Korea Carruseles

Casino Rueda Night at Waegook Cook in Gumi

Once again it's Free Casino Rueda Lesson night at Waegook Cook Pub in Gumi. Class starts at 9:30 pm. Instructor is Art Williams.

Observation on two instructional DVDs (and an alert)

First the alert:

I've come up with the basic of what I think is a do-able plan to get some more 'casino rueda' action and Bachata action and some Kizomba action here in S.Korea.  I'll be telling you more about it pretty soon and I think those of you who like those dances will like my plan.  More later.........:-)

Now....the observation:

This morning I've been taking notes on the comparative content of the two major instructional DVD series I have of casino rueda.  One is the Dirty Guide To Salsa and the other is the set from Salsa Lovers.

For my plan which I referred to above, I'm going to possibly/probably be using one or the other of them and I wanted to look at them both to get an idea exactly what they had, and how they presented it.....relative to complete beginners in Casino Rueda.

After looking at the first three DVDs in Dirty Guide and the first two DVDs in the Salsa Lovers set, I've come to the conclusion that the Salsa Lovers set is better for my purposes.  Here's why:

I'm going to be working with relative beginners and I just realized that the Dirty Guide set does not show any live application of the patterns it teaches in an actual rueda.  On the other hand, even though it's only with two couples, the Salsa Lovers set is still better because it at least shows two couples.  And real partner changes.  I think that's important for beginners.

The only advantage I see with the Dirty Guide set is that it does contanin more patterns per DVD.  But that's about it.  Plus......I do kinda feel that Rene's connection with the viewer is a little more personal and relevant to the social aspect of casino rueda (I can't decide whether to capitalize that word or not.....any opinions?).

Rueda News across the ocean

I put up another video last night about the Casino Rueda class I've just recently started at Waegook Cook in Gumi, S.Korea (see their very active Facebook page here) and, lo and behold, it's #4 on Google for 'casino rueda'.  Funny how that Google guy figures things out.  How'd he know the class is tonight?

Anyway, I noticed some news about other casino rueda venues back in The Americas so I thought I'd share those items of information too:

Announcing new Free Casino Rueda class in Gumi

Read my post over on WanderingSalsero about the the casino rueda class I'm starting over at Waegook Cook in Gumi. Click here.

Publish Date: 05/13/2010 10:45

http://wanderingsalsero.typepad.com/korea_carruseles/2010/05/announcing-new-free-casino-rueda-class-in-

(Next.....here's some news about a big Casino Rueda event in Bordeaux.  Casino Rueda is big in Europe, you know.  I'll bet this would be fun.  And....I wouldn't be surprised if there's some Kizomba in the background either.  Europeans seem to be a bit more 'liberal' than US types.)

Festival International de Rueda de Casino – April 23 to 25, 2010 ...

Marc Pinaud, our Godfather, the whole organisation team and myself are very pleased to invite you to celebrate the 5th edition of our Bordeaux International Casino Rueda Fesival – Cuban Salsa. 2010 will be a year full of projects and ...

Publish Date: 04/21/2010 0:16

http://www.salsacongress.com/2010/04/20/festival-international-de-rueda-de-casino-april-23-25-2010-bordeaux-france/

gumi.html

(Here's a post I wrote a few months ago about the Rueda group I participate in in Daegu, just up the road from where I live.  We've been rather inactive lately due to the absence of some key figures in the group.)

Korea Carruseles: Casino Rueda in Daegu

Casino Reuda is alive and reasonably well in central S.Korea. In the city of Daegu to be more exact. Yes, I've been having lots of fun attending the Saturday night Casino Rueda Class at Babalu Salsa Club in the downtown...

Publish Date: 01/25/2010 3:33

http://wanderingsalsero.typepad.com/korea_carruseles/2010/01/cas

Casino rueda salsa

Casino rueda salsa Started by geralt007 in Salsa Music and Dance Replies: 1 Last poster: Adam from Embra.

Publish Date: 04/20/2010 3:29

http://www.salsacity.com/forum/forum1-topic2442

ino-rueda-in-daegu.html

Here's (maybe) a new Animoto video

Here's the first video I've made to promote my new Casino Rueda class at Waegook Cook in Gumi. I'm also pleasantly surprised but pleased that I was able to get the embed code from Animoto to 'set' in here. I used to not be able to do that.

Review videos for Waegook Cook dancers.

Here's some videos I'm putting up specifically for our dancers at Waegook Cook in Gumi.  These are most of the moves that we learned and practiced last week.  We'll review them of course this coming week but we want to spend as little time on them as possible in order that we can move forward to other, more exciting patterns to spice up or choreography.

Here you'll see guapea (AKA: guapeando), dile que no, exhibela and enchufla (AKA: enchufe or enchufle).  The only one I couldn't find just now was 'para el media' (or maybe it' s 'medio.......I don't remember :-).

