Salsa School Dropout

Wednesday evening I had the rare choice of attending two events. One, an informational meeting about a women’s salsa group, had been on my calendar for weeks. The other, a movie night with a friend and her daughters, had come up on the spur of the moment.

Since I was really curious about the salsa group, I gave my regrets to my friend and headed to a dance studio in Tallahassee. I arrived just as an exercise class called “Twerk It!” was ending. A combination of hip hop and Zumba, the class looked like exhausting fun. 

Slowly the Twerk It! group left the building in groups of twos and threes and the salsa instructor appeared. She was an attractive, fit woman in her mid-30’s who quickly got into her spiel about the joys of Touch Salsa, a franchised program that can apparently be found worldwide.

As she spoke I became more excited. Not only did participants get to learn salsa routines, but they could participate in dance competitions as part of a larger group. And, they got to wear cute dance costumes. Count me in!

Now, the Facebook ad for this class indicated it was informational only, so I’d worn my flip flops. BIG mistake! I cannot emphasize this enough. 

The instructor had us line up behind her to learn a few basic steps. I was doing fine until I had to do a right turn. My flip flops stuck to the floor and guess who went sprawling? Yep, me.  

Undeterred I shook it off and got up in time to tackle a left turn. I knew better than to try to pivot this time, so I sort of hopped. It wasn’t pretty, but I stayed upright.

Finally our little group got through five basic steps. That’s when the instructor added in the arm movements. I’m fairly sure that had anyone been watching my gesticulations they would’ve felt compelled to notify emergency personnel.

I abandoned trying to follow the instructions and just did a variation of waving my hands in the air like I just didn’t care. The instructor gave me a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. Can you blame her? I’m sure she thought I wasn’t trying. But the sad truth is, I was trying really hard. 

So, I decided the Touch Salsa class wasn’t for me, and after paying my $5.00 I told the instructor I wouldn’t be participating. I might be imagining things, but I’m pretty sure she breathed a sigh of relief.

Now about that Twerk It! class? That might be right up my alley. Stay tuned.

http://youtu.be/WQGSWBkJW84
Peace, people!

Author: nananoyz

I'm a semi-retired crazy person with one husband and two cats. View all posts by nananoyz