There. I did it. I used a D12 lyric as the title of this
blog, but more importantly, that means I’ve done something more degrading than
what I did last night. Last night, I danced the salsa.
I don’t mean this to demean the entire salsa-dancing
population of the world. I only mean to highlight how comically poor I am at
ballroom dancing. I have all the coordination and elegance of a giraffe hopped
up on speed and bound by Saran wrap. (I have it on good scientific authority
that giraffes are not good at salsa dancing, let alone those trapped by cling
wrap and using hard drugs)
Thus, when a coworker I’ve been meaning to catch up with
invited me to go salsa dancing with her and a friend yesterday, I was
absolutely sure she was joking. I was wrong.
Some background: I am a 6’3”, 250-pound white dude. I played
basketball in high school, but I’ve only recently started trying to get myself
back into shape after encountering a few personal fitness speed bumps at
college. My best dancing performance was beating this on medium difficulty my
junior year of high school.
Yet about nine hours after her original invitation, there I
was, in a car headed towards Philly, about to go salsa dancing. God help us
all.
----------------
Brasil, a club in Old City, Philadelphia right near the
Delaware River, has two levels. The ground floor has a traditional nightclub
feel with a raised dance floor, bar, lounge chairs and all the flashing neon
lights you could ask for. The upper level is, for all intents and purposes, a small
dance studio with your grandfather’s mini bar attached to it. They offer $3
Coronas and margaritas at the bar on Wednesday lesson nights; because when
you’re about to learn to do something you’ve had virtually no experience doing,
why not try it after hitting the sauce?
$5 got us in for the lesson. After a round of drinks, Sonja,
our dance instructor, called the 36 or so dancers in to begin, as another half
dozen folks remained at Grandpa’s bar and preemptively began to chuckle at
our impending misfortune.
The first aspect of dancing I remembered I hated were the
mirrors. The mirrors in a dance studio obviously serve to show you how you’re
moving in relation to the instructor and pinpoint where you’re going wrong. It
also reminds me what I look like while trying to do anything gracefully. I
could hear my own notoriously malicious subconscious ridiculing me: “Nice
moves, milky! You learn that move playing with your Skip It last week? Hey,
remember when your waist could fit into one of those legholes on your jeans? I
think I saw a shop selling secondhand Spanx on the way over here. You should
scope it out! I had sex with your wife last night!” (My subconscious doesn’t
know I’m not married)
We started with “basic step.” Sonja did the step three times
before moving on to the next step. The problem was, it usually took me until
the third time to figure out what she was doing anyway. By the time I finally
got around to trying it myself, she would shout, “Okay, now Suzy Q’s!” and I’d
be left stumbling into the next move.
After going through eight or nine steps at what seemed to me
like warp speed (naturally, everyone in my immediate area seemed to know
exactly what they were doing), Sonja called out to her assistant Jamie to hit
the music. Salsa music blared out the speakers of the studio as Sonja began shouting
out the names of the next step to do, like I had a snowball’s chance in hell of
remembering the actual steps, let alone their goddamn NAMES.
The fact that even Sonja’s bright voice couldn’t rise above
the music made it nigh impossible for me to put forth anything greater than
Garfield tap dancing on his fence as I tried to figure out what was going on.
The only two sounds I could hear above the music were Sonja occasionally
shouting “Wooooo!” to remind us she was having fun and God’s laughter as he
watched me struggle. “Wow, I’ve created some crappy dancers in My day, but I
must have let one of the interns work on you, buddy! If I’d known people could be this bad at dancing, I'd have banned it for good centuries ago! I had sex with your wife last night!" (God doesn't pay close attention either, I guess)
After our warmups, we got in a circle and began learning our
actual dance for the night. Men lined up on the inside of the circle, women on
the outside rotating every minute or so to change up our dance partners. I
started with my friend from work, then her friend, then a long line of
strangers. It was fun dancing with people of all sizes and experience levels –
the more seasoned dancers would politely point out how I should stop taking
steps as if I’m doing lunges and just make short, barely-noticeable steps.
