The Egyptian congress is fascinating to me for a couple of reasons.
1) I have never been to Egypt :-)
2) The culture does not seem … friendly… towards salsa and I’m really curious to see how it developed and in how far it is accepted within the country.
3) great weather. I hail from a rainy place. Any excuse to get out in the sun is a good one for me.
Ciao,
W.
Btw, great job on ILS. Good luck with the site going forward !
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]]>Another similarity i was thinking about was the fact that both are open styles. Kung Fu has been evolving for centuries with old styles giving way to newer more refined styles. The same could be said for salsa. I’m sure this could relate to other MAs and dances.
As for other martial arts :: dance parallels, i don’t know. I’m sitting here trying to compare Ninjas to Scottish dancing but to no avail. 
Maybe, that dance and martial arts are more connected. If you look at warrior nations like the Zulus, they used dance to encourage their warriors and tell of their exploits. Kung Fu has the Lion Dance to train their students whilst entertain and also telling stories. Capoeira is itself a dance and a martial art.
just some thoughts…
]]>I think MAs like Kung Fu and Capoeira are more fluid while karate and MMA are more rigid (not in a bad way) just traditionally, which would translate to different styling possibilities in Salsa.
The Aikido reference does make a lot of sense, although personally I wouldn’t say Kung Fu is force against force. It also encompasses using your opponent’s momentum as well as your strength. To me I think the biggest similarity is the disparate styles. Such that ET On2 is very different from LA style yet both are salsa. Just like Wushu is different from Sanshou yet both are apart of Kung Fu.
P.S. i dig the site. An Egypt Salsa Congress sounds pretty cool. Maybe one of these days ILS will go international.
Yes, all martial artists have great advantages like body control, timing, flexibility, coordination, balance and awareness of their partner/opponent. However, I feel that certain styles have an even bigger advantage.
People with a background in MAs like Karate, Kung fu, Pencak silat, etc. are all used to learning patterns (f.i. like katas in Karate). Because of that they have a bigger advantage when learning combinations then kick-/thai boxers who have not trained themselves to remember all these preset patterns. Especially for a salsero/a who is just starting to out this is a big advantage.
Capoeira practitioners as well as pesilats have another advantage. At one point in time the countries where these martial arts were occupied and their martial art was outlawed. Because of that their moves were disguised in the form of a dance. This meant they had to learn to fight to the rhythm of the music and even today training sessions are often done with, and to the rhythm of music. This obviously is an extra advantage when learning to dance salsa as most people (at least the ones that have no background in dancing or music) seem to struggle with keeping the beat when they are just starting out.
As for Salsa being the Kung fu of dance, I’m going to guess you used to do Kung fu (I know you mentioned what you did on SF but I’m too lazy to look up the thread ;-) ) but personally I’d say salsa is more like aikido. After all, you work with your partners energy rather than going against it but that’s just my opinion. And no, I have never done aikido
I think martial artists are good dancers because martial arts teaches you how to understand your body’s movement better. Also, better than most other physical activities will.
Have any other martialart:dancestyle parallels to draw? I agree with the Kung Fu:Salsa one at least somewhat.
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