Anyone here somewhat experienced with Cuban Rumba?

[TSC]

Also about the mechanics of the muelleo -- in a fast guaguanco the raising of the heel generates the motion and accounts for a good part of the muelleo look -- but once the hell goes down, the knees follow through and bend slightly, which gives you the full muelleo (which I also do in my video). If there is no follow-through and the knee doesn't bend, then you have no muelleo even though the heel goes up and down.

It's a subtle difference and most people will never care. But it feels very different on the inside, and I prefer the muelleo feel.

 

[vit]

I don't know much about rumba (attended only a few classes when one Cuban teacher was here) so this thread is really interesting to me

As about muelleo, I think that I can "feel" it in the videos posted here, except in YM demo. Even in Domingo Pau demo, there is slight bouncy feel in his dancing from the beginning. As about non cuban students learning it, to me it looks just like a question of quantity against quality, like in other dance genres - at the beginning, people can't really do sharp and well defined moves, so they add much more "volume" to compensate, turning rumba into a bear dance so to say, while on the other side other rumba elements produced by upper part of the body are mostly missing

To me, it looks just like what happens when people learn BR samba, which is also a dance with black roots and is supposed to have a "bounce". However, up and down movement of the body should be kept small and movement should be produced/absorbed with body movement. But again, when learning it, many people start jumping up and down like a car with bad dampers ... some similar things also exist in kizomba where they are also frequently misunderstood etc ...

On the other side, movement of the lady in Domingo Pau demo indeed looks different to me, can't feel any bounce in it

Of course, this is just my observation, I could be totally wrong about this. Dancing is many times an illusion and can feel totally different than it looks like

 

[Sabrosura]

I am actually doing the muelleo, but my definition may not match yours. Muelleo is springiness -- a constant springy bounce in the knees. There is also a bit of weight going up and down, though due to the geometry of the body motion when the muelleo is small the head barely moves.

This is not just an issue of semantics. Just picking up and putting down heels does not reproduce the effect. When doing the muelleo, there is a definite spring in the knees -- my body going down and up on the knee joint as a car goes up and down on its springs. It's small enough that it's hard to see clearly from the outside, but trust me, on the inside the difference is 100% clear.

I do insist that the difference is there. Take a look at this video of Domingo Pau, a legendary figure of Cuban rumba, who does _not_ show substantial muelleo in the first part of the vid (at least none that can be seen from the outside). He does the heel up and down but his weight stays very stable and there is little springiness in the knee (I mean this in a technical sense -- a spring produces a constant & smooth oscillating motion around its position of rest). Toward the end there are a few moments where there's a hint of muelleo, but overall there is very little that I see:

Contrast this with the first guy in the vid I posted above:

His head also stays fairly stable, but his knees & weight are in a slight but almost constant spring/bouncy action (interestingly -- he doesn't lift the heel much to achieve this).

I'm not saying one is better or worse than the other -- Domingo Pau is a master, and the other guy (who probably takes classes from Pau at the Conjunto) looks pretty good to me too. They are both dancing rumba but they are doing so quite differently.

If the definition of muelleo is the dancing bear step, then sure -- that doesn't really belong in rumba. That is, if your point is that beginners are not being taught in the best possible way, then I'd say -- possibly so. But I do figure you have to start teaching an exaggerated version to make it stick -- you can't just start with the small motion. All except very, very talented students will not pick up on the subtle version. (It doesn't have to be the dancing bear version, though).

Which is DEFINITELY true -- and which is a problem I do see in Europe -- is that teachers are not doing their job in terms of explaining that the dancing bear version is not the real thing and looks ugly. Which leads to a lot of. . . eyesores at festivals and socials.

Re. your note about women -- that's something I've wondered about, actually. I've definitely seen women dance with muelleo, but aesthetically you may be right -- a clearly visible muelleo typically it doesn't go that well with the female version of the dance.

There are plenty of differences between how men and women dance rumba, though -- the basic step is similar but not quite the same. An example relevant to this thread -- one ISA prof told me that women should not pick the heel up from the floor like we've been talking about while men can. Perhaps this also explains some of the difference in muelleo.

"The dancing bear step", love that description

To me Domingo Pau's rumba is eons above the guy in the Conjunto video. The fact that DP does not use the muelleo to me is very telling.

