Closed Rocks in Samba

Ballroom Blitz #096

Closed Rocks in Samba - Jan 08, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello lovely dancers, welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz. We are looking at a Samba move today; it's Closed Rocks.

The Samba has a number of figures that involve rocks, this is one of your simplest ones and as the name suggests it is done in a closed position. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: Okay leaders, so for this figure we have a rhythm of Slow-Quick-Quick. So that means we don't have any bounce action, we're not trying to get too many hip movements going, we want to track nice and forward. We have a repeating pattern of ball-flat, ball-flat, ball-of-foot, and that will just keep repeating no, no matter how many times you want to do this. It goes on both feet so you can start on the right or the left, we're going to start on the right because you got to start somewhere. But, if you want to cut in on the left and you just happen to get to that position first as long as you're good to go you can start it on the left side; it really doesn't make a difference. We're going to take a ball-flat step forward, slow. We're going to keep moving forward on the alternate foot ball-flat, quick. And now the rock comes in we're going to rock back onto the other foot, ball. Making most of the weight go back onto that foot because you're going to have to take that, that uh, foot that you've rocked away from into the next figure somehow. If we do the other half of the Rocks this is going to be a slightly smaller step because it's already ahead of us. But it's still a ball-flat, slow. Keep moving forward ball-flat, quick. Rock back, ball, and you can either Rock again or rock on into something else.

Lindsey: For the follower steps I'm going to match in what Ian was doing; if the leaders is starting on the right foot, the followers will start on the left, and we have almost the opposite to what the leaders were doing. So, we are going to take two backwards steps, and then rock forwards on that final step, ready to take two more backwards steps, rock forward. So it will look like

[Demonstration of followers steps]

Lindsey: My footwork going backwards is slightly different from the leaders going forwards. So, I settle onto a ball-flat on that first one; so nice and stable on that one. But this next step, while the leaders are taking a ball-flat and end up on a sort of flat foot, I'm just going to let the ball of my foot sort of dig in there my toe is slightly turned out, for my quick-quick and on my second quick I get to sort of lower the heel again. So going backwards on the other foot I'll have ball-flat ball ball-flat

So looked at together you can see we are indeed in a closed frame and moving down the floor with a

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So there you have it, the Closed Rocks in the Samba. [It] can start on either foot, you can do as many as you like, so try slipping it into your Samba on the social floor. It's a nice gentle movement but that keeps you going around the floor. You can get the hips involved. It's a good fun one but nice and stabilizing in that closed frame. So, give it a go let us know how you go and we'll see you next time.

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