Heads, Hearts And Hands

Last weekend, in between my DJing slots at ¡Parranda!, one of Solares' participants made a significant observation. It goes something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

"When I play the tumbao moderno rhythm, I listen to certain instruments. When I play the boogaloo rhythm, I listen to different instruments. Each rhythm I play, causes me listen to different parts in the music."

I've been waiting for that observation.

It indicates attainment in Bloom's: Analysis stage of the Cognitive (knowing/head) domain; the complex Valuing-Organisation stages of the Affective (feeling/heart) domain; and, the Perceptual stage of the Psychomotor (doing/hands) domain. Three other participants had alluded to being at similar points of development, but this was the first crystallised articulation.

From: http://institute-of-progressive-education-and-learning.org/k-12-education/the-progressive-era/
 All Rights Acknowledged.

It means that for the majority of Solares participants, they are well up the hierarchies. There is much more case-example to be learned to facilitate Synthesis (cognitive) and Characterisation (affective), but we are within the threshold of Skilled Movements (psychomotor).

That tells me where they're at. Next, I have to explain the observation.

Loo

12th Night Extravaganza 2010

The North's first regional shin-dig of 2010 re-adopted the shape of an all-dayer with a pre-event party; a format which had served it well two years ago when the Extravaganza was located at St.John's. This time, it was spread across two sites: the salsa hotbed that Wetherby's Engine Shed has become; and the facilities at the University of York.

I'd hatched plans to inflict myself on the Pipers this whole weekend, arriving with a salve of aged rum and delectable chocolates. Stepping over the threshold, I piled into the bustling activity of pulling the paperwork, equipment, and comestibles together for 'Shedding'; the new popular verb that the region's salseros of the region have come up with. Uncertainty lingered in the air held aloft by the harshest winter in three decades - the same stretch of weather which had affected 4de12's gig in Yarm, had put paid to a vast number of salsa-related events in what would normally be peak lesson season.

As it turns out, consternation need not have creased their brows.

A great number of salsa faithful braved icy conditions to dance at Wetherby, filling the Shed to comfortable capacity. The pre-event party began with chachachá lessons for a change: beginners on the upper floor led by George 'Dr. Salsa' and Vicky; 'improvers' on the main floor with Lee and Nuriye. I was very interested to experience how U.K. mainstream salsa teachers approached the teaching of this dance 'club-style', and so spread my time observing the two classes.

Both of them were conventionally routine-based. The primary emphasis of the beginners class was on the rhythm and then in the context of a short sequence; the timing stresses were ballroom On2 instead of Cuban contratiempo. The content of the intermediates class drew from International Latin (I saw a fan and a natural top) with little tweaks brought in from Cross-body salsa. As the foremost objective of any club teaching is engendering the confidence to use the material within a limited time, it was a mark of success to find chachachá on the floor throughout the evening.

The Engine Shed was everything I remembered it to be when 4 de Diciembre last brought it live salsa: everyone is welcoming and accommodating, the atmosphere suffused with a warm vivid energy. The night sped away, powered of a myriad of fine and sometimes barely-decorous dances. By the time the Pipers and I returned to Base Camp to grab some shut-eye, the clock had ticked perilously close to 05:00.

Four hours later, Tony and I were unloading kit in front of York University's Roger Kirk Centre. This year, having found my feet around the event, I eschewed attending the sessions in favour of being organisationally more useful. What time there was in between, I spent caffeinating and socialising in part as barometer to the success of the event.

Then late in the afternoon, I spotted Alex Wilson and made his acquaintance.

Apart from his band being the main attraction that evening, Alex was at 12th Night with Lee Knights to run an evening session promoting their newly-released endeavour "Find the Rhythm". The pedagogy of Latin rhythm is a matter very close to my heart and we experienced no uncommon ground; I found Alex to be a man hugely talented, yet unassuming and disarmingly engaging.

He invited me to the soundcheck, an opportunity I could not have passed up.

It was highly educative. Here was a performer who knew exactly what he wanted, and the sound crew were all the more appreciative for it: from how he laid out the stage, listened to the individual instruments, the verbal expressions used in describing the sounds he was after, the meticulous attention to detail. With the whole band together, he did as I do; use the soundcheck to hone specific sections of the playlist.

