Ballroom Blitz #107

Travelling Bota Fogos in Samba - Mar 21, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls from the inter-webs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and welcome to Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello lovely dancers, welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. We are looking at a Samba move today, it is the Traveling Bota Fogos. Now the Bota Fogo is an action that happens in the Samba, it's a very useful one. We've looked at that action before in one of our previous blitzes, so we'll put a link to that particular video down below, but there's lots of different ways that you can put your Bota Fogos into action. We'll be having a look at one of those today with the Traveling Bota Fogos, so let's have a look.

(Demonstration without music)

Lindsey: So, as you can see in this version of the Bota Fogos it's the leader who is traveling forwards. Because we're in a closed hold with the leader, followers you will be traveling backwards, but we are following the same rules of our Bota Fogo in that there is that sort of zigzag nature to them through the hips, but our overall travel is going in a particular direction.

Ian: You can do Bota Fogos, as we know, on either foot so really it doesn't matter where you start. But, if we stick to what's in the literature, I'm going to be starting on my right foot and we will progress, we will travel past our partner, on their outside. So, we've aligned ourself in whichever direction we want to be Bota Fogoing, and in such a way that when I take my step I'm not going to be in line with my partner. As long as we've got that ready to go, we're going to follow the Bota Fogo "guidelines", if you like, with a walk forward very small walk, a toe walk, walking from the hips in a very Latiny fashion, poking out to the side with our partial weight step, we don't want to turn just yet and we don't want to thrust this in front of us.

So, a little to poke out to the side and in the Bota Fogo fashion we're going to realign our first foot, in this case the right foot, to a new line of travel, about a quarter to the right in this case from our previous direction of travel. So now our legs are aligned such that the left leg is slightly back, we're going to progress past our partner once again with a walk on the left foot, poking out to the side, minimal weight step, lightweight step, realigning that foot, and we've essentially got back to where we started.

So you could rinse and repeat as many times as you like. Try not to tap your foot. If you're first learning these try to avoid the trap of step tap, because then you don't really get the hang of using your weight transfer to change direction. But if you need to it's possible while you're starting, just don't get into the habit. And then, add your Samba bounce, your Samba rhythm, all of those things that we like to sort of party down to with your Samba, as you want to, as you're ready for them. When you get there we're going to have a nice crunching action with the hips and the abs, and progress as so for as many times as you like.

Lindsey: Now followers we're going to be doing a Bota Fogo action, but a little bit unusually for our Bota Fogos, we will be traveling backwards to match the leaders forward steps. You'll find in other figures that use the Bota Fogo action, most of the time we will be moving forward as well, but in this case we are going backwards; same rules apply though. So, if the leader is coming past us on their right foot, that means that we will be going backwards on our left. We take that first step one, we have our foot out to the side "a", and then switch alignment two. So, make sure that where you land that first step, it doesn't sort of slide off its place, we want to sort of essentially stay where we land and that foot out to the side is just helping us change to our new angle. We're now ready to progress on our right foot backwards behind us a-two. So we would have our usual Samba beat of One-a Two One-a Two.

Lindsey: Now, one of the traps in the Bota Fogos is that we get a bit too excited about that change of direction with our upper body. Being Samba, we want our hips to do most of the talking, and one of the tricks that you can try here, even though your lower body is sort of sorting out those sort of quarter turns and sort of making you zigzag as such down the floor, try looking at your partner. That keeps your upper body a little bit straighter and it then emphasizes what you're doing underneath with your hips, which is exactly what we want in a Samba.

(Demonstration to Music)

Lindsey: There you go, the Traveling Bota Fogos in the Samba. You will keep on encountering Bota Fogos as you continue along your Samba journey and this is a nice supportive one that gets you moving around the floor. So, give it a go, let us know how you go, what else you'd like to see, and we'll catch you next time.