Last night was the last salsa class for the semester. As a result was had a shortened lesson but it was to make room for a cookout on the roof of the building where we have lessons.
This last class taught us a final Bachata move, which had a dip at the end. The problem is I don't know any of the Bachata songs so predicting when it's going to end so I can pull of the dip at an impressive time is all but impossible. In fact learning that move has only guaranteed my making a fool of myself if I attempt it. So I suppose this last class taught me how to look terrible in front of a crowd, but it was still fun to learn, and the rest of move, which is a wild turn, is a lot of fun to perform.
After the lesson it was time to eat and meet (hah! that rhymes) everyone we had been dancing with all semester long. To me this meal was a bit backwards. We should have had it after the first couple weeks of class to help foster new friendships. Instead we have it at the end making it a "Hi, nice to meet you, goodbye" type event. During the meal the instructors had salsa music playing in the background in case we wanted to dance, but instead we just talked. It was better than middle school though. Guys and girls weren't separated on opposite sides of the roof. We were all mingling together, but still no one was dancing.
During the conversation I talked with a guy who I thought was an undergrad but turned out to be 31 with a job for the Army Corp of Engineers. He had been coming to class with two of his girl friends who I also took for undergrads but one is around 27 and is his co-worker and the other is around 25 and is possibly a grad student, he wasn't sure. This whole time I thought I was a creepy old guy taking these lessons, and it turns out there are three students right there who are all just like me.
Now at the lesson last night one of the really pretty girls showed up. She was actually one of the two friends that guy I met had been coming to class with. I like dancing and would have been happy to dance with anyone up there, but if had to choose I wanted to dance with her, but couldn't think of a good way to approach the situation even though we were at class, with people we had payed to help us, and they had music playing. So after talking with the guy for awhile, I said 'we should be dancing, you've got two friends over there who are just sitting around chatting, let's ask them to join us', and I walked on over. Basically I made him my wing man, even though he didn't verbally agree or really follow me. I walked over, asked the two ladies if one of them would like to dance, and the really pretty one bounded up. We "danced" for about 15 minutes which was about all the time we had left, and it was a blast. While she was very pretty, which certainly heightened the enjoyment, the best part was her attitude. She didn't get frustrated that we couldn't remember the moves, she didn't seem eager to run off to her next meeting or homework assignment, she wasn't concerned about sending mixed signals which would have made the whole situation tense and more like a middle school dance, and she had a sense of humor about our complete lack of skill. Or rather my lack of skill. She was able to follow a lead, so basically I had to be the one who remembered all the moves.
That's the tricky part about salsa. If the girl can follow a lead she really doesn't need to know much. But the guy has to think of the moves, and execute them all while keeping to the beat. At these lessons we learn a ton of moves and rarely review. So keeping them all straight is very difficult, and after talking around last night I found I was not alone amongst the guys in my inability to retain much of anything. I suppose this is the need for practice. Anyway those fifteen minutes were a rare blast, and she put up with my fumblings the whole time. Actually she was impressed that I was quickly able to learn one of the moves she taught me from an earlier class that evening that I don't attend.
Classes are over now, but to my surprise I found they are going to continue throughout the summer. When the instructor asked who was going to be around for the lessons, a sizable number raised their hands. I asked the girl after we finished up if she was going to be here over the summer and keep up with lessons. She said yes, but that she wasn't going to be able to start until the middle of June.
Last night too much went right. Surely very soon things are going to balance out in an epic dose of humiliating embarrasment.
This last class taught us a final Bachata move, which had a dip at the end. The problem is I don't know any of the Bachata songs so predicting when it's going to end so I can pull of the dip at an impressive time is all but impossible. In fact learning that move has only guaranteed my making a fool of myself if I attempt it. So I suppose this last class taught me how to look terrible in front of a crowd, but it was still fun to learn, and the rest of move, which is a wild turn, is a lot of fun to perform.
After the lesson it was time to eat and meet (hah! that rhymes) everyone we had been dancing with all semester long. To me this meal was a bit backwards. We should have had it after the first couple weeks of class to help foster new friendships. Instead we have it at the end making it a "Hi, nice to meet you, goodbye" type event. During the meal the instructors had salsa music playing in the background in case we wanted to dance, but instead we just talked. It was better than middle school though. Guys and girls weren't separated on opposite sides of the roof. We were all mingling together, but still no one was dancing.
During the conversation I talked with a guy who I thought was an undergrad but turned out to be 31 with a job for the Army Corp of Engineers. He had been coming to class with two of his girl friends who I also took for undergrads but one is around 27 and is his co-worker and the other is around 25 and is possibly a grad student, he wasn't sure. This whole time I thought I was a creepy old guy taking these lessons, and it turns out there are three students right there who are all just like me.
Now at the lesson last night one of the really pretty girls showed up. She was actually one of the two friends that guy I met had been coming to class with. I like dancing and would have been happy to dance with anyone up there, but if had to choose I wanted to dance with her, but couldn't think of a good way to approach the situation even though we were at class, with people we had payed to help us, and they had music playing. So after talking with the guy for awhile, I said 'we should be dancing, you've got two friends over there who are just sitting around chatting, let's ask them to join us', and I walked on over. Basically I made him my wing man, even though he didn't verbally agree or really follow me. I walked over, asked the two ladies if one of them would like to dance, and the really pretty one bounded up. We "danced" for about 15 minutes which was about all the time we had left, and it was a blast. While she was very pretty, which certainly heightened the enjoyment, the best part was her attitude. She didn't get frustrated that we couldn't remember the moves, she didn't seem eager to run off to her next meeting or homework assignment, she wasn't concerned about sending mixed signals which would have made the whole situation tense and more like a middle school dance, and she had a sense of humor about our complete lack of skill. Or rather my lack of skill. She was able to follow a lead, so basically I had to be the one who remembered all the moves.
That's the tricky part about salsa. If the girl can follow a lead she really doesn't need to know much. But the guy has to think of the moves, and execute them all while keeping to the beat. At these lessons we learn a ton of moves and rarely review. So keeping them all straight is very difficult, and after talking around last night I found I was not alone amongst the guys in my inability to retain much of anything. I suppose this is the need for practice. Anyway those fifteen minutes were a rare blast, and she put up with my fumblings the whole time. Actually she was impressed that I was quickly able to learn one of the moves she taught me from an earlier class that evening that I don't attend.
Classes are over now, but to my surprise I found they are going to continue throughout the summer. When the instructor asked who was going to be around for the lessons, a sizable number raised their hands. I asked the girl after we finished up if she was going to be here over the summer and keep up with lessons. She said yes, but that she wasn't going to be able to start until the middle of June.
Last night too much went right. Surely very soon things are going to balance out in an epic dose of humiliating embarrasment.
1 comments:
That is awesome, Spike! It is always nice to meet a fun new group of people. You should totally try to keep up with the guy and two girls, not as a way to jump into asking one of them out, but just as a way to meet new friends, which is harder to do that it should be sometimes. My theory is that new friends beget more new friends and new social circles, so don't be shy about making a good effort to hang out with them! They all sounds like a fun group!
WAM
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