Encircling The Bear

So first off, a quick comment about the ochos milongueros thingers: I just tried them out a whole bunch and what's up is that it's probably the first lead where you have to become aware that you're not leading the woman in terms of your space but rather in terms of hers. So to get her to cross after a sidestep, you have to do three things (still wondering if it's two or three): get her moving laterally, twist her and then pull her a little bit in the direction of the cross. Now that sounds very dangerous because you could pull her off axis... I'll have to keep thinking about this.

Cool figure tonight in Copello (with Cecilia Gonzalez and Gustavo, who it turns out is really great) which looked something like this:

#	Lead	Follow	Comments
1	RF	LB	4-track with l on f's left (salida en 5)
2	LF	RB	rebote, so either peso medio or whatever
3	LB	RF	here the woman starts a right turn
4	RF	LS	L does a sacada leading the woman into a big planeo
5	-	RB	really just the continuation of her left lateral move, sacada-ed
6	LF	-	man whips his hips around to get his left foot to her right, freno
7	RB	-	man shifts his weight back onto his right foot (but as far to the left as possible, to leave the woman room to step forward comfortably)
8	-	RF	woman steps over man's left foot

Oh man, this stuff is so boring to notate...

So anyway, about encircling the bear (and then I've got to get to another disfraz party): I figured this out with Italian and then with Spanish and never really got it with salsa but I'm getting it with tango. If you study enough, the same problems that you thought you'd beat come up again and again (with a slightly different form each time). So if you just keep studying, eventually you'll get the time to work on them because they're important recurring problems.

So at first the universe of knowledge that you're trying to learn just seems to damn large, but then later the basic part of is knowable. For instance, enrosques while the woman turns are difficult, but you will eventually have to tackle them, and they will keep coming up and you will keep getting better at them.

Isn't it great how I don't even explain the bear metaphor? I'm off!