I got to road trip down to the U of M today to dance salsa rueda with their club today. For those of you who are not aware, and do not feel like taking the time to YouTube it, rueda is a style of salsa where all the partners form a circle, then perform moves as directed by the caller. People switch partners in the course of different moves and everyone has a grand ole time!
I really like rueda! Anyone who reads my Facebook statuses probably already knew that. Part of the attraction lies in having the moves called. For me, a lead, that removes a great deal of the pressure to come up with interesting things to lead. I am told exactly what to lead and, as long as I know what the move called entails, which can be problematic when one goes somewhere new to dance and has a ton of new moves tossed at one's self, I know what I'm doing is what I am supposed to be doing.
The odd thing is that I am pretty sure that my worries about boring the follow by leading the same move a few times in a song, not in a row, are unfounded. Not only have follows told me that because they are working to interpret what the lead is indicating rather than planning what to do they are unlikely to even notice a bit of repetition, I have also experienced this first hand those few times I have tried following. I was much to busy trying to make sure I was doing what the lead wanted me to do, or at least something similar, to worry how much I was doing a certain move. Of course, I'm a pretty bad follow. But still, rueda provides a nice respite from this worry, irrational as it may be.
Which makes me wonder, how many of the things that we think others expect of us are actually just our own, incorrect, expectations? But really, go look at a YouTube video of rueda, it looks amazing!
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