Time signature is a very easily-understood concept- it is the number of beats in a bar and the beat value of those beats. Anyone what has elementary knowledge about Latin dancing can tell you the same definition.
However, to count exactly according to the time signatures, especially for international styled Rumba, could be hard.
To dance exactly at the same time as counting, again for international styled Rumba in particular, could be even harder than merely counting without dancing.
While I was still a beginner, I was told a lot of so-called tips to count and dance (again! to the Rumba!), but I was so ashamed as that Beat One seemed like to play high-and-seek with me. The Beat One was so hard to get!
Sometimes I could get the heavy beat, which is quite clearly to be the beat one, but most of the time I heard noises only!
I kept listening to music pieces and counted by myself. Then I got a problem- I didn’t know if I counted correctly.
I tried to grab a class member to count together. Then we found that we seldom got a consensus.
I then recorded the counting by a more experienced dancer and attempted to learn from it. I then found that I lost the ability to count by myself as I tended to follow the recorded counting.
I was collapsed!
I felt like I could never count a Rumba by myself!
However, I kept trying, counting, listening, and then trying, counting, listening and looped this ‘trying, counting and listening’ like forever.
After a very long long long time of ‘trying, counting and listening’, I successfully found that this looping of ‘trying, counting and listening’ did not for me.
Very disappointed!
But still I didn’t give up.
At that time, I was still dancing as a follower. Perfect musicality was something I was looking up to, having it would be good, without it I could still give reasonable performance as nice connection with partner could compensate.
The beat one seemed to be a thing I could never handle, until I dismissed with my dance partner and started teaching dancing solely.
Ar yes, I finally found that the best way to successfully get the trick was to teach! You know, you need to master the technique before you teach!
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