Hi, I think in social dancing most people dance quick quick slow, and depending the timing (on 1 LA, on 2 new York, on2 palladium) they may look different. However, there are salsa songs where the congas are not necessarily predominant and even the bass sound at time 1, or the sound is sharper than cadency conga based themes, at those songs, dancing on1 may even look and feel better than dancing on2. So I think it is great to try to dance all the styles and adapt to the particular song. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Yes you are right, certain songs feel better with certain styles. The Main thing I am adressing with my Natural Approach Using the Congas is 99.9% of the Salsa On 2 are teaching an approach that is counter productive and unnatural. Therefor making it more difficult for students to learn and actualize their full potential as a dancer. This is what I discovered and have spent 18 years trying to fix. Only the Natural dancers "figure it out." And that is not fair. You pay money to learn, and they teach you the wrong timing, but you are supposed to one day figure it out on your own. Also, if you like the way the conga rhythm feels to the song, even if the congas are not loud, once you know where they fall, you will still be able to dance to it. Just like a Congero places the rhythm there for us. You essentially will be playing the drums with your dance. Thanks for watching and replying!
Discovered it some time ago by myself... but to be honest what it truly is - it's a mix of ET and palladium counts. You move the leg already at 8 but defacto switch weight on 1. Universal way of dancing is having 2-3 and 6-7 as it is and the remaining steps to do (change weight) anywhere between 4 and 5 or 8 an 1 respectively. From strict weight change point of view - You still dance as You called it - ET version ;) It is a lot easier to get and align to any of those counts if someone dances cha cha cha/boogaloo as well ;)
Oye papá, gracia por explicar eso! I really think that the discrepancy here with these different approaches to ON2 steps comes from the historical context of when the mambo y el ritmo Nuevo de Cuba started to mix with the Jazz in New York City back in that era in the 50s. This is why people even to this day will dance Cha Cha Cha ON1 when a cha cha cha song comes on at the social as opposed to dancing it ON2. Which it makes more sense totally to dance cha cha cha ON2 because the shuffle step will align with the 4-&-slap (kun-kun-pa) of the Conga's Tumbao rhythm. But I think that people's ears in NY at that time were so accustom to Jazz that it felt natural for them to dance the Cha Cha Cha ON1 even though it was technically and musically incorrect. This is documented by the words of Dizzy Gillespie himself when he talked about how he had to learn how to phrase his trumpet in a the Cuban style in alignment with the clave, like the cuban soneros would do. This discrepancy is now evolving and crossing over to salsa with ON2 dancing. Thanks for breaking down these different approaches because currently people are teaching their students what they call ON2 without the context of the different "approaches" of ON2 that exist now and without knowledge of why dancers from afro-cuban rhythmic origins accent the second beat in the first place. I feel like this falls on the responsibility of instructors in general to give cultural context to rhythmic approaches, not just mechanical steps (which is what is usually focused on). On top of that, as the SON & mambo music from Cuba moved into the New York spaces... like with the palladium era you mentioned.... you had different ears listening and interpreting the music the way they naturally heard it. There was white people, black people, jewish people, etc all up in these NY big band clubs all listening to this music. What I think dancers should understand is that something that sounds natural to you doesn't necessarily mean it's correct. It means that's how your ears were trained and conditioned to hear it. The era of Fania in New York later in in the 70s evolved the salsa even more from its roots by taking out the syncopation of the bass guitar. The straight bass style was used more in Jazz the syncopated bass style was used more in afro cuban styles. The bass in classical cuban music was always syncopated (this is an homage to that African feel)... this can heard in the marímbula when it comes to changui and it could be heard in cuban son as well. So now like the comment below you have salsa songs that make more sense to dance ON1 to because the bass is str8 as opposed to leading into the accented second beat. This also become interesting when we get to more contemporary styles like casino which is a cuban style danced ON1 and other newer salsa styles like Salsa Choke from Colombia, etc.... But even though there are evolutions I agree with you that dancers, especially when starting to learn ON2 should have an awareness of the original ON2 coming from cuban SON and Cha Cha Cha, which is leading with the 8-&-1(kun-kun) and breaking on the 2 (the slap). This topic I’ve noticed has some tension to it, in the dance community, primarily because people use the excuse of wanting to freely express themselves and not wanting to worry about the technicalities. But I always question… how can we truly express our fullest potential as dancers with out a through understanding of the technicalities and ancestral musical traditions these dances and rhythms comes from? So thanks again for bringing these topics to the light, I hope more people watch your videos Mayne!
When you are dancing on 8&-2-3 / 4&-6-7 are you not really stepping with the ball of your foot on the first eighth note (8 or 4) then lowering your heel on the & of the four or the eight... and finally shifting your weight on the 1 or the 5? This means that the 8&1/4&5 steps are as long as the 2-3 or 6-7 steps. This gives the slow - quick - quick impression. Just my On2 cents. ;)
the problem that i see with this style is that i have noticed that many salsa artists get creative with the "cun-cun" and sometimes it's not really a "cun-cun" but just "cun"... so... that style would not be musically-accurate (in my opinion) to these songs...
It's not right, that nothing happens on 4 and 8 in Eddie torres style. You move a lot shifting your whole body und hips as well. that nrabs a kot if flow. you can even dance different phrasing. there is actually lesser difference between your approach and palladium the you talking about, it's just phrasing, thete is no difference between placing steps. so i disagree stringly with your explanation. by the way which basic i prefer is a matter of the music. old school Mambo fit's Palladium style your approach is good for son montuna music and so on ... anyways its good to talk about such things. maybe you can think things through again.