Alex Wilson engaging with Front of House during soundcheck
(Public Address provided by JSS Audio)

I must mention Elpidio Caicedo, the bassist from Buenaventura after whom the number Sabrosón is written. He's an irrepressible ray of Colombian sunshine (seen above in the woolly hat) blessed with a great set of pipes: playing Latin bass and taking lead vocals simultaneously commands respect. Talking drums and music with the rhythm section over dinner made me late for Alex and Lee's class. After leading the band back to their dressing room, I slipped into the main hall to find the class of fifty split into three groups doing vocalisations for tumbao moderno (congas), martillo (bongó), and cáscara (timbales) - Alex dubbed them the 'Human Salsa Orchestra', and it was an attendance that only someone of his musical standing could have inspired.

The objective was to open the band's second set with staggered entries of the three sections and the session closed with a practice of these entries. This was the second time that this workshop had been run by Lee and Alex, and I can't help but think that Alex missed a trick here. Percussion, though crucial, can be pretty dry on its own - it would have been a little bit of magic for the attendees if Alex had jumped on to stage and accompanied the Human Salsa Orchestra on the piano for a few bars, just to tie the class up with a pretty contextual bow.

The last time I saw Alex Wilson and his band was at the Derby Assembly Rooms in March 2007 when his cover of Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" had stormed the salsa floors. This time they were even better: then, the orchestra leaned definitively towards Soul; at the Extravaganza, Soul was artistically counter-balanced with a more profound expression of Latin rhythm. But I'd already expected this after hearing a dynamite güajira influenced snippet at soundcheck.

Among an evening littered with highlights, one of the brightest has to be sharing a dance with Lee to Alex's "Inglaterra" with Elpi hooting at us over the montuno.

It was daybreak by the time the Pipers and I had finished undoing the ravages of the Extravaganza. Sunday afternoon lunch was a leisurely affair, and Tony tells me that the day after 12th Night is always his most relaxed in the year. It was dark by the time I stepped off the train at Sheffield station.

Casting back a year ago, I remembered thinking that Tony was risking an awful lot by considering booking Alex; Palenke were unavailable, and he didn't want to bring 12th Night down the value chain by not booking a band. The Extravaganza has always been a labour of love for the Pipers, and I'm thankful in the end that it still is.

Loo Yen

A Weekender At Red Hat Salsa

"That's a whole weekender" remarked Christophe.

I hadn't thought of it that way. It was that dwelling period that we have over coffees just after lunch - one of the little luxuries we to afford ourselves as we catch up. The inimitable man from Biarritz had just asked me how much teaching I was to do in Reading next weekend. Christophe knew my nose had been kept firmly to the keyboard; organising material for the workshops, and having to put plenty of salsa-related items, like the updating of this blog, on hold.

It happened a while ago when Sharon, who runs the successful Red Hat Salsa in the Reading/Bracknell area, contacted me by email after happening across the salsa-merengue.co.uk website in a bid for more words on salsa's history. We kept the jungle drums beating while I was in the Far East, and together finally arrived at a date, times, and topics for things she wanted me to cover for Red Hat.

Although I'd already sent outlines to her whilst in Penang, I decided to make a rod for my own back and go further by preparing indicative schedules, just as I'd done for Tony Piper at 12th Night.

I regard this as simply 'best practice'.

• A well prepared schedule questions the best order of priority for the learning points, identifies aspects that might otherwise be overlooked, and forces the design of flexibility into its structure.
  
  
• A primary factor affecting the performance of a guest instructor is an understanding of local learning culture. Treated as product specification document, the process has given us both (with me being the provider and Red Hat Salsa the client) a chance to prepare something suited to the purpose.
  
  
• It informs parties of what to expect, that way only those genuinely interested in the topics will attend. Sometimes this can be a source of tension for promoters who want as strong an attendance as possible, but thankfully most acknowledge that a successful workshop is of better long-term value than a well-attended disappointing one.
  
  
• Detailed documents are a source of strong marketing support to the promoter, and having been on the receiving end more than just a couple of times, I make sure I do my utmost to help.
  
  
• A schedule also provides an educator (i.e. me) with a performance benchmark against which feedback can be used to identify areas of success and improvement.
  

I also took it as an opportunity to do some long-overdue house-keeping of my learning materials.

A question which posed some internal conflict was, 'should I restrict circulation of the documents or not?'. All know-how is hard-worn, and certainly in the case of Verdant, the more important the information, the more qualification is required of the potential recipient.

But salsa is different.

For better or worse, I don't instruct in the same arena as most social salsa teachers so there is no need to indulge in competitive defensive practices. But there is something more fundamental at heart - when I first started teaching, I made a personal promise not to hold back; this was after experiences, with myself as student, of teachers who did. When I emailed the files to Sharon, I made no mention of any restrictions in distribution - they've since passed through her mailing lists.

