Monday, March 5, 2012

Salsa is my Favorite and other new adventures!

Damn Straight it doesn't!
But then we knew that right? :-) Hi Everyone! *wave* I am so excited about a couple of things right now! First and foremost, while I'm not taking lessons, a group of us have decided to go out dancing with some regularity and YAY we've been Salsa dancing three times in the last several weeks (twice this past weekend!).

I love Salsa! Like seriously L-O-V-E Salsa! As with most things I do, while I love it, there's also a level of grrrr  frustration that causes massive internal battles to wage. It's getting to the point now where even I laugh at some of my internal monologues and conversations (even out loud a few times!). These angel/devil Salsa conversations have been less humorous in nature, but in some cases may end up being absurd anyway. Before I get to what is sure to be a lot of continued insight into my head let's first take a gander at why I love Salsa.

First of all it's easy, the basic of Salsa is probably the most simple basic of any dance I've learned. Second- once you get the basic down if you know how to get back into it then no matter what happens you'll end up back where you started. Third- Salsa music is nearly impossible to not dance to. Fourth- have you seen some of those good salsa dancers out there? They are wicked cool and totally amazing! Fifth- and finally I think is that I was taught Salsa originally by someone who loved it too, so that made it a lot of fun to pick up and work on.

So I had a ton of fun doing that.... but always in my head there's the running commentary Ok need to get to the gym. There was a time when I was good at this. What the heck was that? Oh I want to dance like her! Tomorrow I am going to start going to the gym. OMG is this song over yet so I can catch my breath?!?

One of my favorite mantras of late! 
I have this general opinion of my Salsa... it's very proficient. Almost like it came out of the Eastern Block or something. I dance with very few flourishes, little arm styling, and I have maybe three shines in my back pocket that I can pull out when my partner wants to show off. I would love to have all of that in my dancing but usually when I try that stuff I lose the timing, can't follow as well, whack somebody, or some other tragic in the moment activity. I am very pleased that I seem to still be able to follow, thank goodness cuz that is SO IMPORTANT, but everything is just slower and heavier than it was.

Well I am maintaining that you can't keep a good girl down, and there are too many good things going in my life to stress too much about it. Also, I am almost just as happy to see my friends get out there and have a good time. I'm sure that will change as soon as a 3-5 minute fast paced Salsa doesn't make my body try to make deals with my brain about how to get out of the possible pain.

I hope to be back to the floor soon, but who knows. That saying that "When you make plans...God laughs" seems to be very accurate of late.

I wish everyone, as always, Happy Dancing!