Salsa open diary

Day 2 of Orientation Week at the Harvard School of Public Health, where I am officially a student as of yesterday :) (I am starting a two-year Master in Epidemiology):

As part of introducing ourselves in one of the discussion groups, we each had to mention one "fun fact" about ourselves. You can imagine what mine was :), and I was pretty certain that I would be the only one in the group that had anything to do with salsa. (I expected the "fun facts" to be things like brain surgery, rocket science, and other such "light" activities :))

So you can imagine my shock when not one, not two, no three, not four, but FIVE of the 20 students in the class mentioned salsa dancing as an interest! Then my turn came and I revealed my salsa history :). After the discussion ended the wanna-be salseros all jumped on me and I am quickly becoming the HSPH go-to person for Boston salsa events :D. I even brought up the idea of starting a salsa group at HSPH, which led to a great deal of excitement among the group :).
 
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Sabrosura said:
Day 2 of Orientation Week at the Harvard School of Public Health, where I am officially a student as of yesterday :) (I am starting a two-year Master in Epidemiology):

As part of introducing ourselves in one of the discussion groups, we each had to mention one "fun fact" about ourselves. You can imagine what mine was :), and I was pretty certain that I would be the only one in the group that had anything to do with salsa. (I expected the "fun facts" to be things like brain surgery, rocket science, and other such "light" activities :))

So you can imagine my shock when not one, not two, no three, not four, but FIVE of the 20 students in the class mentioned salsa dancing as an interest! Then my turn came and I revealed my salsa history :). After the discussion ended the wanna-be salseros all jumped on me and I am quickly becoming the HSPH go-to person for Boston salsa events :D. I even brought up the idea of starting a salsa group at HSPH, which led to a great deal of excitement among the group :).
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There are some good tech schools in your area. Research says salsa dancers are attracted to that, so scene must be good. Good luck, Sabs.
 
You won't believe, but still buzzing after Rostov. In Bachaturo 2 people came to me and said - "were you in Rostov? I think I saw you. We did not dance there." and we danced and it was good.
 
Taking a break from Salsa and starting Kizomba tomorrow instead, still taking lessons alongside Bachata.
Those 2 dances complement my style of dancing.
 
Hi all
Just had a really uplifting salsa experience on Wednesday night. I went to Zoo latino in Milano. It was my second time there. The first was not anything special but this time it really uplifted my spirits and reminded me of why I love dancing. Zoo has two areas, one for Cuban salsa and one for linear. I decided to stick to the Cuban and it was amazing. It was not that there were great followers to dance with but it was that everybody was having fun. And there were some great leaders. Especially two guys in their seventies or eighties that literally burned the floor. Looking at them doing shimmies, fast rueda moves, then slow moves (turning the woman really slow), then rumba moves, then hopping in the air... They were having fun and it really uplifted me. I felt like bowing at them, cleaning their shoes. After seeing that I could not stop smilling through out all my dances. It just made me happy... And it freed completely my dancing. I was not thinking about whether its right or not. It was just the music and the partner and I could see the followers smilling all the time too. It was like the good old times. Beautiful stuff. Salsa is still alive...
 
