Tips from Shanghai

Ruben y Sabrina

-Separate the body into three parts, shoulder, hip and leg
-Elasticated points at the hips to the knees and knees to the feet. Be grounded, use the floor, if you are too light overall then you are floating like a butterfly, as a result the guy has no clue where you are. Lightness in the sense comes from the top half and not the legs
-Think of yourself as dancing in a cylinder, always circular, always containing the energy, dance along the wall in this sense

Martin y Maurizio

-To balance yourself within the giro, keep the structure of your top half, collect your ribs inward, like a corset sucking in
-When following the chest lead in the motion, think of it as your right rib cage always seeking theirs (when rotating to the left)
-Moving back into the sacada, foot should be placed big toe first, rather than little toe

Virginia Pandolfi

-When preparing for the embrace, hips should be above the heel and your chest above your toes
-The bend in the back does not originate from a disjoint at the spine, but rather a collection from the abdominals to give you a strong core in the embrace
-Picture your legs starting at your ribcage so that no random bending and twisting occurs
-As an exercise, place your arms parallel to the front, twist the leg forward in the order, waist, hip, knee, foot, then unwind with foot, knee, hip waist (MIRA!)

-When walking in the basic walk, think of it as keeping the space in front of your body free, your free foot is always 'at the back', and this holds true whether you're literally moving backward or forward
-Your hips should move parallel to the floor rather than twisting back or upward like other dances, to do so naturally, you need elastic like stretch from your hips to your arms to compensate for the leg moving back
-When you take the step, the thought is always in the free leg, you are not concerned with the leg that has just landed, but rather, concerned with the movement of the free leg, moving from the front of you to the back of you (pause), and see that the space in front of you is free
-Collecting your ankles is ok, but don't count it as a 'step' in its own right, think of it more as a pass through
-When walking forward the same rule applies, I am not concerned with the foot that has just landed in front, rather I am concerned and concentrated on the foot that is moving from the back to the front

-Think of your body in 3 points, right, center and left, you receive the information in the center while the right and the left have their own duties
-When doing the ocho, again, think in the free leg
-Open up the hip area, that is the elastic that keeps the connection and the embrace up top while allowing freedom of movement down below
-Exercise to do, is to do a back ocho, however, stick your leg out at the end then draw a semi circle while rotating without transferring the weight, this is the idea of keeping the space in front of you free
-In the same way do a front ocho, but keep the back foot left at the back while rotating so a semi circle is again drawn, and again the space in front of you is free
-Doing a back ocho requires an almost full rotation of your standing leg, so loosen the hip to do it, while doing a front ocho requires the minimum of your standing leg, act accordingly