Dance: diagnostic tips to dance with salsa beginner-followers

No doubt, dancing with beginners is trickier than dancing with advanced/intermediate dancers.

Most social dancers start with salsa dancing. That also means, you'd encounter a lot of beginners in salsa/Latin socials in this back-to-school season.

I went to a Latin social full of beginners. 

I hope salsa instructors teach them soon enough. In the meantime, here are my tips to dance with beginner-followers.

On the social dance floor, I usually take a moment to assess her skill level. Pay attention to the following;

Before dancing

Is she wearing dance-appropriate shoes?

   Platform, rubber-sole, shaky high heels are causes of tripping or twisted ankle. Be extra careful to dance with her.

Her physique

   Is she tall, short, or in the middle? Looks heavy or light? Is she athletic, trained or untrained? Does she look like she can move? Dance is done with body as the tool, and this kind of initial body diagnostics is a part of social dance. But there is always a room for surprise.

Basic footwork

Is she doing basic steps?

    At least this much needs to be taught at first, before going on to the main floor.

Is she stepping on time?

    On 1 and On 2 are confusing. But at least, everyone should listen to the song and figure out the step timing and be consistent.

Does she have quick feet, or is she slow to respond? 

      How she moves is a big giveaway. If her feet are slow (as with many beginners), she can stumble easily. Be extra careful.

Attitude

Is she willing to dance?

Is she having fun, or nervous and stiff?

Is she willing to follow-and-dance?

    If not, I may just dance double solo. Still can be a good time.

Partner work

Can she follow cross body lead?  

      If so, that means she can match direct lead-input to her body frame to her footwork. A good start.

Does she have arm frame (not noodle arm)?

     A follower with noodle arm is unleadable with arm/hand input. You may need to stick with two persons solo dance or body lead.

Does she follow her hand?

     "Follow her hand" requires internal coordination in her body. Arm frame needs to be there, which also needs to be connected to body and her feet. You lead with your body and the energy flow goes through direct contact point(s), which is mostly your hand(s). Beginner followers may not know how to respond, and the response may be late or feel forced. In the case, that much is what you can now. Force it, and you may get elbowed unintentionally.

Can she do both inside spin and outside spin?

      Inside turn (she spins toward her centerline) and outside turn (she spins toward outside) have distinctive energy flow patterns. Inside turn is continuous, while outside turn has a moment of pause/pushback. Proper response requires proper frame.

    ***********************

I am happy if a beginner follower can do this much. At this stage, they might already be at an intermediate dancer-level. Social salsa is not complex or difficult to have fun.

Intermediate dancers can teach beginners. In fact, many of local social dance instructors are intermediate dancers. Nothing is wrong with it.

From "advanced" dancers, I want to see some "wow" factor, something to distinguish themselves. Advanced dancers need to present awesome dances that are inspiring, so that they make others want to dance like them.

That is my definition of "advanced" dancers. Have nothing to do with his/her contest points or data on CV, but just the convincing power of his/her dance here and now. The standard is high, but I can hope.

Everyone is a beginner at first. Is there anyone who becomes an advanced dancer among these new beginners? I wonder and hope.

PS  Maybe due to this late summer weather, I feel so sleepy recently. I may need to rest up. I even bought a bottle of melatonin and going to test it on myself. Will deep and fast sleep at night fix this sleepiness? N=1 experiment on me and I'll see the result soon.

     

Science: "Unlock Even More Possibilities with Single Cell Sequencing" core facility technology meeting

 Yesterday (8/11/22), our research core facility and "new" technology vendors (incl. 10X genomics, illumina) were setting up a 4-hour symposium, titled "Unlock Even More Possibilities with Single Cell Sequencing". 

These "new" technologies are combining sequencing and imaging (called "multi-omics with imaging"), providing us users a lot more data and information that were not obtainable before.

There are a few companies competing for this "multi-omics with imaging" niche. For researchers, "available options" in hand tend to prevail or get used. But it is helpful for us to know strengths and shortcomings of different technologies, companies, and platforms. 

From the standpoint of PI (Principal Investigator) or technology user, our initial questions for new technologies are actually quite simple, including;

   What can they do

   What question/hypothesis can they help us to answer

   Will they be advantageous in obtaining grants and writing a paper

   How much do they cost

   How much do I need to budget

   How much preparation, manpower or trouble to use them

   How much help can I get from the core and vendor to effectively use them

Guess these are quite simple "what's in it for me and for my science" questions and practical questions on implementation.