I understand muelleo to be the lowering of the weight of the body through bending the knees with the heels down, followed by rising back up. A bounce down and up, with heels down. Not just springiness. If it is springiness you are talking about, then yes I clearly see it in your dancing and others' as a desirable element of rumba. But I am still not convinced that the springiness you talk about in your own dancing is the same as the muelleo, and I do think that the fact that you, like me, noticed women generally do not use muelleo is telling of the fact that what the men are doing to create the springiness effect is not through the muelleo lowering and rising of the whole body. And if to you your muelleo feels so subtle that it is essentially invisible, and is more a "feeling" and very subtle effect of springiness to the onlooker, then can we still say that it is the muelleo, rather than your heel action and other body movement elements, that are creating this effect/feeling?

 

[TSC]

To me, vit sums it up pretty well.

Yes, I do indeed think that this very subtle, barely perceptible muelleo/"springiness" counts as muelleo. And I think that is exactly the reason muelleo is so difficult to accomplish and do well. Everyone fixates on the big bounce when it is really quite subtle. Because there _is_ a difference when you have that springiness and it _does_ lend itself to a different feeling, both watching the dance and dancing. But as we can see from this discussion it's not anything that a beginner dancer is going to be able to pick up on or understand. I think it's why I was always so frustrated when my first Cuban teacher, a pro from Santiago, kept telling me I still needed to figure out muelleo even though I was muelleo-ing for all I was worth -- and couldn't quite see what he was doing when he danced.

It's not always so small, though. For example, I look at this video from the 30s, around the 1:23 mark, and I see a clear example of muelleo:

Which personally I don't find _that_ aesthetically appealing, but I do see as evidence that muelleo has been around in rumba for a long time (the guy in the vid is a famous and skilled dancer of his time).

 

[TSC]

Another clip with the subtle muelleo -- springiness in the knees -- from one of the Aspirinas mentioned above as an example of zero muelleo (I assume it's one of them -- I don't know the Aspirinas personally so I don't know if the vid description is accurate or if it's maybe the name of this band or whatever):

Now if you say this is not muelleo, then fine, we're just having a discussion of definitions. But I like me that springy bounce in the knees -- see 0:15 onwards, for example.

And actually in this vid we see the woman also doing muelleo -- very subtle, but it's there.

 

[Tomm]

She's Ismaray Chacón the Granddaugther of Luis Chacón Aspirina

 

[SmallSteps3000]

I hate to throw a monkey wrench in here that will confuse us even more.

I think everyone in this thread is correct and has the right idea but that poster "YourDaddy" has really hit it on the head though.

I finally found a really good instructor to break it all down for me and she (yes my instructor is a "she") told me that unlike in the Alberto Carrion's video posted by achilles007, the movement actually starts from the chest. That's right!

Just like Sabrosura wrote, if the muelleo as it is taught in that Carrion video has feet flat on the floor with both knees bending and straightening, it will result in "bear-dancing".However if it starts from the upper body (for males, think chest region) and rolls down to the knees, which are bent, THAT is what will give the spring action as an AFTER-result of the body movement initiating from the torso first without necessarily having to bring the heels off the floor. Once you do it, it almost feels like a belly dance undulation traveling from the chest to the knees, if you've ever seen one or done one! This is how the women get those delicious figure 8's and the men get those nice shoulder rolls.

So essentially, YourDaddy (and I'm guessing Yoel Marrerro by extension) seem to be correct in that the "bear-dance" is misleading, confusing and not the real way it is done.

However, "bear-dancing" is exactly the way I was taught by my very own teacher and I only learned differently by watching her dance in real time. It is just as TSC and vit posted-- this is just the way it is taught to beginners as the easiest way that the dancer eventually learns to "mold" into their own over time.

Anyways, I don't know everything as I am a beginner myself, but YourDaddy seems to have been very experienced with Cuban Rumba and made some interesting comments. Does anyone know why he was banned? I had some more questions I wanted to ask him! His comments, I think, would have been very insightful in helping us all to understand more!

All in all, It's very interesting how Rumba body movement is the opposite of Salsa. Doesn't Salsa's body movement all come from the pushing of the feet into the floor? Rumba on the other hand starts with the torso movement and then the feet/legs after.

