WanderingSalsero

Boxing Salsa??!!

Those folks at Boogalu Productions (actually www.boogalu.com) have some pretty good stuff in their inventory for your listening, watching and learning pleasure.  Their stuff sometimes is a bit higher of esoteric than practical value but it's always at least entertaining and oftentimes there is a lot you can use in your own real-time dancing.

One of their newest products, Danza-Boxeo, by Geodanis Medina, looks like it might be worth some money.  Especially if you've ever envied that energetic Cuban style of dancing (which I have).

Geodanis is a gifted Cuban boxer who after years of thought, experimentation, and hard work, has integrated his two great passions, boxing and salsa.  Interesting premise, eh?

Here's one of the good videos from the sales page.  There's some other interesting information on it to.  Check it out!

A market Edie has all to herself...

You know, sometimes things have to happen a lot or be around you a lot before you finally take notice of them.  I think the idea of 'training-the-trainers' is one such idea.

The fact is there's a lot of people training dancers (regardless of how much good they might actually be doing).  But who's training the trainers....the people who are operating these studios.  The only person I know of is Edie the Salsa Freak.

Edie is probably the most prominant multi-tasker in the salsa business.  Not only is she a top-rated performer, but she also is an excellent teacher, she produces her own private label of instructional materials, she does some online publishing and.......she teaches and mentors studio owners and managers.

I've been seeing the periodic emails from her about her seminars on how-to-run-a-successful-studio for some time now and I'm realizing that this is something she obviously likes to do and is making money at.  There must be a big market for it.

I think there's very probably some other studio owners out there who would have something constructive to say about the methodology and skills involoved in running a studio.  They're leaving money on the table, I think.

Tasty and done well but not overdone

Texas has a very, very active salsa scene.  These two dancers are previous acquaintances of mine.  Gabriel is, I think, an engineer and Denise work (or used to anyway) at a hospital/hotel type place where they lodge familes of people in cancer treatment. 

They're both real nice people and have been around salsa for a long, long time.  Denise is actually from Argentina.

I think this video came out very nice.  I like the fact that they didn't overdue the technique but everything they did added to the end impression of two dancers very 'in tune' with the music.

Filipino prisoners doing "Thriller".....didja see it?

Here's a nice little blog from a salsa community that seems pretty active in Malasia.  One thing particularly interesting is this Youtube video of a reinactment of the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. 

Click on the link and look about 60% down the page.  You'll see it.

I like what I see.......Robyn Chance

I always enjoy getting the weekly emails from Street Salsa in Houston.  Today I got one with a link to a video of Robyn Chance & José Santoyo who apparently are going to be appearing at the Texas Salsa Congress (no....not last weekend's salsa congress.....it's this weekend's salsa congress).

For what it's worth, I looked at it and also a couple of other videos of her and Jose on YouTube and.........I like the way she looks and dances.   Something about her style tells me that she'd be above average fun to dance with.

eMusic+Facebook+Vereconference+Your Brand+???=?????

I just had my next great idea.....really.  I'm getting into it slowly but enjoyably right now and it's something that's totally free (which is always good).  Here's the dealie-oo:

These facts are undeniable:

• the internet is about information
• people want information (depending on who they are)
• more and more 'apps' exist to share and link information
• most information on the net is free
• everybody likes music
• most people don't have as much time as they'd like to discover new music
• it's fun to spend time discussing music with friends

That's a start.......but, here's the idea.

eMusic has great little 30 second previews of all their tracks plus they've got an excellent library of tunes.  They also encourage viewers and subscribers (like me) to write reviews of their music. 

Plus, just recently they added a Facebook integration button that allows you to put your recommendations (from eMusic) on your Facebook page.  So adding your eMusic discoveries to your Facebook page is one way to add value to your Facebook page and build your credibility as an 'authority'.......right?

Now.....hey!  What better way to express yourself than show the world what kind of music you like, right?  Use the eMusic Facebook button and that's exactly what you can do.

But........!  Could it bet even better than that?

You friggin' bet your ass it could......IF.......you think 'out of the box'. 

Use the Vereconference live-streaming feature.  Dig this scenario:

You get a 10 person room. It's not expensive at all plus it has other uses than just this.  Next you invite several of your friends into your Vereconference room and then you pop over to eMusic and simply start sampling, sharing and discussing music wherever your collective fancies take you.  Doesn't sound like 'work', does it?

