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Siete Loco (Crazy Seven) is a rather common move with a lot of videos out there. Let me say it as it is: This is a fake move right in your face! There is no way to lead it in social dancing. The move requires that the Follow’s left hand is available for the Lead over her right shoulder easy to grab. This is almost never the case when the Lead starts Siete also called Panqué with a broad selection of random Follows.

Siete Loco and the move Siete Loco Complicado are typical Miami moves from the “Salsa Racing” and “Salsa Lovers” dance schools, created around year 2000. The moves will of cause work in Rueda de Casino because the Follow hears the Rueda Call and can use that as the lead. But we should never use moves that looks like social moves in Rueda de Casino unless they also work in social dancing. Because the Leads will start using them in social dancing right away.

I have found a way to lead Siete Loco. I show it at the end of this tutorial.

Video #1 is from “Dolce Dance”, Hungary, 2010:

Siete Loco has a rather common ending we see in many other moves: Two times Exhibela and an Alarde (head loop) to the Lead.

Video #2 is from “Hanami Dance”, Hungary, 2018. I like that they have time to connect. But the move doesn’t work in social dancing except with a partner the Lead has told how to hold her left hand on “5” whenever a Siete move is coming.

Video #3 is from “Oportunidance Project”, Romania, 2016. It looks so nice but any Siete/Panqué move must have as point of departure, that the Follow hold their hands exactly as in the basic Siete/Panqué figure.

How to lead Siete Loco

For many years I have considered Siete Loco and other Siete figures that require that the Follow’s left hand lands on the her right shoulder for utterly fake because there is no way to lead them. In most Siete figures the hand is not needed at her shoulder, so why should she place it there?

In the original videos from Salsa Racing and Salsa Lovers, and in the videos above, the Follow’s left hand land on her right shoulder by magic, or as used in Rueda where a Caller announces the figure. There is no leading.

Actually there is a way to lead the move. As I and my training partner Mona shows in the next video. The Lead simply shows a High Five to the Follow as he starts the Panqué. This indicates to the Follow that the Lead wants to clap her left hand or to grab it in the halfway position of Panqué. In the video we just clap hands.

If the hand lands over her shoulder easy to grab, the Lead can proceed with the Coca-Cola. If not he simply continues with some other Panqué figure where the hand is not needed.

I am not going to make a video where I show Siete Loco because it contains a Coca-Cola turn on an L-shaped line. I only turn on curved or straight lines. L-shaped figures are not part of how I want to dance Casino based on natural walking.

In the next video clip from the Polish most excellent Agassi couple, we see how the Lead shows a High Five at the start of Siete Loco, signaling that he wants to clap or catch the Follow’s right hand in the half-way position of Panqué.

This danceblog, SalsaSelfie.com, has its focus on social dancing.

And I somehow take for granted that moves and basic figures presented anywhere in videos, classes and workshops are realistic for social dancing.

But that is too often not the case!

I don’t mind that we have a lot of Rueda moves specific for Rueda as long as they can not be mistaken for social moves.

And I don’t mind that shows and performance dance contain long choreographed sequences that have more in common with circus artists than with social dancing.

But when we teach moves and basic figures to be used in social dancing they must be realistic and leadable. Any detail of a social move must pass the test of “leading/following”.