I would love to get the historical development behind why this change has taken place between Salsa and Rumba as this indeed is very different!

However, this is just the way my teacher (from Cuba, mind you) taught me though. I will post her video briefly for a little bit as I have not asked for her permission to do so and don't want to get in trouble.

I can't believe I've been gone this long and this thread really blew up! Awesome job, everyone. Great posts all around.

 

[Dissonant Harmony]

Background (You can skip this part):

*On some other boards (Of 'Cuban Salsa'), a girl asked something about heels,
and a highly appreciated instructor told her: "So long as you dance Cuban, I recommend that you don't dance in heels, because they do not allow you to have the connection needed with the floor, nor the cuban turns".

When I asked for elaboration (Because "my understanding is the complete opposite"), he said:

"The follows in LA are 'light' and need to turn using spins (sliding on the floor with the foot), therefore heel/dance shoes serve thie purpose well, but in Cuban, there are no spins, the turns are dong by stepping, and the the entire dance has an african and grounded nature to it, which requires that the weight is on the heels - something that's impossible using heel shoes".

I couldn't agree with him.
-Just because LA follows appear light doesn't mean they are not grounded.

-Following his logic that heel/dance shoes support sliding on the floor - swivels are part of Casino (Not to mention to MCC, where it appears to even be an integral part of the basic steps) - if it helps them LA girls spin, then how is it bad for Cuban?

-He says that in 'Cuban' you turn rather than spin. So what? Does it make Heels bad how?

-He claims that heels are bad because Cuban is 'grounded', but my understanding is the complete opposite: Heels are supposed to help you 'place' your weight more forward (While still not having your heel 'in the air'), so using the suiting technique, it's there to practically assist you to be grounded.

*Another instructor said that "The cuban dance stresses every single step, and is less sharp than LA, therefore, "Squeezing" the feet into the ground suits the timing and feeling of the music; heels give you less room to squeezing".

-To quote a friend who is a BR dancer: "BR is the "mother" of weight-shifting". And they hear heels. If heels were so impractical, then why do the ever so competitive BR dancers insist on hearing heels?

-I understand that heels shorten the rolling of the foot, but her argument regarding "squeezing" sounds weird. You keep pushing into the floor to generate power for body movement, or traveling...It doesn't stop in your feet. It "goes up there high". There is damn a lot to "squeeze!"

*A third person said that: "I heard from many instructors here and abroad thet you shouldn't dance Cuban in heels. And DEFINITELY not when you incroporate Rumba or Afro into your dance.

-I repeated that heels have a practical purpose, and I can't see why it cannot work for Cuban, but suggested that perhaps Rumba and Afro (Which I don't know) do have require techniques that use the heel, in a way that doesn't go well with heel-shoes.

---

On topic (that's where you stop skipping):

The first replied:

"There are many styles and sub-styles of 'Cuban Salsa', based on the city in Cuba, and there are many different techniques, accordingly. What I know that is being taught as Cuban Salsa in the world does require that you have your weight on the heel, and therefore conrtradicts the idea of heel shoes".

The third replied:

"In Cuban there are many steps that you can't do with heel-shoes.
Especially now that I started learning LA (Fundamenals, Poise and stuff) I notice the essential difference). In cuban there is an ocea of styling and steps that there is no logical way to do, while wearing heels.

P.S - I noticed that Cuban girls in festivals - don't wear heels. They would prefer to be bare-foot, which already speaks a lot for itself".

---

So my questions are:

1) Are there some "Cuban Techniques" that require that you have your weight on your heels?
2) Are there any "Cuban" techniques that doesn't go well with heels?
3) Do heels contradict with Afro? What about Rumba?

 

[vit]

-To quote a friend who is a BR dancer: "BR is the "mother" of weight-shifting". And they hear heels. If heels were so impractical, then why do the ever so competitive BR dancers insist on hearing heels?