Weird experience last night:
I asked a guy to dance and he turned me down at first, saying, that he was only there to watch, listen and have a drink and didn´t know how to dance. No problem, I just went on to look around, if there was someone else to dance with.
A minute later he comes up to me and says: "ok, I´ll try..."
We start dancing and his movement is so amazing, so smooth and centered, like I´ve only experienced from very, very advanced dancers or profs so far. So I´m immediately convinced that he had just been teasing me, when he told me he didn´t know how to dance.
As the dance goes on, I´m getting more and more confused, though...
His leading is smooth, but seems off time and doesn´t make sense to me most of the time. Still, I´m so impressed by the way he moves, that I start thinking that it might be me after all and I´m just not getting it. Or that he is one of these guys who are so used too dancing with the same two or three followers all the time that they can´t lead other followers...
Anyways, I do my best to follow and the dance turns out to be a bit strange, but not too bad after all. Afterwards he tells me: "See, I warned you, I don´t know how to dance.." I´m still not sure, if he is joking and so busy trying to make sense of the situation, that he´s just getting a rather lame reply from me.
Next thing, he tries to flirt with me. Not in a bad way, but I´m not in a flirting mood, plus, I´m still too puzzled, to deal with that, too, so I just smile and leave.
A bit later it finally sunk in and I realised: He really didn´t know what he was doing! He is just incredibly talented!
I didn´t see him anywhere for the rest of the night.
Looking back at it, I really wish I´d just ignored his advances and had told him how impressed I was and had encouraged him to take up dancing. I´m convinced, if he´d take some classes and get the concept of leading and (conventional) timing, he´d be an amazing dancer in no time at all.
It´s such a loss, if someone that talented doesn´t dance.
And the worst: My puzzled reaction might have been rather discouraging instead of encouraging....:(
I feel really bad about that and wish I had a chance to clear that up, but it´s quite unlikely that I´ll meet him again...
 
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Been a little burned out after the week-long Vama Veche festival, and only going 3 times per week. :-) But last night was one of the rare times with a shortage of leads. So... I ended up dancing every song (missing maybe one for a bathroom break) from 10pm to closing at 1am.
 
Well, I still haven't been able to go out dancing :(, but when I was in DC this week my very best salsa friend drove down from Baltimore to see me, which was food for the soul! So great to see her after five years, and reminisce about wreaking havoc in the clubs in Osaka together. We used to stand by the edge of the floor silently saying to the Japanese follows "Hey look, girls, CURVES. Yeah!" :D

She also hasn't been dancing too much, saying a good DJ moved away from Baltimore and his replacement was uninspiring (and she has a 7 month old, which rather restricts dancing :) ).

At least we could indulge in our other favorite pastime, drinking margaritas :).
 
Lately I've been thinking back to a conversation I had a few months ago when my massage therapist mentioned to me that I seemed like a quiet shy type. My reply was "oh yeah? I'll have you know I used to be a Salsa dancer!"...only to find out she was an avid Ballroom dancer and was very involved in the local dance community. We discussed various styles of Ballroom, dance frame, spin techniques and she commented "you really were a dancer...you should check out some local spots!". Then began many emails and texts back and forth where she'd ask if I'd been out dancing and I'd always have an excuse week after week. I was only actively dancing for just a few years of my life...and I was almost angry that it had still left such a lasting impression on me. Every few years I'd drop by a venue, attend the lesson, watch for a few minutes and then leave. It felt like having dinner with an ex you had a bad relationship with...dance was in my past and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Then I pulled out those CDs a Salsa friend had sent me years ago...and I decided I'd sign up for a month of Salsa classes. Couldn't hurt, could it?

In a way it did. I wasn't prepared for what flooded my thoughts after that first class. So many memories...of friendships long gone.. carpooling to the those far away clubs...eating meals with my fellow Salsa addicts at 3 am...getting home at 5 am, sleeping for an hour and then going to work...exhausted yet full in spirit from getting my Salsa fix. The good dances, the bad ones...coming home smelling like a dozen different kinds of perfume and loving every minute of it. :)

Being the over analyzer that I am I keep trying I find an excuse to leave Salsa in my past...but I don't seem to have a good one.

To be continued....;)
 
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I am currently taking a Spanish class at local college for fun. During the class, la profesora who grew up from DR asked every student a simple Spanish questions about anything we like, "Que tu gusta?" then when it get to me, "Y tu?" I respond, "Me gustan bailar salsa y bachata." Then profesora was surprised that there is such salsa and bachata dancer in town. Most students in class are not aware of what salsa and bachata dance are like. Profesora asked me how long I have been dancing and where I went to dance and took classes. After answering to her questions, she told me that she used to dance salsa in DR when she was younger. She asked me if I can dance salsa with her in class next week front of students to demonstrating part of Latin culture for extra credits. I am more nervous of what song she will pick and not knowing how well she dance salsa. :)
 
