I am often praised for my ability to freestyle boogie. In fact, I was at a Punjabi Indian wedding in Florida last weekend. It was essentially three days of dancing interrupted at random by ceremonial proceedings. While there, an elderly but still physically vigorous Sikh man insisted that I teach him some of my moves. In India, members of the Sikh community are renowned for their expertise with bhangra, a folk dance from Punjab, so I grinned at his compliment.
Rewind to last Thursday. I was planning on relaxing with a quality cup of tea in One Wheelock before packing for my flight early the next morning.
However, I remembered then that I had to attend a salsa lesson in Fuel for this article. I grumbled as I drank my tea, but I secretly congratulated myself. This week's Mirror theme had something to do with going out of your comfort zone, and I was undoubtedly well within mine.
As I slunk into the dimly-lit room, I wasn't quite sure how to feel. While part of my mind wandered to the plausibility of this phenomenon, I began to understand the source of my nebulous fear. I felt around for my wallet in my pockets, and sure enough, it was missing.
As a result, I initially found it difficult to focus on the task at hand. I glanced at the four boys gathered for the preliminary lesson. I wondered if they were only here for the girls.
One of them seemed to know me, so I shook his hand and feigned a smile of recognition. My stomach again lurched to the nether-regions of my gut.
The instructors taught me the basic count. Whether you're talking about the foxtrot or swing, the two main sources of variation between dances are the basic step and the music (and by extension, the tempo). The basic step was fairly simple, so I was essentially halfway there.
The newcomers began to crowd in for the 8 p.m. lesson, while the veterans segregated themselves in a corner and practiced fancier iterations of what we were doing. And sure enough, quite a few of them were girls. I guess my four compatriots knew what was up all along.
As I worked through the fundamental turns, I realized that dancers with even the slightest experience worked semicircular hand motions into the basic steps. Not to be outdone and mistaken for a novice, I tried this out myself, even when I had to lead someone equally unskilled through it.
Unfortunately, this was not a wise decision. As far as dancing goes, I've always been like the "Happy Feet" penguin. I can move through intricate footwork without a sweat, but I have to really focus to make sure my hands move properly. So instead of gazing deeply into my partners' eyes, I gazed intently at my hands to make sure they moved the right way.
About halfway through the lesson, I was abandoned. We were one girl short, and girl after girl cast me off for the guy to my left. Perhaps he was cuter than I was, or perhaps word had simply gotten out about my awkwardness.
I felt like a seventh grade boy trying to sing. My chagrin, though, afforded me the opportunity to think about how I would extricate myself from this situation and never return.
Near the beginning of free dance and my 9 p.m. salvation, I finally saw someone I knew. She had only begun to salsa last Winter term, but now she was co-president of Thursday Night Salsa. She took the place of my invisible dance partner and guided me through the moves, distracting my mind's eye from scouring the floor of FoCo for my wallet. Of course, I did ultimately find it, because I managed to get myself to Florida for my cousin's wedding.
I'm probably going to need a fairly lengthy recovery period before I return to Thursday Night Salsa. But I will most likely check it out again, because I'm always looking to broaden my dance repertoire. Until then, I didn't pick up those bhangra skills in Miami for nothing.
