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Alborotado means “Exited” in English. It is from the “Salsa Lovers” DVD 07, Miami, USA, around year 2005 and uploaded to YouTube much later. Maykel Almuina, the Lead in the video, is the creator of all the moves on “DVD 07”.

Siete Alborotado is one of Maykel’s more interesting moves. It opens like Siete Loco and Siete Loco Complicado! That is, no matter how impressive the move is, it should never be used because there is no way to lead the start in social dancing as it is shown in video! See how to lead it at the end of this tutorial.

The exit from the halfway position of Siete/Panqué requires that the Follow’s left hand is available on top of her right shoulder! It almost never is because in that position most Follows prefer to have their left hands in front of them, or to hold it tight to the body.

The Alborotado move is too “creative” in my opinion. It is a hopeless way to teach dancing. What serves us best in the long run is to learn generalized and optimized building blocks, we can use and combine again and again with endless variations. One-off stuff is mostly a waste of time: we can’t remember it, and it is difficult to reuse in another context.

Maykel is an excellent dancer but I don’t like the Miami style of the “Salsa Lovers”: Back rocking all over the place, ridicules long steps at times, hectic power style, more show and performance than relaxed and romantic social dancing.

How to lead the 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.