Because it is ballroom. You are not supposed to come into a classy ballroom barefoot. As about competitive BR, it has to be in that "style"

Every good dancer, no matter the genre, should be able to control where his/her weight is and how it "shifts" or moves, so BR is not really an exception here

 

[Offbeat]

Background (You can skip this part):

On topic (that's where you stop skipping):

Based on my understanding and learning of Rumba (not talking about salsa of any variety), I don't see how heels are helpful for the ladies. The whole dance and perhaps its origin, is so grounded that it is best done without in flats or barefoot. Logically if you look at the origins - plantations; or the African folkloric dances with their origins in Africa, can we say that (i) they were danced on the muddy grounds (ii) heels were unknown. Then how would movement of something like Rumba be helped with heels? Intuitively it doesn't compute in my mind. Not that it can't be done and it may look pleasing aesthetically, but purely from dancing and body mechanics, they subtract rather than add.

I think heels are fairly modern concept and rather unnatural from how we naturally walk/move.

I won't say Ballroom is "mother of all weight shifting". That is too general statement to be made. There are many dances around the world that are not part of ballroom, which require weight shifting. Don't you think the good hip hop dancers don't weight shift?

So my questions are:

1) Are there some "Cuban Techniques" that require that you have your weight on your heels?
2) Are there any "Cuban" techniques that doesn't go well with heels?
3) Do heels contradict with Afro? What about Rumba?

When you say "Cuban Techniques" what are you referring to? Are you referring to techniques used in Rumba?

 

[Offbeat]

Curious, have you ever seen a female rumba dancer use muelleo? Any videos?

First time I heard the term. But if I understand it correctly (rapidly read TSC's description and watched his pretty good video), then yes, I I saw my instructor (who was a female) incorporate it in her dancing.

 

[Offbeat]

I suppose the mollello is a way to teach beginners how to "fake" that action. Whether it is indeed the best teaching method, I'm not sure. For me personally, if anything it made whatever rumba movement I already had worse. So it makes me think: what if rumba beginners were taught directly how to step, without mollello, and as they get more advanced, how to use the heel raising action, smaller at first of course, like the experienced rumberos do?

In all dance forms, I never take fully accept what the teacher says. I also watch what they are doing and how they 'appear' to be doing it. Yes sometimes it is like giving students crutches. But with crutches you can develop bad habits too. Personally I learn more better visually than someone breaking it down descriptively. And then there is also that thing that it takes years to refine the body movement to make it appear smooth or more authentic (no short cuts there), even after you get the technique right.

Some of these techniques are difficult to break down. Or perhaps no one has spend time to reverse engineer them. I have consistently see it across dance forms, that some of the best dancers have learn by watching and repeating (usually from young age). Expectations of techniques being broken down and then applying that technique to put everything back together again is very modern and western concept. For somethings we just have to keep refining and repeating till it gets right.

As we always say being a good dancer doesn't necessary mean someone is a good teacher. That is what makes learning traditional dances so difficult. The great dancers who teach, didn't had any guide book given to them on how to teach their art.

 

[Sabrosura]

First time I heard the term. But if I understand it correctly (rapidly read TSC's description and watched his pretty good video), then yes, I I saw my instructor (who was a female) incorporate it in her dancing.

Bouncing down and up by bending and straightening both knees (i.e. head actually goes up and down along with the body as you lower and come back up). Not just "springiness" -- actually lowering and raising the entire body by bending the knees. The "bear dance".

None of the (good) rumberas I saw in Cuba do this. The springiness/folkloric effect in their rumba comes from somewhere else.

 

[Offbeat]

Bouncing down and up by bending and straightening both knees (i.e. head actually goes up and down along with the body as you lower and come back up). Not just "springiness" -- actually lowering and raising the entire body by bending the knees. The "bear dance".

None of the (good) rumberas I saw in Cuba do this. The springiness/folkloric effect in their rumba comes from somewhere else.

I wasn't referring to what you called bouncing up and down. I was referring to that subtle movement.

Too descriptive to read how it is achieved, enough to give me headache, so I am skipping that part.

My instructor was a lady from Havana called Yenne Guibert. But I can't find any youtube videos of her She is one of very few Cuban artists who had US visa for visiting and teaching here.