So here it is, the workshops for Red Hat Salsa next weekend:

1. Saturday Morning: A Year In A Day, Part 1 - The Efficient Mover
2. Saturday Afternoon: A Year In A Day, Part 2 - Power and Culture
3. Sunday Noon: Hear It, Imagine It, Dance It - The Route to Improvisatory Dancing
4. Sunday Afternoon: Dancing Beyond The Count

That's a whole weekender alright!

Loo Yen Yeo

A Depth of Latin Culture: Boogaloo (Part 3)

Then he hit me with another! His keyboard must've been afire that night.

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Why do DJs play boogaloos when nobody can dance to them, the beat is almost impossible to follow, unless of course you abandon training and just disco down?

[ends]

Now that's what I call 'a quiet-looking sentence with a big stick'. One could write reams of pages about beats being difficult, 'abandoning' training, boogaloo, and the relevance of the disco era to salsa. It IS a good question, so I owe it to the both of us to have a run at a considered response.

An impossibility of beats
Boogaloo's rhythm structure contains African American as well as Nuyorican elements. Salsa dancers are used to the latter which has much of Cuban origin, although the placement of the accents varies with region (see later post). But the heavily obvious hand claps on the back-beat and the different language rhythm of lyrics in English obscure the traditional elements with prominent ones unfamiliar to the Latin genre. In many recordings, the instrument balance of the arrangements are tilted towards the soul layers; and even the Latin rhythm mainstays of piano and bass were altered, diffusing their clave feel.

I ear-train others for boogaloo by putting on a chachachá and get participants to dance salsa clapping to the backbeats. I then introduce the concepts of 'call-backs' and 'call-and-response' using participant-led exercises. Half-an-hour is the average it takes to become consciously competent with the transitions - a rather good time investment if you ask me.

'Abandoning' training
Good training is transparent and eminently adaptable - it allows one's dancing to be configured anywhere in the spectrum from looking 'natural' to standing out. In the question's sense, the dancers are either unwilling or incapable of adapting to boogaloo.

I haven't yet found a magic charm for the unwilling, but the latter is most effectively addressed via a parametric approach to skills-based training while instilling an appreciation for the context of the boogaloo. The so-called 'Latin crossover' movement musically involved the incorporation of the then mainstream elements, and its physical expression does the same: the onlooker, being more familiar with movements in the popular vernacular, interprets this visually as being 'free-form'. Hence Bosco's reference to...

Discoing down
Here, a breadth of training goes hand-in-hand with a depth of culture. To establish the vernacular vocabulary, I typically introduce three simple modes of movement plus a sprinkling of short motifs (more accents than shines) drawn from the cakewalk family of dances, as evolutionary starting points.

Participants get exposed to jive (French and ballroom); twist, swing and lindy hop movement; and maybe a touch of the hustle if there's time. The scheme is to learn first how to characterise and compartmentalise each, and then learn how to let them 'bleed' through into salsa selectively. That's my favourite definition of 'letting go': the deliberate relaxation of boundaries surrounding a dance.

The obvious question is, 'why would you teach ballroom jive over the hustle?' I acknowledge that the hustle is closer in cultural context to the boogaloo in NYC. However within the limitations of a workshop, the practice of ballroom jive develops skill-sets more pertinent to the other boogaloo.

Boogalooing
Boogaloo and salsa are little differentiated in Colombia, of which her Cali step is iconic. Sometimes perceived by onlookers as being danced in double time, the rhythm on the foot remains the same as 'On1' found elsewhere, but the swiveling of the hips accents the upbeats. This means that practitioners of the Cali step plough twice as much kinetic energy to a partnership system than the average dancer, so you'd better be prepared - if you've got one of these pocket dynamos on your hands, you really know about it.

A fine exemplar of Cali steppers dancing to colombian salsa/boogaloo

Ballroom jive's body position, action, and especially its toe-heel-swivel step provide the most successful starting points in getting to grips with the fleetness of foot and lateral hip motion accentuating the upbeats.

Which boogaloo are you boogalooing to?
The New York City one, or the Colombian one where Caleños played NYC boogaloo records produced for 33rpm at 45rpm? I reckon Cali's energy-burning style should come with a mandatory Surgeon General's health warning attached to every one of her dancers.

(On to Part Four.)

looyenyeo

18th May 2008 Teaching Salsa @Wolfson College, Oxford.

