Dance Floor Space Usage

B

bailar y tocar

Son Montuno
So this is about dancing in very (very) crowded clubs. Normally most couples are dancing and moving on the dance floor within a certain space, the movement is continuous and sort of inter-weaving. (I am not going to bother with drunks-with-drinks, they are a nuisance anywhere). Every once in a while though, there are people who dance almost stationary. Now the space for all ends up being a lot smaller because there is no more "inter-weaving".

Anyone else irritated by this ?
 
Why should "stationary" be any more problematic than weaving? You can't predict which direction someone will weave, so you direct your partner to avoid other dancers. In the same way, you direct your partner to avoid the "stationary" dancers. If you're dancing X-Body you're "stationary" within a few yards rectangle, if you're dancing cuban you're dancing in 2 yards square. People only tend to weave around to avoid other dancers.

As long as they aren't jagging about in unpredictable ways or taking REALLY! BIG!!!! MOVEMENTS!!!!!!! I don't care and can work my way around them all.
 
Not sure why interweaving gives more space than stationary. It is like arguing about linear style vs cuban style salsa. It really depends on the people who are dancing..
 
I thought stationary would be better in a crowded place - if the couple's staying on their own little piece of floor and not moving, you can just treat them like walls, tables/chairs, edge of the floor, bar,... they are just there, not invading your space. You can ignore them. No?
 
dancing nearly on the spot would be desired, id thought.

i hate dancing near teachers when its busy, most seem incapable of dancing small and dont look what the're doing. maybe its ego that wont allow them to dance small?
 
This is the classic Cuban vs slottie etiquette clash. If everybody weaves, it works. If everybody stays in their slot, it works. If there is a mixture of the two types of etiquette on the same dance floor then... SHOCK! HORROR! dare I say it? No... I can't... well, ok then: tolerance is required! :)
 
clarification

I wasn't commenting on clubs where all couples have 2 square yards all to themselves. Thats a huge amount of space. I have only seen that much space at dance socials or salsa congresses. In typical clubs people have an imaginery 2 square yards of which the edges are shared with neighbors, meaning the actual space is a lot less and its a rectangle. Now if everyone is moving all is good, everyone (hopefully) moves into the respective open space or bumps into their neighbor. If only one couple is stationary, everyone else actually has less dance space, it means were all boxed in on one side or all sides in a much smaller space.
 
Hmmmmmmm, I too was under the impression that stationary was better for others. I thought that everyone should try to stay in their "lane."
 
bailar y tocar said:
I wasn't commenting on clubs where all couples have 2 square yards all to themselves. Thats a huge amount of space. I have only seen that much space at dance socials or salsa congresses. In typical clubs people have an imaginery 2 square yards of which the edges are shared with neighbors, meaning the actual space is a lot less and its a rectangle. Now if everyone is moving all is good, everyone (hopefully) moves into the respective open space or bumps into their neighbor. If only one couple is stationary, everyone else actually has less dance space, it means were all boxed in on one side or all sides in a much smaller space.
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Sorry, but I still don't understand what you mean. Stationary is far more predictable than "weaving" and therefore easier to avoid. And how can a stationary couple be taking up more space than they're currently occupying: surely the fact that they're stationary means that they're not moving and if they're not moving that means that they're only occupying the space of two bodies at rest.

I'm sure you've got a completely valid point - I'm just having trouble understanding what it is.

Now, people just standing on the dance floor and talking or standing with a drink and watching - that's irritating. The dance floor is for dancing, not for loitering!
 
nowhiteshoes said:
i hate dancing near teachers when its busy, most seem incapable of dancing small and dont look what the're doing. maybe its ego that wont allow them to dance small?
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Well if someone has taught, then their dancing must be better than the people who haven't, right? So if they use up more space, then a larger proportion of the dance floor is used up in better dancing, thus the level in the the club in general is improved! So they are only being altruistic really. Same with the so-called divas who, even if their credentials only amount to having demo-dollied, owe it to salsa itself not to dance with lower level leaders than themselves. Think about it: a follower can only dance the moves she is led, so if someone of her calibre dances with a rookie then she doesn't get to fulful her potential and the dance floor as a whole suffers. Would you want that on your conscience? I suggest you think about that before asking an advanced follower or attempting to get equal share of the dance floor with an alpha leader.

And yes, I am kidding.
 
sweavo said:
Well if someone has taught, then their dancing must be better than the people who haven't, right? .
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Aint necessarily so, having known some phenominal dancers who never have or will, teach.
Add to this know some pretty decent teachers, who do not dance as well as they teach.
But-- as a general rule of thumb , would agree .
 
terence said:
sweavo said:
Well if someone has taught, then their dancing must be better than the people who haven't, right? .
Click to expand...

Aint necessarily so, having known some phenominal dancers who never have or will, teach.
Add to this know some pretty decent teachers, who do not dance as well as they teach.
But-- as a general rule of thumb , would agree .
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Terence, I don't think your "sarcasm-o-meter" has woken up yet.
 
sweavo said:
Well if someone has taught, then their dancing must be better than the people who haven't, right? So if they use up more space, then a larger proportion of the dance floor is used up in better dancing, thus the level in the the club in general is improved! So they are only being altruistic really. Same with the so-called divas who, even if their credentials only amount to having demo-dollied, owe it to salsa itself not to dance with lower level leaders than themselves. Think about it: a follower can only dance the moves she is led, so if someone of her calibre dances with a rookie then she doesn't get to fulful her potential and the dance floor as a whole suffers. Would you want that on your conscience? I suggest you think about that before asking an advanced follower or attempting to get equal share of the dance floor with an alpha leader.

And yes, I am kidding.
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Lol!
 
MacMoto said:
I thought stationary would be better in a crowded place - if the couple's staying on their own little piece of floor and not moving, you can just treat them like walls, tables/chairs, edge of the floor, bar,... they are just there, not invading your space. You can ignore them. No?
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But I have the impression that it's easier to dance amongst people than amongst furniture, somehow if everybody weaves, the space is allocated dynamically rather than statically, and with the programming language analogy, we all know which is better...
 
Ron Obvious said:
But I have the impression that it's easier to dance amongst people than amongst furniture, somehow if everybody weaves, the space is allocated dynamically rather than statically, and with the programming language analogy, we all know which is better...
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Lol, I'll blame my next collision on a memory addressing pointer fault... :wink:
 
Ron Obvious said:
But I have the impression that it's easier to dance amongst people than amongst furniture, somehow if everybody weaves, the space is allocated dynamically rather than statically, and with the programming language analogy, we all know which is better...
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Static all the way baby! If you're trying to cram a scheduler, TCP/IP stack and HTTP server onto a tiny 8-bit microcontroller you don't want anything dynamic...

The analogy would be fine if dance floors doubled in size and and song durations halved every 5 years like in desktop computing :-)
 
sweavo said:
And yes, I am kidding.
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i gathered that!

i danced in the same line as juan matos (who seems to get a bit of stick youtube-wise lately - although thats not difficult on youtube :eek:) at the mambocity congress. we were both about to lead a copa variation (well i was) into the same spot but both looked, then checked rather than risking a forward lead.
 
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