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I love to do Paseala walks, continue into Exhibela, back into Paseala and more Exhibela, adding Rodeo etc, back into Paseala and more Exhibela, etc. This makes for great dynamic social dancing. Then one day I realised that I can do more or less the same combining Dile Que No, Coca-Cola and Exhibela, Rodeo, Reína, etc. More dynamic social dancing with endless variations and options!

Until today I have occasionally added an outside turn to the Coca-Cola left turn and thought of it as that. No big deal. Then it suddenly came to me, OMG, this outside turn is actually Exhibela, either the standard Exhibela of three steps in each direction or Exhibela Largo, four steps to the left and two steps to the right. You need to realise that you have struck Gold before your dance explodes with new excitement.

Coca-Cola con Exhibela is a good example of a FIRST CLASS social “move”. Our dancing in the video, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022, is pure improvisation based on an idea: “Let us add Exhibela to Coca-Cola and see what we can make of it”. The rest of the video we have never done exactly like that before, and we are never going to do it exactly like that again. Except for the “idea”, the whole sequence is improvisation driven by the music, the flow created, the momentum.

Compare that to “brain dead” Rueda de Casino (it has other qualities: inclusion, getting to know one another, magic synchronisation, warming up) with fixed, choreographed, hard wired moves where everything is always the same. A Rueda Caller tells you what to do, no leading and following, no spontaneity, creativity or improvisation.

Most people dance with the Rueda Prison mindset even when they go social dancing! It has taken me years to brake out of that prison!