Paso Doble

[elisteran]

Changing how I move my body is tiring. The dance I've been working on lately is the Paso Doble, which is a fast,fun dance that you almost never see danced outside of competition and perhaps professional showcases. It certainly demands a lot of technique, but it's pretty impressive when done well:

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Setting aside the paso doble moves, it takes a lot of practice just to get the motion. How do you walk? I imagine when I'm not paying attention, I trudge along; but when I"m paying attention to how I walk, I generally walk with a slight roll of my feet. In rhumba-style steps, this is trailing the toe on or just above the ground, then putting weight on the ball of the foot and rolling the entire foot flat as the hips descend; in foxtrot or ballroom, it's stepping with the heel and then rolling the foot down on the ground. This isn't too dissimilar from how i was taught to walk in Karate; you don't want to put your weight on a surface until you're sure it can hold you.

But paso doble is a much more aggressive dance. It's about rapidly seizing territory and getting out of the way of the bull ... there's no time to be careful. I need to train myself to do a rapid flick-kick and immediately shift my weight, so that it looks properly staccato.

In the course of doing this, I realize I need to increase my gym workouts from the twice-weekly visits that I have fallen into; and the adjudicator was really focusing on a need to stretch out my legs. (Unfortunately, he suggested that when I get my legs to flexibility, I'll lose most of my current power in paso doble, because I'm generating it in the wrong place :( ).