 

[SmallSteps3000]

Ok I understand what you guys mean by muelleo, the "bounce". I was taught this too in the rumba classes I took in the US, along with the lateral-and-back-in-place "basic step", and vividly recall thinking it felt very weird and for the life of me I couldn't get that bouncing movement to feel or look like the rumba I saw Cubans dance (btw one of those classes was with a Cuban teacher). I recall I ended up doing some Orishas-style chest pumping movement during the bounce in my desperate attempt to actually add some upper body movement, because that bounce step felt so devoid of the beautiful upper body movement I saw rumba dancers had. That lateral-and-back bounce step we were being taught felt so strange that I actually resigned myself to thinking I just don't "get" rumba and will never be able to dance it.

Then I went to Cuba and saw lots and lots of great rumba dancers, both men and women. And none had the up-and-down bouncing movement, instead it was very obvious that the energy from each step was being used to move their hips and torso and shoulders laterally in a figure 8, combined with a "twisting" of the upper body in a continuous stepping movement, rather than bounce up and down or step laterally-and-back. My teacher in Santiago from the Conjunto Folkorico de Oriente didn't teach me any muelleo; and with her I was finally able to start to learn the rumba stepping and movement in a way that actually felt and looked like how I was seeing the good rumba dancers dance. Looking back, I now realize that the reason she was such a good teacher is because she didn't "dumb down" her (beautiful) rumba movement into the muelleo in our lessons, which is what I saw a lot of Cuban teachers do. She kept dancing as she normally did, just slower, in order to teach me.

This is a very good explanation and demo of how the muelleo and "lateral and back in place" basic are not actually used by rumba dancers and don't actually help beginners to learn the rumba at all. He does mention that, as you said @TSC , they are indeed taught to dancers, including in Cuban schools. It seems to be a case of trying to break down a complex movement for beginners but ending up with something that does more bad than good as it is not actually used in the real dance and the student is left to figure out how to evolve this into actual rumba.

Wow! I don't know HOW I somehow skipped over these two videos, but this is GOLD!

Great find! I VASTLY prefer this method of teaching over the "bear-dance" method.

 

[SmallSteps3000]

I don't know much about rumba (attended only a few classes when one Cuban teacher was here) so this thread is really interesting to me

As about muelleo, I think that I can "feel" it in the videos posted here, except in YM demo. Even in Domingo Pau demo, there is slight bouncy feel in his dancing from the beginning. As about non cuban students learning it, to me it looks just like a question of quantity against quality, like in other dance genres - at the beginning, people can't really do sharp and well defined moves, so they add much more "volume" to compensate, turning rumba into a bear dance so to say, while on the other side other rumba elements produced by upper part of the body are mostly missing

To me, it looks just like what happens when people learn BR samba, which is also a dance with black roots and is supposed to have a "bounce". However, up and down movement of the body should be kept small and movement should be produced/absorbed with body movement. But again, when learning it, many people start jumping up and down like a car with bad dampers ... some similar things also exist in kizomba where they are also frequently misunderstood etc ...

On the other side, movement of the lady in Domingo Pau demo indeed looks different to me, can't feel any bounce in it

Of course, this is just my observation, I could be totally wrong about this. Dancing is many times an illusion and can feel totally different than it looks like

Kizomba? How can anyone mess up kizomba? It's just much too simple, right? Even for beginners!

 

[Dissonant Harmony]

Because it is ballroom. You are not supposed to come into a classy ballroom barefoot. As about competitive BR, it has to be in that "style"

Every good dancer, no matter the genre, should be able to control where his/her weight is and how it "shifts" or moves, so BR is not really an exception here

So, are heel-shoes only there for looking 'classy'?

Is there no practical reasnoning behind them?

Based on my understanding and learning of Rumba (not talking about salsa of any variety), I don't see how heels are helpful for the ladies.

My understanding is that (besides their look) heels are there to assist your technique.
If that's indeed correct, and heels don't "do bad" to rumba, then I can't see what's wrong.

The whole dance and perhaps its origin, is so grounded that it is best done without in flats or barefoot.

I thought heels help you use a technique that's based around being "grounded". (and not the opposite). Am I wrong here?

Logically if you look at the origins - plantations; or the African folkloric dances with their origins in Africa, can we say that (i) they were danced on the muddy grounds (ii) heels were unknown. Then how would movement of something like Rumba be helped with heels?

That's a fallacy. :S

Originally people hunted animals with spears.
Does it make guns less efficient killing-tools now?

