Cuban Salsa: Siete Loco Complicado
Siete Loco Complicado is a real complicado, long and with several both good and difficult parts. There is a major problem though! The beginning, the first count of eight of the move, just like for Siete Loco and for Siete Alborotado, is not leadable in social dancing in social dancing as depicted in most videos of the moves.
The beginning of these move require that the Follow’s left hand is easy to grab above her right shoulder at beat “4-5”. This is almost never the case in social dancing, and it shouldn’t be. The move starts with Siete/Panqué and the Follow is likely to have her left hand in front of her as it naturally ends up after the half turn.
Siete Loco Complicado could of cause work in Rueda de Casino because the Follow hears the call, and she can place her left hand accordingly, if she remembers. But we should never use moves in Rueda de Casino that could easily be mistaken for a social move. Any Lead having learned Siete Loca Complicado in Rueda will immediately take it to his social dance where it doesn’t work with a representative selection of Followers.
It is possible to lead Siete Loco and similar figures, as shown at the end of this tutorial. But first the classic way of leading it by “magic” or a hidden Rueda Caller.
Video Clip #1 is from “Salsa Lovers” DVD 03, Miami, USA, 2000, uploaded to YouTube much later. It only shows the not leadable beginning of Siete Loco and Siete Loco Complicado.
Video #2 from “MajroMiRueda”, Slovakia, 2011. Here we see the full Siete Loco Complicado, a very long move with sequences we also see in many other moves. The “complicado” part at the end is also part of Setenta Nuevo.
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.
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I find this blog dangerous as it’s very opinionated, and spreads ideas in a very uncompromising way.
Siete loco complicado can be led on the dancefloor, I don’t quite often. For anyone that wants to learn how you can do it, search a good teacher that doesn’t follow Yoel Marrero’s teaching.
Thank you for commenting. I will revise the article about Siete Loco soon because I think I have found a way that could make it work in social dancing. More about that at the end.
Moves like Siete con Coca-Cola and Siete Loco and Siete Loco Complicado work in Rueda because they are announced, the Follow knows what is coming. It will work for some time with the same Follows also in social dancing. But soon the success rate goes down, and with random Follows the success rate is mostly a disaster. The figures will of cause work in social dancing in local dance communities where they are very common and used all the time.
I am talking about “true” social dancing with Followers that haven’t tried the figures before, or have long time forgotten, even Follows at very advanced level. The success rate will be low because the figures require an extreme positioning of the Follow’s left foot that is not natural, and there is no way to lead the foot into the extreme position. A few Follows, with good technique and proper dance shoes matching the floor, are good enough to adjust the foot angle even after the figure has started.
Some sort or Coca-Cola will always happen but not the most well-balanced and perfect move of the dance. When a move often doesn’t look and feel that good, I have a right to conclude that not the Follow nor the Lead is the problem. That the move is simply not good enough, that we must fix the move or abandon it.
It is important to remember that many Rueda moves, even some of the classic ones, have never been properly tested and wetted and refined in social dancing. They worked in Rueda, and the people around might have used them a lot, but that is not enough for a move to be accepted by me as a good, realistic social move. Salsa Racing and Salsa Lovers made many dance DVDs, and one day the new moves were more or less invented on the go in the video recording studio because some additional moves where needed to fill the DVD. There is a Hungarian App,”Salsa Steps”, out there with more than 500 moves. In my judgement, half of them where invented at the video recording session, never ever tested, wetted and refined in real dancing, and some guy in the back room got the job to invent some crazy name for them! Completely fake moves. Some of them might work very well but they are not good or interesting enough to replace or supplement anything in my repertoire.
So the main reason for me to dislike Coca-Cola turns done in an 90 degree angle from Panqué is, that the success rate is low. The quality of the turn will most likely be far from good and most likely I will need to go inactive in the next count of eight in order to stabilize the Follow.
For that reason, I have decided that as a main rule of thumb, I only do Coca-Cola turns on a curved or a straight line and always inside forward walking movement. In my way of dancing 90 degree directional changes doesn’t exist. I do Coca-Cola from Dile Que No starting on “2”, “5” or “7” around or in front of the Lead, probably more than 10 different Coca-Cola turns from DQN alone and several from Sombrero. I do 6-7 different Coca-Cola turns as part of Enchufla, and I do them as part of Paséala, my newest blogpost/video, as part of Paseo and Saloneo walks.
When I do use Panqué to start Coca-Cola, I turn the Follow as I make her walk forward and go under the arm into Rodeo, in order to avoid the 90 degree angle. That works beautifully with any Follow and I have published videos about it.
Back to Siete Loco. It requieres that the Follow overturns the Siete figure and has her left hand placed at her right shoulder so the Lead can catch it. There is no way this will happen in social dancing with most Followers because Panqué should not be overturned and her hand should not be placed at the shoulder.
Why have it at the shoulder, if it could take years before a Lead comes around that will use it? The hand should be placed where it ends up naturally by her hip side or a little in front as she half turns into the Panqué halfway position.
Here is the good news, and I have just started experimenting with it and will publish a video about it, when I have it working. In many Latin dance styles we have I figure called Yo-Yo. It can be done from left to right or the opposite. It is an extreme version of Panqué rolling the Follow all in and she presents her hand especially if the Lead asks for it.
Often the Follow is just rolled out again as a fun move, often Yo-Yo is used to start a LEAN type of DIP or a classic DIP. I believe that Yo-Yo would also be the perfect way to start Siete Loco, now called Yo-Yo Loco and Yo-Yo Loco Complicado. I do believe that this would work with a high degree of success in social dancing.
The Panqué is started face-to-face with a relatively gentle hand movement in order not to overturn the Follow. Some Panqué figures require the Follow to continue forward from the halfway position, like “Panqué con tres pasos”, that is in most Panqué figures a hand on the Follow’s shoulder is not used. For Yo-Yo you must first open op “dramatically”, signally that the Follow should really go for it and roll in all the way.
I might not end up actually using Yo-Yo as a way to start a two handed Coca-Cola turn, because I don’t think it is a good way to do Coca-Cola turns, and I do so many other types of Coca-Cola turns I like better.
Interestingly enough, I recently came across a Siete Loco video where the Lead preps the Follow in order to make her overturn Panqué and present her hand at her shoulder. The Lead simply asks for the hand as he starts Panqué by doing a High Five with his right arm. But this prepping I haven’t seen before in any of the more than 20 videos I have in my archive. That is, Siete Loco can be led with this hand prepping also in social dancing. But I still find it an awkward way to do a two handed Coca-Cola turn.
Cheers
Jesper Tverskov
SalsaSelfie.com