About 10 minutes in, a blonde woman in her early to mid 30s
rotated to me and we began setting up to dance when she shot a glance to
someone to her right and hissed “What?” I ignored this until it happened three
more times and I couldn’t help but peek over. A similarly aged man in a dress
shirt and slacks is looking at her with an expression that could be best
described as half appalled and half “Moooooom, when’s it gonna be myyyytuuuurrrrn?” Either this man was emotionally shattered at the mere prospect of
his wife/girlfriend dancing with anyone other than him, or he was simply having the
most miserable time I’ve ever seen anyone have doing anything ever.
At last, after about a minute of these grade school-level
shenanigans, the woman took my hand, led me over to where her man was, and
asked the woman he was currently paired with if they could swap. Sonja, sensing
trouble, asked if there was a problem.
“He only wants to dance with me,” the blonde woman answered.
“I know, I know,” she added, seeing Sonja’s puzzled look. For the rest of the
night, the rest of the group rotated while Insecure Man and Humiliated Woman
awkwardly shuffled along in the corner. The only possible scenario I could
imagine where the man would get that visibly upset would be if:
a. He hated dancing/socializing, AND
b. His wife loved dancing, AND
c. His wife convinced him to go by promising she’d only
dance with him
If that’s the case, however, it would have been far better
for the gentleman to simply leave and engage in an activity better suited to
his personality, like kicking the s*** out of a homeless guy.
As the night went on, I began getting the hang of things,
relatively speaking. I even learned to “lead” my partner into our planned
moves, which was good because Sonja specifically instructed the woman not to go
along with the planned move unless her male partner “firmly” led them into it.
There’s nothing worse than moving on to what you believe is the next step, only
to see your partner stop moving because they’ve determined you’re not being
forceful enough. (Or that you’re dead wrong about what the next step is and
have no clue)
“Ba-sic step, ba-sic step, ba-sic LIFT, turn the girl…back
and turn, one two three, ba-sic step, ba-sic shake…” Midway through, there are
three sets where the man simply rocks back and forth while the woman alternates
between “flashy” moves such as hip-shaking, body rolls or lunges.
The last move was the trickiest for the men, though, particularly
enormous dudes like me. The move required holding my partner’s hands while I
spun underneath our arms, holding on to her hands the whole time. Afterwards,
we’d smoothly release our grips while doing the basic step and return to form.
If I’m describing this terribly, it’s because I was also terrible at doing it.
Eventually, the music started and the rotations began again.
With each new partner, I grew more relaxed and more comfortable with each new
move (giggity). Finally, Sonja called “Last rotation!” This was my last chance
to put everything together, including that tough new spin.
Problem was, no one rotated to me. The men to my left and
right had a new partner; I didn’t. Somewhere along the line, the rotation chain
got jumbled up.
“Five, six…” Sonja counted off to begin the dance. At “six,”
a small middle-aged woman rushed up to me from the left and snatched my hand,
glaring as if her showing up two seconds before we were supposed to start was
my fault.
A more experienced dancer might have been able to go with
the flow and make that work. I didn’t. I muffed up my steps six ways to Sunday.
Thbbbbbbt.
 |
| My assumption is that all dance lessons eventually lead to this |
After the lesson came open dancing. I grabbed a beer and watched the rest of the
group, my two friends included, dance with the other regulars for fun. Almost out of a
high school movie, men swept by woman standing alone, asking for a dance and
leading them to the floor, improvising the duration of their dance, the women following nearly to perfection. I’m not in that boat yet. It’s not for lack of
confidence; I’m just not going to ruin a woman’s night by wooing her into a
dance, then spending five minutes mangling her toes and sending her crashing
into other dancers.
Did I learn anything from trying something out of my comfort
zone? Sure. Vans are terrible shoes to dance in, and some nightclub bouncers
are more eager to pat you down than others. (I think I saw the guard outside
Brasil do a small fist-pump when he saw me, the first dude in about 3 minutes,
walk up to the door).
I’ve always been a talker, though. My preferred method of communication
with the fairer sex, or just my friends, is verbal, not physical. Dance halls
or clubs pumping in heavy bass beats or even classic ballroom music don’t cater
to my strengths. I’m out of my element. I need a bar or a café or a house with
a little background music. That’s my Rafael Nadal on clay.
It wouldn’t hurt to improve my dancing, though. As a way of
letting loose and getting a little workout in, it could be great once I learn
what the hell I’m doing. And after all, I’m still not too old to pursue my NFL
career yet. Anything could help.
No comments:
Post a Comment