Hi, I think in social dancing most people dance quick quick slow, and depending the timing (on 1 LA, on 2 new York, on2 palladium) they may look different. However, there are salsa songs where the congas are not necessarily predominant and even the bass sound at time 1, or the sound is sharper than cadency conga based themes, at those songs, dancing on1 may even look and feel better than dancing on2. So I think it is great to try to dance all the styles and adapt to the particular song. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Yes you are right, certain songs feel better with certain styles. The Main thing I am adressing with my Natural Approach Using the Congas is 99.9% of the Salsa On 2 are teaching an approach that is counter productive and unnatural. Therefor making it more difficult for students to learn and actualize their full potential as a dancer. This is what I discovered and have spent 18 years trying to fix. Only the Natural dancers "figure it out." And that is not fair. You pay money to learn, and they teach you the wrong timing, but you are supposed to one day figure it out on your own. Also, if you like the way the conga rhythm feels to the song, even if the congas are not loud, once you know where they fall, you will still be able to dance to it. Just like a Congero places the rhythm there for us. You essentially will be playing the drums with your dance. Thanks for watching and replying!
Thank you boss 🥰🥰
Thanks for sharing what is normally not taught. Looking forward to your other videos.
Amazing thank you
Discovered it some time ago by myself... but to be honest what it truly is - it's a mix of ET and palladium counts. You move the leg already at 8 but defacto switch weight on 1. Universal way of dancing is having 2-3 and 6-7 as it is and the remaining steps to do (change weight) anywhere between 4 and 5 or 8 an 1 respectively. From strict weight change point of view - You still dance as You called it - ET version ;)
It is a lot easier to get and align to any of those counts if someone dances cha cha cha/boogaloo as well ;)
Oye papá, gracia por explicar eso! I really think that the discrepancy here with these different approaches to ON2 steps comes from the historical context of when the mambo y el ritmo Nuevo de Cuba started to mix with the Jazz in New York City back in that era in the 50s. This is why people even to this day will dance Cha Cha Cha ON1 when a cha cha cha song comes on at the social as opposed to dancing it ON2. Which it makes more sense totally to dance cha cha cha ON2 because the shuffle step will align with the 4-&-slap (kun-kun-pa) of the Conga's Tumbao rhythm. But I think that people's ears in NY at that time were so accustom to Jazz that it felt natural for them to dance the Cha Cha Cha ON1 even though it was technically and musically incorrect. This is documented by the words of Dizzy Gillespie himself when he talked about how he had to learn how to phrase his trumpet in a the Cuban style in alignment with the clave, like the cuban soneros would do. This discrepancy is now evolving and crossing over to salsa with ON2 dancing. Thanks for breaking down these different approaches because currently people are teaching their students what they call ON2 without the context of the different "approaches" of ON2 that exist now and without knowledge of why dancers from afro-cuban rhythmic origins accent the second beat in the first place. I feel like this falls on the responsibility of instructors in general to give cultural context to rhythmic approaches, not just mechanical steps (which is what is usually focused on). On top of that, as the SON & mambo music from Cuba moved into the New York spaces... like with the palladium era you mentioned.... you had different ears listening and interpreting the music the way they naturally heard it. There was white people, black people, jewish people, etc all up in these NY big band clubs all listening to this music. What I think dancers should understand is that something that sounds natural to you doesn't necessarily mean it's correct. It means that's how your ears were trained and conditioned to hear it. The era of Fania in New York later in in the 70s evolved the salsa even more from its roots by taking out the syncopation of the bass guitar. The straight bass style was used more in Jazz the syncopated bass style was used more in afro cuban styles. The bass in classical cuban music was always syncopated (this is an homage to that African feel)... this can heard in the marímbula when it comes to changui and it could be heard in cuban son as well. So now like the comment below you have salsa songs that make more sense to dance ON1 to because the bass is str8 as opposed to leading into the accented second beat. This also become interesting when we get to more contemporary styles like casino which is a cuban style danced ON1 and other newer salsa styles like Salsa Choke from Colombia, etc.... But even though there are evolutions I agree with you that dancers, especially when starting to learn ON2 should have an awareness of the original ON2 coming from cuban SON and Cha Cha Cha, which is leading with the 8-&-1(kun-kun) and breaking on the 2 (the slap). This topic I’ve noticed has some tension to it, in the dance community, primarily because people use the excuse of wanting to freely express themselves and not wanting to worry about the technicalities. But I always question… how can we truly express our fullest potential as dancers with out a through understanding of the technicalities and ancestral musical traditions these dances and rhythms comes from? So thanks again for bringing these topics to the light, I hope more people watch your videos Mayne!
When you are dancing on 8&-2-3 / 4&-6-7 are you not really stepping with the ball of your foot on the first eighth note (8 or 4) then lowering your heel on the & of the four or the eight... and finally shifting your weight on the 1 or the 5? This means that the 8&1/4&5 steps are as long as the 2-3 or 6-7 steps. This gives the slow - quick - quick impression. Just my On2 cents. ;)
When dancing, why do you go forward on two???
Bro, this would have been a whole lot more easier to understand if you actually had someone playing the conga beat
the problem that i see with this style is that i have noticed that many salsa artists get creative with the "cun-cun" and sometimes it's not really a "cun-cun" but just "cun"... so... that style would not be musically-accurate (in my opinion) to these songs...
It's not right, that nothing happens on 4 and 8 in Eddie torres style. You move a lot shifting your whole body und hips as well. that nrabs a kot if flow. you can even dance different phrasing. there is actually lesser difference between your approach and palladium the you talking about, it's just phrasing, thete is no difference between placing steps. so i disagree stringly with your explanation. by the way which basic i prefer is a matter of the music. old school Mambo fit's Palladium style your approach is good for son montuna music and so on ... anyways its good to talk about such things. maybe you can think things through again.