however and leave if I thought the dance was the best because what’s the point having any more dances that night if they are not going to be as good! Better to go home and dream about your last dance . . .
The one I will remember always is when I went to the show Havana Ratakan in 2008 at the Peacock Theatre in London. The dancers were from the University of Cuba and the show was excellent. After the show there was an after party organised by Mambo City nearby at the LSE. I danced with all the ladies in the show and discovered that only one – the star of the show – could actually take a lead well. The others had clearly just learned the choreography of the salsa dances in the show! At the end of the dance the star of the show said to me sexily in her husky Cuban accent: “I don’t normally like cross body – but I like yours!” Naturally I was over the moon and had to leave immediately!
At one time I used to dance a lot in Bournemouth and Yanet Fuentes was often there running a lesson or just dancing. For years she turned me down when I asked her for a social dance but one night I walked up to a lady who was facing the other way and asked her for a dance just like I would any other lady. She immediately accepted the dance but after a few seconds I suddenly realised it was Yanet and nearly fell over. The dance went really well and at the end when she thanked me I asked her why she had always turned me down before. “Because I dance Cuban while you dance cross body – I was afraid it wouldn’t go well but it did and I won’t turn you down again!” Needless to say it was time to go home . . .
One thing I learned from this experience is that all blockages are in your mind. All the previous times I asked Yanet for a dance I knew it was her. This time I didn’t. Now I always ask for a dance as if I have never met the lady in question and I expect her to say yes.
I met Colleen Daniels at an early stage (10-12 years ago I think) and was always pleased when she danced with me because I knew she was a well known teacher and performer yet she used to curtsy with her hands in the prayer position at the end of our dance and tell me how much she had enjoyed it – as had I of course. She still does this when we meet at venues usually in London.
Most of my best dances these days are with performers with my favourites being —– —– —– —– —–
I’m 74 this Monday and it’s 16 years since I first learned to dance salsa and these are examples of comments made to me everywhere I go:
“You’re amazing!” – Usually experienced dancers and they often say it every time I dance with them.
“You make me feel so confident!” – Usually beginners but sometimes improvers who haven’t been developing well.
“You make me feel like I’m dancing!” – Usually improvers or intermediates who haven’t been developing well because her leads have been thinking about moves rather than the music.
“You’re the only man here dancing to the music instead of just going 1-2-3!” usually life-long dancers (eg Spanish ladies) who have recently discovered salsa partner dancing and weren’t doing very well or weren’t really enjoying it with other men. They often don’t like the discipline of doing lessons and just want to be danced well.
“Thank you – that was beautiful!” – always experienced dancers and I always felt the same as they did at the end of the dance and said so because it takes two to tango as they say . . .
“Thank you so much!” usually said by a lady with a big smile holding her hand together under her chin and making a little curtsy.
Men often come up to me to shake my hand saying: “You are a brilliant dancer!” or something like that. These men often encourage their girlfriend to dance with me if I ask them because they want their girl to have a good time!
Many well known dance teachers & promoters like Miguel Mayana, Rasa Pauzaite, Collen Daniels, Philip Frost, Leoncio Caicedo, Enrique Perez, Moe Flex, Joseph Davids, Richard Marcel, Basil Pinnock, Fadi K, Jeff Tarpinian, Carlton Thomas, Michael Mandrel, Renato de Fazio, Laura Ann Williams and Heather Ross appreciate the quality of my dancing and welcome me at their venues & events.
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