I am on the fence about this return to Salsa dancing. Just back from a dance...once again I mainly watched and only danced a few times. Still feeling very uncomfortable as a lead and learning about this new community I'm a part of. I did realize several things though:

1. I am completely spoiled by all of the awesome venues we had in the Bay Area. The rural community I am in now is so...different.
2. There are some amazing followers here...but the leads...gah! Stiff upper bodies...very little sabor...and next to no shines (maybe that's a good thing?)
3. It seems dips have replaced the neck drop as the Stupid Move of the Week. Seriously guys, cool it with the dips. They do not make up for bad dancing.
4. It is still not fun to dance with a drunk lady, no matter how hot she is. But thank you for the compliment on my lead (definitely the booze talking).
5. I am still annoyed by groups of young girls who take up floor space by dancing together to some unknown rhythm. Learn to dance Salsa, or get off the dance floor. And wear proper shoes!
6. It still amazes me to no end how many "advanced" dancers do not dance on time and have crappy dance frames. Didn't you watch Dirty Dancing?
7. This area may be more lead heavy than I realized. It seems I have not found paradise after all. Ah well...
8. Making the decision to keep my personal life and dance life separate as I did in the past feels like the right thing to do here. In such a small community...ugh...things could get awkward.

With such limited venues for Salsa...there is no way I will ever recapture the life as a Salsero I once had where I'm living now. But getting some dance experience is a good thing...for however much longer I will be living here. Getting that itch to relocate again is keeping me from putting down roots...so I'll finish off my month of lessons at least and then see how I feel then. ;)
 
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Scorpionguy: I realise you probably don't entirely mean it like that, but that post comes off as quite arrogant. I a large scene, criticizing other dancers isn't a great thing to do, but in a small scene where the teaching quality perhaps isn't the greatest, those 'advanced' dancers are probably doing what they can. And as long as they're having fun, who cares if their upper bodies are stiff? They'll start doing their research once they care enough to do so.
As I mentioned, you probably don't mean it like that, but right now I imagine you as a grumpier version of the guy from Cuban Fury :P

Onwards to my own post :)

My GF is in Beijing for a couple of months for an internship, so my favorite dance partner isn't there. I miss her more as my GF than as my dance partner, of course, but this is a board on dancing, right? :)
So now I'm back to doing 7 classes a week because, what the heck, I have the time to spare, right? And the only instructor of international acclaim in the area ( Fadi Fusion ) is teaching at least one season in a school nearby. Which is nice, because his focus on technique and finishing touches is what's been lacking in my dancing.

And just listening to this song gives me good vibes for tonight's party :)
 
Ron - Thank you. As I mentioned in other posts...getting back into Salsa again has stirred up a lot of emotions for me. And obviously, some are not positive ones. Towards the end of my Salsero days I had a true love/hate relationship with it...but I feel this was mainly due to the fact that my life was a complete mess at the time. Although our local scene was competitive...my own misfortunes are most likely what caused me to rage quit. I have so much to be thankful for now that I did not have back then.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with my new dance community. It is, in fact, one of the nicest and friendliest I have ever seen. The problem is with me. I didn't have a good time dancing last night because I put myself in a negative head space. On some level, I know I am trying to find an excuse to not get back into dancing...and when I find no excuse, I then create one.

Regardless if I choose to pursue dance long term again or not, these experiences have given me some insight on things I need to work on in my life.

Your candor is appreciated, my friend. Again, thank you.
 
The trick I use is that I only dance for myself, not others. You are the dancer and can dance with as much (or little) sabor as you like, maybe be an inspiration to other dancers to be more musical and have more sabor? Sometimes you need to "lead" - that can improve a dance scene, and it seems like your dance scene needs some "enlightenment", for want of a better word.
 
Jag - for someone who appears very youthful in your profile picture, you demonstrate admirable insight and maturity in your posts. Especially the last one. ;)
 
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