Intellectual Dancer's Newsletter #009
Current state of mind:
We had another dance social here in Austin and I had a lot of fun dancing. By far the biggest social I’ve been a part of AV (After Vaccinations). I got to experiment a lot with urbankiz zouk and that’s been sparking different emotions within me. Dancing with a Brazilian zouk instructor feels vulnerable because there can be aware of the things I'm unconsciously incompetent (the first stage of learning); it’s almost like an x-ray vision into my limited abilities and the list of techniques I need to fix that I’m still unconscious of. Such an interesting mental space…
I took my first Lambada class with Devon, it was fun to delve a tiny bit deeper into one of the dances that lead to the creation of Brazilian zouk.
One of the influences of lambada is carimbo. I was struggling with timing of the lambada basic step. I remember taking a bachata musicality class with Carlos Cinta and part of the realization was being able to shift basic step of bachata to not start on the one so the tap fell on different counts. This is similar in salsa to how the steps can shift from dancing on 1 and on 2.
The typical BZ steps shifted in this way with the lambada footwork timing. I had a lightbulb moment, where I made the correlation between dancing Brazilian zouk steps "on 2".
With my primary dance urbankiz, it's very fascinating because we don't have a repeating 8 count basic, which allows the lead to really create their own rhythmical patterns on the fly. I'm still chewing on these differences as I'm navigating learning BZ alongside with urbankiz. I'll share more as I realize more along this journey.
I also made the realization that cariMBO and maMBO both end in MBO. I wonder there’s any historical overlap in the meanings and/or histories.
Song I'm currently jamming to:
Recent content:
My reaction video to social dancing with Rika is 75% done. Can't wait to share it with you all!
Question of the week:
Does dancing with an instructor make you feel insecure and your perceived skill level affect your confidence? Why or why not?
