Ballroom Blitz #070

Video

youtu.be/iaFjCo3NJMw

Transcript

Ian: Why hello there random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello blitzers, thank you for joining us today. We are in the Samba world today, so we're going to have some fun, and it is a very fun figure we're going to do. It's called the Corta Jaca.

Now the Corta Jaca is a little bit different from our other Samba moves, it doesn't have the Samba bounce, it's got slows and quicks, and the footwork is a little bit different. This does actually make it a lot of fun and it's a nice, sort of, it sticks in the mind and it looks great on the floor. So let's have a look.

[Demonstration without Music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see it is a little bit different. It's a lot of fun though. It starts with the leader's heel step, which is very unusual in the Samba and it's got some unusual taps in there as well, as well as a fun rhythm. We occasionally call this one the "Hokey Pokey" just to give people a reminder of which one we're talking about, because you put your left foot in you put your left foot out. Let's have a look at the leader's steps to sort of get to grips with that idea.

Ian: Okay leaders. So, as Lindsey said this has a heel lead, a little bit peculiar for Latin, but a definite must for this figure. Ae're going to lead into it using our right foot bending the left leg getting a nice strong heel step on the right. Now, all the action happens on the left, and as Lindsey said, you're going to put your left foot in with a heel, and then we're going to take it out with a toe, and then we're going to put it back in with a heel. But, between all of these we're going to have a sneaky very Samba-like slide type action. It's not a bounce and you should try and get some movement through your feet. But, what we're going to do is as we've taken that strong step all of our weight is over our right foot, we're going to put the heel of the left foot in, and then without releasing any weight we're going to just, ever so slightly, slide our right foot towards our left heel; and then we're going to put the left toe out and, ever so slightly, slide our right foot towards our left toe; and then repeat the left heel in sliding towards the left heel; and this fills in the extra beats. So, you've got one slow and then six Quicks with a tap slide sort of pattern we have

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

Ian: Now, you must not release your toe, or your heel, when you're doing those slides. As soon as you release weight off a portion of your foot, you will slide much more than you intend. And the easiest way to fall over with this move and not have as much fun is when we take a nice strong step, clunk that heel, and then release and go and slide into your partner. So don't do that, sit all your weight on it, you won't go far but it does burn a beat and it is a lot of fun.

Lindsey: Followers, we have the opposite. So the leaders are coming at us on their right foot. We'll feel the strength of that heel step, it'll be quite unusual in our Samba, so that's our first heads up that this is a Corta Jaca. We take a backward step and again we want to make sure that all of our weight lies quite nicely on that left foot of ours, and then it's the right foot doing all the fancy stuff. So, as the leader taps their heel forwards at us, we're going to tap our toe backwards so they don't stomp on us. So the toe goes back and just like that action that Ian was showing us the foot slides slightly on that flat foot, I haven't changed my weight from it. It's slid slightly towards that toe I then have a tap forward. So it's kind of the natural movement of the foot where when you're tapping forward it will sort of naturally be the heel, very tricky to tap a heel going backwards, you have to end up in this position, so we don't do it. So when we tap backwards it's the toe, tap forwards it's the heel, tap backwards it's the toe. So if I go back a little bit we have taken that slow step then it's

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

and just that little slide towards your tapping foot each time.

Lindsey: Now you'll be unsurprised to find that as, being a Samba, the movement of what we're doing here is stemming from the hips. This is quite normal, a little bit of a different way of doing it, but certainly the hips are very much involved in this movement; the sliding action. So we shift backwards and we've got step, and a little sort of hitch of the hips. That allows that slide to happen.

Now what we just demonstrated was the leader coming forward on their right foot and tapping with their left. They could also come forward on their left and tap with the right. And the other thing that you can do is, once the leader has done their forward portion, and the follower done the backward portion, is switch it around so it's then the follower coming forward and tapping forward first, and the leader doing the opposite. This doubles the length of this really cool move and gives you a bit of time to get into it.

[Demonstration with Counts]

Lindsey: Now, if you really want to try this move out but you're struggling with that slide action there's kind of a straight version that you can do that doesn't involve it. We still take the steps and the taps and you'll find that they're very even. They're just slow beats then and we just cut out that little slide. So it will be

[Demonstration of Alternate Method with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Lindsey: And that is the Corta Jaca. So it's a great classic move in Samba. It's a lot of fun, [and] a little bit different. Try it out, let us know how you go, let us know what else you would like to see on these blitzes, and we'll see you next time.