Ten years ago a very intelligent trainee salsa teacher asked me a simple question, "where is beat one?" His name was Nicholas Marquez-Grant, I call him Nic, and I'm pretty sure that he wasn't aware of the sequence of events that he would set in motion.

I recall sitting with him on some stools in the University of Sheffield Union of Students' Raynor Lounge, listening to salsa music issuing from a CD player, indicating where the start of the dance cycle was, whilst the rest of the trainees were practising their bolero walks. It was a frustrating experience for him and me both, and I realised that I was trying to help him acquire timing, not teaching him. It exposed, in the most unkind of fashions, my lack of knowledge.

In the summer of that year, I bought my first set of congas and I began to teach myself to play. One year later, after I'd acquired a set of bongó and a range of hand percussion and learned to play them as well, I began the first of a series of AfroCuban percussion workshops. Three months following that, the band which would eventually become known as 4 de Diciembre was formed.

And in all this time, Nic had been moving on after finishing his degree in Sheffield, but we did keep in sporadic touch. He eventually ended up in Oxford, where amongst other things, he began salsa classes at Wolfson College in 2005. Nic always had it in his mind for me to visit Oxford; to see the sights, be a house-guest and perhaps a salsa-teacher-guest. And it wasn't until last weekend that our schedules coincided enough for that to happen.

Nick, Nico, Federica and Loo
(enough about 'roses and thorns')
Photograph ©Copyright 2006 Federica Ferlanti. All Rights Reserved.

My Sunday class at Wolfson's Haldane Room was booked from seven through ten in the evening, and we'd already been in much discussion beforehand about what Nic thought would be useful for his students to learn: ear-training, use of rhythm, and different types of movement. The content and the timeframe was ambitious - I've conducted similiar workshops before, albeit with much less content and more time for practice. But given that this was a one-off masterclass, we both agreed that this would be the best way to go.

The ear-training workshop has got a very different learning paradigm; students of salsa are accustomed to entering a class and working on physical skills, and many find a change to the abstract and non-physical quite disorienting. It is the greatest potential hurdle to the workshop's successful attendee buy-in.

The turnout was just right for the room size and comprised of salseros from Bea's Oxford University Dancesport Club salsa group as well as Nic's classes. In the first half of the workshop we covered: the standard set of rhythms, backbeat (tumbao moderno) and pulse (hand percussion); rhythmic agreement and complement; and ear-training. Then I encountered phenomena which I recognised from teaching the Salsa & Merengue Society's Teachers Training Group of yore, but for the first time outside of it...

Firstly, the dancers were capable of absorbing much more information before they began to saturate; secondly, they were able to focus and sustain a quality of practice; and thirdly, there was evidence of assimilation and extrapolation based on the questions they asked. So when the conventional end-point was reached, there was still enough in the tank for us to push on to understanding the meaning of "attack" (in the context of early, middle, and late beat) and its relevance to the regional music and dance styles. After a short break, we touched on biomechanics in movement and compared the general regional postures of Eastern and Western Cuba.

My main regret about doing workshops like these is the lack of follow-through. I would have loved to go on to clave, polyrhythmic expression, and to have provided enough supervised practice time. As it was, by the time we finished the only place we could find food was the-now-soon-to-be-legendary "Halal Munch", followed by a brief 30 minutes of dancing at Bar Risa.

I conducted an follow-up lesson two days later: an educator's perspective of salsa dancing in the acquired mode.

I don't travel much for leisure anymore, but I'm glad I did this time. Catching up with Nic, seeing Oxford through his eyes and meeting his friends were all great experiences. And working on salsa with such cognitively quick dancers also brought its own rewards. But most of all, I will remember last Sunday as the day I was finally able to answer an excellent question.

Loo Yen Yeo

Salsa Ear-Training Series Completed

It's done.

I was not sure this day would arrive... the day when I finished the Salsa Ear-Training series that I started three and a half years ago. But with uploading of the timbale rhythms tutorial, it's happened.

I was in a meeting with a colleague, Adrian, about the delivery of material on a new MBA programme a few days ago and we were talking about blogs, about how useful they were to the people who wrote them. More so perhaps than to those who read them (sorry, no offence intended). As I finished the file upload I took stock of just how much of a learning experience this has been. Similar to blogging, the writing of each lesson has brought its own rewards but the intensity of effort has been orders of magnitude higher: in design, planning, validation, and critical self-reflection.

And did it work out to plan?

