Salsa high jinks
Last Thursday, I tried salsa again. I took a beginners’ class in Singapore over a year ago but didn’t continue because I wanted to save money for the Japan move.
I was reluctant to go back to it, even when Miki was so enthusiastic about her discovery of this cheap salsa class in Roppongi’s Bar Sheesha — a lesson, plus one drink and free entry to sister salsa bar Copacabana. My friend Kosuke was keen to give it a shot and he claimed it was to lose weight. Right, I kept teasing him, you wanna meet chicks!
Regretting my drunken promises to Kosuke to be his wing buddy, I dragged myself to Roppongi. The lesson was only attended by two of us, so I had to dance with Kosuke. The poor bugger didn’t know what to expect. I guess when you watch the pros do it, it looks easy and fun. Well, he tried very hard, but he still looked like he was doing the running man, instead of quick-quick-slow steps.
Particularly overwhelmed by the turns we had to do, he fumbled and hopped around as energetically as he could. He also held my hand way above our heads even after he twirled me. I kept having to dodge his wayward elbows. I was as relieved as him when the music stopped. It wasn’t all bad because I got to dance with the instructor, Boaz, and you girls will know, when you dance with an expert, you feel like you can dance salsa, even when you don’t know shite.
After the lesson, we moved over to Copacabana. There, I was reminded of the hot-blooded Latino beats and the gorgeous twirls you can do. You work up such a good sweat, too. Miki introduced me to her intermediate classmates and one of them turned out to be a girl I met at my first meetup.com session. After my exam, I think I’ll celebrate it with a boogie on the dance floor with my new salsa friends.
Related posts:
March 12th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
lol!
i was almost convinced to pick up salsa.. but didn’t happen because my volunteer instructor (raf) was too busy.
i think i’d have been a slow learner though.
March 13th, 2007 at 7:25 am
aw you’ll be fine. it’s quite easy, but for guys, it’s so much harder.
now i kinda rem why i stopped too. it wasn’t just the moolah…the guys were often a bit geeky who didn’t know how to dance properly. even though they were the ones who looked like monkeys, i felt stupid while dancing off beat with them. found it damn hard not to snort with laughter.
:p