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CHAPTER 10 The sacada.

Excerpt....."I have lost count of the times that, in a class, a mystified student has asked the teacher to explain the difference between the lead for a gancho and a sacada. The confusion is understandable because, of course, both these manoeuvres are interruptions of the follower’s leg movement. Similarly, I have frequently danced with women who read any interruption as a gancho whether there was space for one or not, and cheerfully kicked me. This is one painful reason why I wish to take a little time to explain how both interruptions work. Sadly, many who teach seem to believe that the main difference is the spot in which the leader places his foot for the intrusion. Thus I have been told many times that, for the gancho, the foot is placed near to the follower’s weight-bearing leg and, for the sacada, to the non-weight-bearing leg. While these statements can both be true, up to a point, these foot positions are not enough to ensure that the gancho or the sacada actually happen. It is a bit like telling a learner driver that when the red traffic light turns to green the car goes forward. The two things are connected, but not by direct cause and effect. There are issues that relate to gear levers and throttle and clutch that actually get the job done.

The biggest breakthrough for me was to finally understand the timing of the interaction between the two legs: the intruder and the interrupted leg. Let me use the model of tango as a language again. If we are chatting and I want to interrupt you in a sentence I must do it after you have started and before you have stopped. I have a range of choices of timing my interruption from during the first word to within the last one. My success of getting a word in edgeways will depend on my timing. So it is with the successful sacada."

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