Timbale shell strategy
©Copyright 2008 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

I'd say so. The structure and progression must have been robust from the beginning, because no changes proved necessary over the fourty-plus months it took to complete. I would have liked to say that it worked out better than expected but I can't, because it was so highly specified in the first place (and you should be the judge of that) that exceeding the targets was never likely.

The design route of the learning section did assume unexpected changes of emphasis, to reflect the changes in the salsa scenes themselves - locally, nationally, internationally, and even transnationally. The original path, in my naïveté, was to have increasing levels based on dance vocabulary. However as more instructors came on the scene, plenty of vocabulary resources became available and there didn't seem much sense in reinventing the wheel. As a maturing instructor, I moved to skills-based learning - an adjustment which works better with the prevailing vocabulary-based environment. Salsa Level Two then became about helping people learn how to use rhythm, level three about using their bodies, and level four about bringing the body and rhythm together.

I don't think this process will ever end, the writing of lessons I mean. Nor would I want it to. But it's nice to have closure, albeit in a relativistic sense.

looyenyeo

Ear Training Tutorials

You wait ages and two come along at once.

A songo variation
©Copyright 2008 Loo Yen Yeo. All Rights Reserved.

Actually as of this writing, I've only released one: the last one of the series called "More Salsa Tumbaos". The other has already been written and I'm just waiting for Jeremy to finish the final track for it. Maybe he already has and will pass it to me tonight at band practice. We'll see. Good things come to those who wait, and Jeremy does only the good stuff.

The salsa piano tutorial has been the most sought after by far, although in recent months the email requests have been dying down. Understandable really, since I've been able to update the website only in fits and starts. What gave me the final push was the tremendous response from the musicality sessions of the 12th Night Salsa Extravaganza, where there was a genuine expression for the need of it.

I'm glad I took the time, instead of publishing it a year ago as I had originally intended. In the ensuing period, many more resources and reference materials have come to light that have radically reshaped the way I've written it. As I did more reading, out went draft after draft. The end result is the most complete I could make it for the intended audience, and I'm unusually content.

It does mean that I will have to write a further two tutorials in the advanced studies in rhythm section called "Rhythm Sense", which are both already underway. After having finished laying down all the lead vocal tracks, it's nice to have some time to get back into educative writing.

Release of the piano montuno tutorial will mean that only three proposed Ear Training ones remain. This might alter, but I'm looking into the possibility of deploying material from the recording project.

Now that is an exciting prospect.

Yeo Loo Yen

A Herculean Effort

That's the only way I can describe the challenge that faces York's larger-than-life salsa teacher Tony Piper every year in his administration of the 12th Night Extravaganza. With his steely-eyed glare, he must stare the task into cowering submission; and he must do so with increasing ease given that the annual salsa event of the North just keeps on growing from strength to strength.

The rest of the time Tony's sweetness and light (he'll hate me for saying that).

Now I'd heard a lot about the 12th Night over the past few years, in favourable terms and in increasing numbers, but somehow I'd contrived to retain my 12th Night virginity... that is until last weekend. You see several months ago, Nicolai (Fuego Latino are partners in the event) sounded me out if I would be interested in teaching a timing workshop. As usual, he's a real charmer. After drinks and discussion with Helena, Tony and Nicolai on a Sunday evening, I did the professional educator thing and submitted a workshop definition document for their approval. I also spent part of the Christmas break mulling over a lesson plan broad enough to suit the contingencies, yet targeted enough to be coherent.

And so the first Friday of 2008 proved to be a bit of a mad rush, but with the help of Dan Flower (fellow salsa teacher, friend and partner-in-crime) we wended our merry way up north on his wheels, where we checked into the Monkbar Hotel and walked the 200 metres or so to the venue: St. John's College on Lord Mayor's Walk. On entering Temple Hall, water bottles at the ready, we found that the lessons were still on the go. No matter... I love watching others teaching and yet more others learning.

Being a stranger to the York scene and this event, the evening dance was a sea of unfamiliar faces dotted with the occassional friend. Dan and I put ourselves about a bit and were never short for partners, which we took as a positive indicator of a vibrantly open-minded scene. The only thing stopping me from dancing more was the prospect of teaching the next day and the heat - that'll teach me for not dancing more whilst I'm in the tropics! The main draw that night was "Bourbon y Tequila" a north-and-south 9 piece salsa band based in Leeds. I'd heard a lot about them and was keen to watch them in action.

So when they came onstage, I put my music director's hat on.

