Hi, and Welcome .

Pull up a chair, put on your dancing shoes, relax and enjoy.

This site is about the things I love to be and do.

Dancing, Dogs and Quartehorses  is an apt title for my personal life, apart from my journey to discover and reveal the person that my dogs think  I am, my life truly is made up of Dancing, Dogs and Quarterhorses.

If you are interested in what I’ve done professionally and perhaps still do,   then a visit HERE might be worth a look. ——– and that’s as much as I’m going to say about business.

Dancing

One of my passions is Salsa, particularly “Cuban Casino” Salsa and its variant “Casino de Rueda”( which is Cuban casino danced in with a group of people in the form of a wheel where the moves are called by a caller), and its great fun.

I was first introduced to salsa music while I was on a Coaching course in Payson Arizona, by a colleague of mine and fellow coach, Adela Rubio. As it so happens she was a fabulous singer/ dancer and taught me my first few steps of  Salsa . I was hooked.

 

Adela came from New York and was one of Eddie Torres’  students  so I started of dancing Salsa in its American crossbody form ie “NewYork On2″,  When I came back to the UK I found that  there aren’t many On2 teachers in the UK, so I took up the more popular version in the UK  ”NewYork On1″.

Being the “all or nothing” person that I am, I dived in and tried to soak up and assimilate as much of it as I could get a hold of, but the style became a challenge.It was very balletic, routine oriented and felt more like  a ballroom style , it portrayed what I would call “suits,boots and sequins” and was very formal.

 The unfortunate,or perhaps in hindsight fortunate, thing for me was that my teacher at the time would teach crossbody routines that have a  formal feel to them and then, for practice, play Salsa music that was very free, edgey and freeflowing. The dance and the music just didn’t fit each other. So all the routines that were learnt couldn’t be practised  very well. I wasn’t a very happy bunny.

But, me being the persistent bugger that I am and the type of person that immerses themselves deeply in something, I wasn’t going to give up and  so I went along to a “3 day Weekender” in Pontins Pakefield to try to learn more  but frustration set in to the point where on the Sunday evening the music was just too edgey funky and raw to dance Crossbody to. I spent the most part of the  evening listening to this fabulous music that I couldn’t  dance to.  So I thought “I’ve got to do something about this”.

So into my Scorpio detective mode. I did some research, and discovered that there is this other style of Salsa  which was the Original Cuban form called “Cuban Casino”. and by luck and good fortune I found out  that this  great Cuban Casino Teacher “Richard Fallon” from “La Clave Cubana” was teaching Cuban Casino in Norwich. he City where I was born

Wow, I thought, “Thats only 50 odd miles from where I’m living right now. I can do that”. and so my journey to heaven started.

I had discovered “Nirbana and seen the light” and I discovered that for me, Cuban Casino is the business, its funky, free flowing, down to earth, its about connection with the music and with your partner,and the cuban dancers are very very  friendly people. The movement is completely different than the American Salsa styles (crossbody) as you dance Cuban in a triangular/circular form whereas the crossbody styles are danced as though you are dancing on tramlines/ Rails which I found to be very restricting and doesn’t allow for much expression,  as I say now  “Not Suits No  Boots, No Sequins No Rails.

I’ve had an interest in dancing for many years. When I was in my mid-teens in the sixties and live bands  and dance halls were the way we entertained ourselves, the best way of  getting a girl were to make sure you could jive and rock and roll. So, guess what I did,  I became a  boogie woogie, jive and rock and roller.

Now some think they are the same thing but there’s quite a difference, not only in the dance, but in the energy and the personalities of the folks that danced them. but no matter what the style we all had a great time.

I didnt like disco too much as there was no, or at least very little, contact with partners.