Should we not use our current knowledge in the fields of mathematics to solve old problems, because back then, due to our lack of knowledge, we solved them differently?

Tools, technology...We can use what wehave and know today to do what we did back then - better. Just because they didn't have heels doesn't mean they are counterproductive.

but purely from dancing and body mechanics, they subtract rather than add. :S

But that's exactly what I am asking!
Do they subtract rather than add? In what way? And why?

I think heels are fairly modern concept and rather unnatural from how we naturally walk/move

Once again - irrelevant. (Unless, you are trying to recreate something old, "exactly the way they did it" - then heels may get in the way).

[quote[I won't say Ballroom is "mother of all weight shifting". That is too general statement to be made. There are many dances around the world that are not part of ballroom, which require weight shifting. Don't you think the good hip hop dancers don't weight shift?[/quote]
I don't know, but I guess BR dancers have more emphasis on such things, and care more about it...at least compared to a folk dance picked up in the street. (Her argument was that in "cuban" you have to emphasize weight in shifting. My argument was that so in BR, and perhaps BR care about it *more*, and they still wear heels).

When you say "Cuban Techniques" what are you referring to? Are you referring to techniques used in Rumba?

I refer to technique used in Casino, "Cuban Salsa", Rumba or "afro" that are also not used in LA or BR - and justify not wearing heels.

If those techniques are very present in the cuban-dance, then I'd understand why heels are "bad for Cuban" (Although "good for BR / LA").

 

[TSC]

Wow! I don't know HOW I somehow skipped over these two videos, but this is GOLD!

Great find! I VASTLY prefer this method of teaching over the "bear-dance" method.

If that works for you, then great! Just be aware that you (and the other rumba newcomers in this thread who think they have discovered the One Truth about rumba and can therefore shortcut years of learning) are not just picking another method of teaching. You're picking a method which goes in direct contradiction to the vast majority of rumba teachers out there. YM says this himself -- he says they're all wrong.

Well, it is possible YM is right and everyone else is wrong. You can and should make your own decisions. Just don't close off your mind to other possibilities this early in your rumba journey.

My personal opinion is that someone who doesn't learn muelleo at all will likely always dance a somewhat stiff rumba lacking in life. Better than dancing bear, sure, but not quite there.

 

[vit]

So, are heel-shoes only there for looking 'classy'?

Is there no practical reasnoning behind them?
.

I don't see one, but you know, some br teachers might have different opinion
It's mostly to extend leg lines which look nice etc. Thousand Swarovsky stones on the woman's dress doesn't have practical reason either (dance-wise)
In today's competitive BR latin, heels are many times counter-productive, as speeds are high and steps are long and it's hard to do it in heels. So many times they cheat by using running/walking steps on bent legs in between and using "proper" by the book straight legs on slow steps where they have much more effect etc ...

 

[Offbeat]

I think this is an argument for argument's sake, but I will indulge..

That's a fallacy. :S

Originally people hunted animals with spears.
Does it make guns less efficient killing-tools now?

The fallacy is your use of valid analogy, that doesn't apply to the subject at hand.

Should we not use our current knowledge in the fields of mathematics to solve old problems, because back then, due to our lack of knowledge, we solved them differently?

If your current knowledge imposes you to a complicated solution to where a simpler solution already existed, then to what use is your current knowledge

Tools, technology...We can use what wehave and know today to do what we did back then - better. Just because they didn't have heels doesn't mean they are counterproductive.

Heels have been shown to be counter productive to wearer's health. It changes the anatomy (loosely speaking) of the feet and how we naturally walk. If I recall correctly when doing rumba in the heels, certain adjustments are required to be made to achieve similar effect to when doing without heels.

I don't know, but I guess BR dancers have more emphasis on such things, and care more about it...at least compared to a folk dance picked up in the street. (Her argument was that in "cuban" you have to emphasize weight in shifting. .

My argument was against the statement about "BR being best whatever regarding weight transfer". Unless someone has studied non-ballroom dances and have equivalent experience in non-BR dance forms that is a stretch of a statement to make. There are dance forms which are far more demanding than BR and can take many years before someone can even step on the stage to perform.


My question still stands. Why do you think heels are good for something like Rumba ? You seem to be asking why they are bad.