Category: Explore Practitioners

The practice: learning salsa from a group of professional salsa dancers and understanding how they teach.

Worksite Documentation

I went to attend a salsa class held at NUS in one of the many dance rooms. These rooms have hardwood flooring and are surrounded by mirrors. This is to allow all dancers to see their positioning and make sure they are doing movements properly. The instructors in the class also wear specific dance clothing so as to make their teaching and dancing experience better. While the participants were not required to wear any such clothing in the instance that I went, it was likely that later on they would be required to wear proper dance gear.

Tools

• Dance shoes (with a heel)
• Comfortable clothing
• Hairpins
• Music player
• Music
• Microphone for speaking
  

Process Documentation

As I first entered the class, I saw the instructors practicing with each other and showing whoever was interested in various dance moves. The class began with a performance and demonstration of the skills we ultimately hoped to learn.

I had always been confused by how dancers managed to think so quickly on their feet and come up with a combination of dance moves in a moment. In fact, watching them was astonishing because I could not split up one dance move from the other.

PAIN POINT: hard to learn new moves when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Could be cool to have an AR device that names the moves as they happen.

After the demonstration, we began the lesson by getting into a circle. The women formed a larger circle on the outside and the men formed a smaller circle on the inside. This was to create easy partnering, as the men would shift down the circle each time the instructors asked them to do so.

Learned the first move was basic since it was the most beginner step. However, for some people, it proved confusing once it started to be integrated into the rest of the dance. This was because the basic step needed to continuously be done even as dancers turned and moved along the floor.

PAIN POINT: remembering what foot to use next was difficult, and is a common problem in dance. A good solution would be a device that lightly zaps the leg that is meant to be used in the case of confusion.

As the class went on, we switched from partner to partner and continued learning new moves. These moves were ultimately grouped together into larger combinations in order to imitate the performance we had all seen at the beginning of the class.

Ultimately, we finished the class having learned many new combinations, and met lots of new interesting people. The members from the class could continue what was called “social dancing” in which they could dance freely with each other and practice the moves they had just learned. I decided to try and practice with an instructor to see what I had learned, and it turned out quite well!

Learning how to cook from a professional chef was a wonderful experience, especially because I got to experience everything almost exactly the way he would have done it.

Worksite Documentation

I went to visit Son Bath Orn at one of the locations that he cooks at, he is not just a chef but also a cooking teacher.

Tools Used/Works

Specifically, I learned about Asian cuisine which uses tools that I had never tried before in Western cooking.

• Apron
• Chefs Hat
• Knives
• Vegetable Peeler
• Long Wooden Table
• Circular wooden chopping block
• Wok
• Edible Ingredients
• Spices
• Chefs Garments
• Stove
• Plastic to cover food from bugs
• Metal Bowl filled with water

Process Documentation

He explained each element of his cooking station and how to use everything to make sure that you are an efficient chef. BUT FIRST, he took us to a local food market where we looked around at fresh ingredients and how he sometimes picks out his food.

He moved from stand to stand and explained the difficulty of creating each type of food. He also showed us where each of the ingredients we would be cooking with came from, from rice paper to spices, to fish ingredients.

PAIN POINT: The entire environment was overwhelming, there was so much to choose from, so much movement going on around us, and it was difficult to tell which ingredients were good or bad.

Then we came back to his cooking station and began prepping all of the ingredients we wood need.

• For the Spring Rolls
  • Peeled the ingredients
  • We chopped all the vegetables
  • Prepared the shrimp
  • Rolled all the ingredients inside of the rice paper

He also explained the correct way to soak and roll rice paper, which I had never done before. He showed us the technique of carefully dipping the rice paper in a bowl of water, before rotating it so that all sides were covered. Then, he told us to place the rice paper on a pre-moistened wooden chopping board. Then, we added the vegetables and noodles to our spring roll to roll them up one by one.

PAIN POINT: Once we finished the spring rolls, we needed to set them aside to continue cooking but the flies were attacking the food. We didn’t want the food to get dirty, so we had to wrap each individual plate with plastic wrap. This is a downside to cooking somewhat outside.

• For the Fish Amok
  • Chopped the ingredients
  • Added oil and cooked the fish
  • Added the ingredients one by one
  • Added coconut milk
  • Stirred until everything reduced

Cooking this dish was somewhat challenging because the chef wanted everything done very quickly one after the other. Also, this was done using a Wok, which I had never used for cooking before. Cooking things quickly is hard to do when you are not an experienced cook or when you get tired easily, and the Wok is very large and gets very hot so maneuvering it is a lot of work. The most important part of this dish was to continue reducing the liquids in the Wok until it became a thickened curry of ingredients.

PAIN POINT: Wok is very large, and the fire is very hot. Cooking this dish takes a long time and you get very tired.

• For the Banana Desert
  • Add butter to the Wok
  • Cook the Bananas
  • Add some coconut milk
  • Take the bananas out
  • Pour the remaining sauce into a sauce holder and enjoy!

Cooking this dish went by very quickly, and it was far easier than I assumed it would be. Picking the bananas out of the Wok was frightening because, again, the Wok was very hot. But once the bananas were out the dish was practically done, and then pouring the sauce was really easy.

Learning to cook from a real local chef was a really interesting experience. It taught me how easy cooking can be, and make me feel motivated to try new techniques that seemed intimidating before. Using a Wok, for instance, is interesting because while it serves the same purpose a pan in western cooking, it is essential to Asian cuisine and brings about a totally different cooking experience.