And remember that you can share live voice commentary as well as text chat.....all of which is captured because Vereconference allows you to record everything that goes on in the room (including the parallel text chat).  And any participant can bookmark as a "Favorite" anything that appears in the 'co-browsing' feature.

The end result is it's just like you sitting down with a bunch of your friends and sharing your musical tastes and ideas....all very spontaneously.  And you can even record it and put it up as a podcast or videocast later.

How radically innovative is that??!!

I'm still playing around with my new Vereconference room right now but remember that you can get a free 3 person Vereconference room anytime by going here.  And if you click on this link below, you can get a free, 51 page Vereconference eHow PDF eBook explaining all the fantastic features of Vereconference.

Vereconference Ebook Manual

I think it'd work.......now!

Who owns your video content?

Remember just a few days ago I posted about the software from Mike Stewart which would allow you to host, and retain full ownership, of your video content on the recently announced Amazon S3 server system?

One of the things Mike mentioned on that video he did (which I'm sure is still on the web and you can see through the post I did) was that if you were putting your videos up on YouTube you were giving away your ownership of that content to YouTube...i.e. you could still use it but so could they and in any way they wanted.

Well, I more or less already knew that.  It just wasn't a big deal to me because there's nothing really remarkable about 99% of my video content.  But that doesn't make it right....i.e. to give away the rights to your video content.  Especially if you're a dancer.

Well, in this video by Widgetbox, an otherwise very good company with a good service, they come right out and mention that under their terms of service you're giving away your rights of ownership.  Listen to it yourself.  It's around the :55 mark.

How to make a Blidget from Widgetbox on Vimeo.

Motionbox.com

I'm giving Motionbox.com a try for my videos.  You might like to try it too.  Here's why:

As any of my 16+ readers will be aware, I'm all the time trying new products and web apps.  And you know I'm always interested in different ways to handle pictures, audio and video.

And you'll further know that up til now my picture and video archive tool of choice has been DropShots.com.  Well, maybe there's a new game in town........Motionbox.com.  Here's what I think I like about it the most so far.

(1)  It makes it very easy to take your videos and embed them on your website or blog.  Or wherever.

(2)  It apparently has a higher quality level than some or most of the other similar tools out there right now.  The copy on the site said something about "HD".  I'm not totally fluent about the tech specs part of it but I do know there've been some advances in that area over the last year so......maybe.  Maybe Motionbox is better in quality.

(3)  It has an editor that allows you to edit and combine you videos in any way you please.  My DropShots doesn't do that.

Also, it's very affordable.  The main site says $29.95 (I think it was) for one year but if you sign up for the free version you'll later get an email that offers the Premium level membership for only $20.  You can't beat that deal (notwithstanding the fact that it does not handle simple photos).

Good reviews on www.salsaeurope.com

In perusing my Google Alerts for 'salsa' this evening I noticed something about a website called www.salsaeurope.com .  Apparently the producer of the blog is a guy named 'Fabio'.

It's a pretty good blog.  I just read the first page but on it were several very concise and well thought out reviews of various instructional DVDs.  I think Salsa Europe would be a good blog to bookmark.

AbsoluteSalsa.net ...........lots of stuff, but.......??

If you're any degree of casinero or casinera I'd be interested to know if you agree with me on this:

I'm not working today so I slept late.  I thought I'd do some surfing based on whatever was in my mind so naturally the first thing I did was check my email. 

I think it was on my Google Alerts that I noticed something from Absolute Salsa (.net).  I remembered them from somewhere in the back of my mind so I clicked over to the site.  That's when I recalled exactly where I'd seen them before.

www.absolutesalsa.net is the site from Scotland that has a lot of good content and videos about casino style salsa.  I don't think they do any rueda (but maybe I'm wrong on that).  I'd seen the site before and remembered especially the videos witch I'd also encountered in browsing YouTube.

I was thinking I need to get a few new inspirational ideas for my dancing so I thought I'd look at their videos again.  In doing so I realized that it's kinda hard to follow the patterns that guy is doing because, to me, it seems like he bounces around so much.

Yeah, it's free (which I certainly appreciate) and the videos aren't intended to be subsitutes for real lessons (it even says so on the site).  But still, I just thought it remarkable that he seems to be sorta hard to follow just by watching. 

On the other hand........the girl.  I thought she seemed to be much more sturctured in her steps.  Maybe that's because she wasn't doing so much styling.  Maybe just a little bit with her hands.

Overall though the site is a great resource for exactly what I was looking for......i.e. some ideas.  But if you do any casino style I'd be interested to know if your observation of the way the guy dances is the same as mine.