They played two sets comprising current standards, the vast majority of their numbers were covers. They played tightly, which told me that they gigged often; and their strongest point was their horns, which were very well arranged and gave them a big brassy sound. The sound engineer Om got the balance right too, although I personally would have preferred a bit more cut from the bongó and more rounded open tones from the congas. I do feel that they suffered somewhat from the lack of backing vocalists, which meant a lack of harmonic timbre and a smaller framework for improvised lead vocals. This was most noticable towards the latter end of each song, where I got the distinct feeling whilst dancing to their music that they should have ended each one sooner instead of drawing things out. [I used to face a similar issue with 4de12, and opted then to do things the hard way: to keep the songs compact and increase the number of numbers in each set.] I think that this would have lent their sets more energy and texture.

Having said all of that, my bias towards live music will always ensure a positive critical attitude. Overall I think they acquitted themselves very well and many of the dancers there thought so too. Soon after they'd finished, I was off to bed.

First thing the next morning, Dan and I hit the hotel restaurant for our cooked breakfast and cups of tea. We were joined by delightful fellow-Sheffielders Mandy and Heather, who told us with bleary-eyed enthusiasm what a great time they'd had the night before, and that they were going to snooze again after breakfast. No such luxury for us, we were teaching in one of the morning slots.

All beginner and improver classes were located at the Students' Union building, and Tony was taking the first slot which differentiated (educator-speak for breaking up a class by student ability and experience) part-way between Tony and Mary, and Alfredo and Christine - all of whom are teachers of SalsaYork. Dan and I didn't need much coaxing to join in as man-meat lead-filler. I'm glad we did, as it gave me extended contact with the students before it was my turn to teach the timing workshop.

It's one thing to teach timing over three hours to a select group of trainees whom you've gotten to know over a period of several weeks. It's quite another to teach timing to a group of improvers with whom you'd only just met, in one hour. But I was not afraid. No. I had three major factors on my side: Dan on the decks who made the operations of the lesson run smoothly; Nicolai as a reassuring and familiar face to the whole class; and plenty of planning on my part. It went without a hitch, and we managed to preserve the course's 100% success record. Usually it's the men who struggle the most in conventional timing lessons so I use them as the benchmark. At the close, they were moving to time with that glint of certainty in their eyes. Magic!

The college is a school for the performing arts, so there are plenty of spaces for dance instruction - it's a genius place to hold this event. We moved the instruments into the staff room, and I got acquainted with a few more instructors before hunting down an unfulfilling lunch in the cafeteria. That proved to be a blessing in disguise as I attended Guillermo's rumba guaguancó class soon after (he's from Guantanamo). Boy, was it energetic! I wish I'd had pen and paper on me to write down all the exercises he put us through. With rumba being a long-time curiosity of mine, I'm right now figuring out when I can make a commitment to travelling up to attend his lessons regularly.

Since I was due to teach the evening session I made a break for the hotel to freshen up, where I caught up with Dan who was sneaking a power-nap. With no such time to spend, a shower and change later, and we were out in search of an early evening meal. York can be a bit of a tourist-trap for the unfamiliar, and I certainly fall into that category. We found a place with passable but overvalued Italian food before making it back to the college in time to set up for my second workshop.

When my charges walked in, I could tell that they'd had a long day, and I knew that they'd struggle to deal with the abstract concepts and the different teaching paradigm. They did try their utmost; no-one was there who didn't really want to be there so, credit to them, they really stuck at it all the way through the advanced material. We took the time to digress and talk about the various timings that pervade the salsa scene, which everyone seemed to get a lot out of (that flexibility is one of the benefits of a workshop format). I learned quite a bit too, about the landscape of the UK salsa scene, just from direction of the questions asked of me by the attendees. Then everybody scarpered to go and watch the dance shows because I'd overrun.

Although there were mitigating circumstances, I'm still slightly miffed with myself for delivering a less than scintillating lesson. Next time I do this, I'll have to plead with Tony to schedule my classes for an earlier time, and I have to tighten the specifications of this particular level of workshop.

I danced the remainder of the night, right up to the close. Lubi and Tony played great sets, and I sensed a more of a care-free attitude - people weren't consciously holding anything in reserve like they were the night before. I congratulated Tony, Helena and Nicolai on a great salsa weekend.

The next morning, there was just time for a friend to friend chat with Nicolai over breakfast before making tracks for home. It was a beautiful bright day.

Okay, I'm not getting any younger and it did take me a few days to recover, but that's the most fun I've had at a salsa event in ages. (Excepting the ones where I'm there as part of the band of course!)

If that's the shape of things to come, then 2008 could well be the big momma of all salsa years.

Yeo Loo Yen