Please review these and try to absorb as much of the flavor as you can.  A couple of things I'd like you to particularly notice:

1.     Notice that they don't bounce up and down......all the 'action' is in the knees and hips.

2.     Notice that they don't take big steps but rather only enough of a step to make their hips move and to be able to feel the rhythm.

3.     Notice that their knees bend when they're moving their legs.  It hard to describe in just words but it is part of that 'latin hip movement' thing that all the teachers talk about.  It sometimes seems strange at first and then suddenly.......you feel it and get it!

Here's the videos:

Join the new Casino Rueda class at Waegook Cook in Gumi!

The new Casino Rueda class has started at Waegook Cook near beautiful, downtown Gumi, S.Korea.

And you're invited!

Yes friends, we had our first class last Tuesday and everybody agreed that it was fun.  As usual, it started out a bit 'rough' around the edges but by the time the evening was over we were actually doing some simple rueda. 

We introduced the class to these casino rueda patterns:

1.     Par el media

2.     Llevela abajo

3.     Exhibela

4.    Caminando

5.     Taro

6.     Taro y No le segues (note: spelling was not covered :-)

Derrick and Sugi, the owners and active managers of Waegook Cook actually participated in the class too.  Plus we had an enthusiastic crowd of about 18 other students.......slightly more girls than guys, but......hopefully that'll improve in the future.  The class started about 9:30 pm and finished around 11:30 although the original intention was to finish at 11:00.

Next week we'll start about the same time.  First we'll review what we did last week, then it's my intention to add 1-3 more new patterns.   I want to include lots of short, quick things which we can learn very easily in this casino rueda style ....e.g. foto, el fly and (one I invented called....) 'Excuse me!'.

You're invited to the fun this coming Tuesday.   For more details you can check the Waegook Cook Facebook ..or call me at 010 5822 2277.

Announcing new Free Casino Rueda class in Gumi

Read my post over on WanderingSalsero about the the casino rueda class I'm starting over at Waegook Cook in Gumi.

Click here.

Vacila y Dame

Here's a nice video of Vacila y Dame from the good folks at Media Noche Salsa.  Their videos are usually very good.  Like this one.

This isn't a hard move at all and in fact it's one of those ones that two couples could do very spontaneously at a club.

Casino Rueda in Daegu

Casino Reuda is alive and reasonably well in central S.Korea.  In the city of Daegu to be more exact.

Yes, I've been having lots of fun attending the Saturday night Casino Rueda Class at Babalu Salsa Club in the downtown (AKA: "Rodeo") area of Daegu.  The classes are run by two young ladies, Susie and Melinda.  And just recently our class has been integrated with a similar casino rueda class run by a Korean guy (who names escapes me at the moment).

Point is......it's there.  And it's getting better every week.

The classes start at 8 pm and go til 10 pm. and are divided up into sometimes beginner, intermediate and advanced.   There has been some talk just last week about getting more sophisticated in our certification of proficiency levels but.....that'll take care of itself.

I think it's safe to say that 99.99% of the moves we're doing would be found on DVD 1 or 2 of Salsa Lovers (I always like to use them as a comparison :-) .  I think, now that the classes seem to be growing very rapidly, that we'll have a smaller group delving more deeply into more advanced moves.

I've got a bunch of videos and pictures that I just haven't had time to post here.  But I will.

One thing possibly of interest to you...if you're thinking about attending.  I think I finally found a reasonably priced jimjilbang in that area.  That means that if you're coming from out of town to attend the class, you don't have to worry about an inexpensive, safe and clean place to stay.

There's actually at least 4 jimjilbangs in that area but this all of them, except the one that I noticed right next to the train station and finally tried this weekend, either had noise, comfort or distance issues.  The one next to the train station is only 6000 KW, is plenty big, it does have a quieter/darker room for those of us don't want to stay up all night bullshitting (like some Koreans seem to like to do), plus it even has blankets if you want'em.

The rueda classes are 10,000 KW and that price includes a drink at the bar (of the club).  Sometimes there's a dance at the club on Saturday nights.  And sometimes not.  There does seem to be a problem with getting good, English language, information about salsa happenings in Daegu.  Even though there are at least 3 clubs (that I've been to so far).

If you're interested in finding about more about the casino rueda classes, they also have a Facebook page.. "Salsa For Foreigners in Daegu".  It's open to join.

The only thing I'd like to see improved is that a lot of the people who come to the class don't seem to want to hang out much after the class, even if there's a dance afterwards, and do any casino reuda.  Yeah....doesn't make much sense does it?  But.....I think that's going to improve as the classes get more fun and as we develop a large advanced group.

Art Williams, Pillhwan and Wetoku.com