Continuous Back Casadas – Sacada Atras

Both Leader and Follower have similar roles when performing continuous Back Sacadas. Both roles are based on the technique of turns (molinetes/hiros). There are a number of important matters of technique to get right to successfully perform continuous Back Sacadas:

Both Dancers

• Do not collapse the chest.
• Do not lift feet off the ground, caress the floor with your feet.

The Leader

• The Leader should not change height at all during the Sacada.  The Leader should not crunch down or search for the sacada.
• It is OK to cheat on the back sacada step by instead of stepping straight back, he can step across the line (so it’s a back cross step, not a back open step).
• The Leader’s arms and shoulders are like opening and closing gates.  If one gate is open (back), he needs to close the other side by bringing it forward.  This is a weird arm position that enables him to do disassociation to do his back sacada.  So the Leader keeps pulling his partner with his left hand/arm in closed gate position (forward) in the turn before his back sacada.  The right hand can open and the left hand can close, and vice versa depending on the relative position of dancers and who is doing the sacada and what the Leader is leading/enabling the Follower to do.
• Maintain good pulling energy in your left side to enable the Follower to do an overturned pivot.  The Leader pulls the Follower through space to lead her back sacada of his trailing left foot after his right step after his left foot back sacada.
• Since the Follower needs more space to pivot in her back sacada, his side step before in the setup needs to be long enough and tangent or slightly away from her.

The Follower

• In the forward step, walk toward the Leader, not away from him, because it’s a continuation of the turn.
• As with all turn steps, take long reaching side steps around the Leader with a smooth transfer of weight.  This will help the Leader pivot better.
• After the Leader’s Back Sacada, the Follower’s pivot needs to be overturned on her arriving right foot, and she needs to really collect and allow her right arm to extend to pivot a lot before making a long reaching step in her left foot back sacada.
• Do not hurry and try to catch up to the Leader (she should be slightly behind).  Do not rush. The back pivot needs to be overturned and complete, with left foot collected to the standing supporting leg before going back out in a long back step.
• In doing sequential back sacadas, the Follower’s embrace needs to be elastic and flexible and there is a lot of in and out, going near and farther away to each other.