Learning To Salsa

In college some of my friends and acquaintances would go salsa dancing in Memphis sometimes. I was invited to go a few times but never went because I was too anxious over the whole situation. I felt silly because I didn’t know how to salsa and even though I’m at the exact same weight now that I was then, I felt too fat. I didn’t look like a salsa dancer. Salsa dancers look like this:

Salsa was this big intimidating thing to me. Dancing in general has always intimidated me as someone who lost her ability to count music in 7th grade and never had much rhythm before or after that. I’ve always wanted to be smooth and dance well but I’ve never been able to do that before. That’s not true. I never even tried before.

Being the fat girl meant I never went to any dances in high school. I went to my prom but I only “danced” a few dances. Mostly I just hung around the outside perimeter feeling awkward and watching other people. In college when I started to exercise and feel better about my body I thought I would just keep waiting until I reached my goal weight and then I would go dancing and suddenly become an amazing dancer. That clearly didn’t happen.

I decided to stop waiting to try dancing.

My first even remotely dance related experience was with Zumba at Green Mountain. It’s more exercise than dance but it does include some dance steps and movements in it. Since then I haven’t done anything dancing related since it’s not something I identify myself with. However this past week I was looking for free things to do in Auckland so I’d start to feel more at home and get out there more often (and get over my training rebellion). I found free outdoors dancing lessons three nights a week until March. On Tuesdays they do salsa lessons so I decided to ask Kepa and go.

We went last night for the first time. I loved hearing the music and the instructors mix of Spanish words in with his English instructions (it was so good to hear Spanish!). There was a good number of people who turned out for the class. He warmed us up then slowly taught us the basics of a beginner Merengue dance routine. It seemed easy enough and I found that though I had trouble keeping time I was having a lot of fun learning.

The instructor called out for us to switch partners every so often. I hated leaving Kepa because he was actually one of the best dancers because he learns things quickly. The other men I danced with all seemed very confused by the steps. And then after a few switches I ended up partnering with a woman. Since the numbers were off some of the women had to practice as men. Unfortunately, the stocky Asian woman I paired up with didn’t seem to know which one she was practising as and didn’t seem to car.

That turned out to be the worst dance of my life. The lady decided to lead – mostly by digging her nails into my hands – and force me to do what she wanted. At first I was doing the male “lead” then she was forcing me to do the female part. Obviously this was extremely confusing to me because I didn’t know what she wanted me to do and she didn’t know the steps regardless. It was clumsy and awkward.

Then it was painful.

As she didn’t know what she was doing she went into a weird turn and then elbowed me directly in the nose. It hurt more than anything ever! She said sorry and wanted to keep going but I already had tears in my eyes and had to walk away. I left the dance area and went to cry and drink some water. Now I know how it feels to get punched in the face – it hurts. After a few minutes Kepa realized I had left and he came to get me and bring me back to dance. After that I refused to switch partners and just stayed with him.

Besides the extremely painful elbow to the nose I had a really fun time. I learned all the moves and Kepa and I did really well. By the end we had it down while others were still struggling. Then after the lesson we practiced a little bit at home and even taught ourselves a new move. I’m excited to go back for another salsa lesson next week and learn more even though I’m probably not going to change partners. It’s too risky, apparently.

Who knew salsa dancing could be so fun? And that you don’t need to be a size 0 to enjoy it?

I feel like this is the first step to opening up a whole new world of activity for me. Dancing is so fun and relatively new to me. I’m excited to learn more and get better and actually feel like I know what I’m doing. I’d also like to learn to swing dance and do other styles. I honestly didn’t think I could ever be a dancer but it might actually be possible!

Do you know how to salsa dance? Do you like it? Are you a dancer?

1. Thoughts On Dance Your Ass Off

Tagged as: dancing, Exercise, Fitness, salsa