Last night I went to a gym, le Moving, where they have salsa nights on Fridays and Saturdays. Classes started around 9h30 though I think they were slated to start at 9. The entrance fee was 12€ plus 2€ for the vestiare. Drinks and snacks were included in that price. Watery sports drinks or sugary water, crackers, candys, and nuts. Also, coffee and tea. The hall is also non smoking which is very refreshing if you’ve spent any time at concerts in Paris.
I took two classes, the first a Puerto Rican style beginner class, which, like the other classes of that style that I have taken, progressed more slowly, and with lots of attention to detail. It was taught by a woman, who focused on foot work, general tips for learning salsa, and a few basic turns.
- Listen to latin music at home and walk around doing the pas de bases (basic steps).
- If the man doesn’t push you hard enough to do something, don’t do it, you aren’t helping him by cheating if you know the combination.
- Keep firm arms, so that you can be guided, the elbow should never go behind the back.
- Keep your fingers in a U-shape, so that the man can take your hands to guide you whenever he would like.
- It you aren’t sure what to do, do the pas de bases in place and wait to be guided.
- Keep your hands above waist level, it will automatically make your dancing look better.
I’m sure there were many more tips, but these caught my attention.
The second class was a begining Cubano class taught by an incredibly tall man. We progressed very quickly through several spins, and variations on the “Dile que no !“. Cubano classes progress so quickly, you will never be bored, but only a couple of the guys in the class had understood leading enough in a basic way to make the dance work as it should. I have to admit I cheated a bit and did my steps without being guided. There was also a girl in the class learning to do the part of the man. This seems really useful, as, at this particular club, there were a lot more women than men. A fair bit of time was spent waiting to be asked to dance.
After the classes were finished they turned on the funky lighting and lit up the vegas style palm trees. A DJ played a mix of music, from normal salsa, to hip hop and classic french music with a salsa beat interposed. There was also two other kinds of music, which required two other ways of dancing, but I don’t remember what they were called. One required three quick steps in place and then a hip movement (more or less upward), then repeat in the other direction. The other seemed to be mainly steping back and forth from one foot to the other and doing salsa type moves in slow motion. It made me feel dizzy, oddly, since the spinning was so much slower.
Elvis and Marilyn are here, and larger than life.
Club MOVING de THIAIS Belle Epine
3, Rue des Alouettes
94320 THIAIS Belle Epine
Téléphone 01.45.60.54.00
Fax 01.45.60.97.89
Manager Daniel SOIRAT
RER C – stop Pont de Rungis – Aeroport d’Orly
It is a 15 minute walk from the RER station. I would be aware walking at night though as it is a very deserted area. I saw people living in trailers parked on the street, lots of broken glass, a smashed car, and young people driving like I used to drive when I was 16. Not a pretty sight. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I got a ride home, so it was still light out when I walked the route.
I believe it is every Friday and Saturday night classes starting at 9h, dancing starting at 11h. But call ahead because I believe last night was the last class until after a summer break of 1-2 months.
Comments
5 responses to “Le Moving”
Sorry to have to break your already good french, but what you call the “pates base” is really “pas de bases”, said with a spenglish accent “passe te baze” => “pates base”. Which is exactly what your mean by base steps !
Ooh!
Thank you! Fixed it. You should have seen how I spelled “dile que no” at first! But I’ve already corrected it. 🙂
Just found your blog by chance while doing some google search and thought i could make myself useful by bringing you some precisions (hoping my English will not look too “French” ^^).
About the two other kinds of music you danced/listened to :
* the one with the hip movement is called “bachata”. A famous bachata song is “Obsecion” from the “Aventura” band, you’ve probably already heard it. Also please note that the hip movement is not necessary. The thing is that, in Dominican Republic (where the bachata comes from), people almost never do the hip movement and when we (French people) go there and start dancing bachata like we’ve been taught in Paris, they make fun of us, especially of guys, because it’s not considered being a “manly styling movement”. ^^;
* the other kind of music (which is like salsa in slow motion) is probably the “merengue”, also coming from Dominican Republic and the Caribbean Islands in general (as far as i know). The other main difference with salsa is that there are no pause in the basic step in merengue, whereas in salsa cuban style you have pauses on 4 and 8 and in the puertorican style you have pauses on 1 and 5. Well it’s not exactly true for the puertorican style because there are actually many puertorican style variants : it’s true for the Palladium style which is said to be danced “on 2” (i.e. with pauses on 1 and 5), but wrong for the New York style and Los Angeles style which are danced “on 1” like cuban style, but still are considered puertorican styles. Actually, the puertorican style should be renamed something like “all-other-non-cuban” style.
Eeeek, i’m starting to get into too theoretical and dogmatic considerations, sorry ’bout that. 🙂 Just keep dancing and spice up your life with salsa!
Feel free to contact me (lantys@gmail.com) if you have any questions regarding salsa and afro-caribbean dances (chachacha, bachata, merengue, bolero…). Maybe we’ll meet on some salsa dancefloors someday!
Have fun,
– Lantys, salsero & salsa-puertorican-style-wannabe-teacher –
Lantys,
Don’t worry your English is clearly much much better than my French!
That’s funny about the hip movement in Bachata. I always thought it looked funny when guys were doing it. lol.
Where do you dance?
– Nicole
Woops, i didn’t notice that you replied directly on my message, i thought you would have sent me an e-mail instead, sorry about that! Well, it’s never too late… or maybe sometimes it is, lol
To answer your question, today i don’t dance as much as i did on 2005 but i still hang out sometimes to The Studio in Paris (http://www.the-studio.fr) on sunday evening.
Cheers,
– Lantys –