PIs' have different levels of liking for new technologies. Some are more innovator or early adaptor, others may be more like late majority. 

But, as science is "show and tell", in most cases "just do it" is the best approach.

I've used some new technologies, and also have wanted to use other new technologies. The thing is, the new assays may not come with great support for new users (they fix things while flying) and are usually expensive. 

When one experiment costs 10k+ dollars, we need to think seriously about the return/outcomes and actively look for the money. Although the outcomes would almost be guaranteed to be published or be useful in some ways, $10k+ is not cheap.

So I listened to the symposium. Presenters are from different corners of medical biology, but all were using the single cell sequencing technology. 

The differences in interests were intriguing. But what a technology can do is basically the same. I saw essentially the same kind of presentation over and over. Guess this experience did help me to familiarize myself to the technology.

As technologies advance fast, sometimes it is our understanding that lags behind. Big data reading and interpretation will be increasingly important in the near future.

Will software and AI cover us scientists (or even replace us)? For description and identification segments, it is likely. But we still have a room to contribute in interpretation-hypothesizing-testing segments.

How will the technologies evolve in next 10, 20 or 30 years, I wonder during the meeting. It is good to have time to think about future science.

Science: AAIC (Alzheimer's Association International Conference) 2022 (7/31-8/4/2022)

 Some years ago, a part of my research branched out from cancer to Alzheimer's disease. Last year I wrote a grant to fund the Alzheimer's disease related study. The "big" grant was not funded, but scored, which led to a small grant that allows us to "fix" the big grant and resubmit it.

So the Alzheimer's-related project continued. To familiarize myself to the broader Alzheimer's disease research field, I budgeted to attend AAIC 2022 conference in the small grant.

The AAIC is a major research conference for Alzheimer's disease research. Over years I've attended different meetings from different organizations; Cancer Research (ACS, AACR), Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Yeast biology, Cell Cycle conference, and so on. They came with different flavors and had different cultures. I was curious about the AAIC and Alzheimer's disease research.

Due to some delays in analysis with expensive new technology (we do not get a hang of it until we actually do it, don't we), we did not get to present results in the AAIC22 conference. Well, that is okay. We will know the results in a few weeks.

Anyhow, I signed up for the AAIC 2022 meeting online/virtual. The meeting itself was hybrid, offering actual meeting in San Diego with an option to watch symposiums and posters online.

To be honest, in covid time I've come to like virtual conference. Apparently I am not very fond of business travels. I am fine with attending sessions while sipping tea in my office. Virtual meeting cost much less, too ($250 to be exact).

The sessions were quite interesting. There were a lot of talks on immunological aspects in Alzheimer's disease development. Disease disparity (e.g., racial differences in clinical trials) appeared to be a hot topic.

Yet, the conference gave me an impression that how incomplete our understanding on Alzheimer's disease still is.

I may be speaking from the standard of cancer research, where the major frames of understanding seem to have been already established, much better than those for Alzheimer's.

In other words, there is still so much work to do in Alzheimer's disease research field.

For example, for cancers, personalized medicine approach has increasingly become common. Clinician colleagues discuss treatment strategy based on test results of genomic mutations from each patient's cancer.

In AAIC22, there were talks about different types of Alzheimer's. But molecular signatures for each type are vague, and treatments for the different types are yet to be elucidated.

As our methodologies are rapidly advancing and clinical/disease data keep piling up, I'd imagine, 10-20 years from now, AAIC would look quite different. They may be talking about Alzheimer's disease subtypes and causes, and treatment or prevention options for each subtype. Current therapies of 2022 would be obsolete and things of the past.

As a "newcomer", I do not have much emotional investment in current treatment strategies. I am fine if current treatments become obsolete. They have not shown great efficacies anyway.

Clearly there are unmet needs in current medical practices in Alzheimer's disease. 

How can we address them?

Bottom line. We do not have effective therapies for Alzheimer's disease as of 2022. That makes now an interesting time for scientists.

[AAIC22 virtual conference landing page, boasting nearly 9,000 attendants]