Do a Trick!

First, a random announcement: my blog fell into the hands of a travel editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and he liked it enough to have me write an article for the travel section as part of a Study Abroad feature. It will be appearing on Sunday, October 1, in the Travel section. Registration on the website is free.

And now, back to more interesting things.

I went salsa dancing last night! I'd been trying to figure out how to convince Chris to go for a year or so, and I finally just gave up and said, "We should go salsa dancing." And then he told me that he knew a guy from his lab who went a lot, and he really wanted to go. So that was a lot easier than I expected.

Neither Chris nor I has ever done couples salsa dancing. I have a bit of solo experience from a high school gym class, but I've never danced with a partner in any format, and Chris doesn't dance. Period. Fortunately, Chris's friend V. and his girlfriend K. offered to teach us a few things, and that's how we ended up in V.'s dining room last night making fools of ourselves and having a blast.

The weirdest part of couples dancing is that someone has to lead the dance. Usually the guy. The lead decides how the dance will progress and what moves to do. This is all done improvisationally, not at all planned beforehand. So in salsa (and presumably in other styles too), there is a system in place so that the guy can stealthily tell the girl what he wants her to do. And then the girl has to do it. And if she doesn't follow the guy's lead, the dance screws up and it's her fault. The girls also get all the flashy moves. As far as I can tell, the point of salsa is that the guys get to show off their girlfriends. The girls make the guys look good.

V. and K. taught us a few basic step patterns, and then they showed us how to incorporate some spins and flashy stuff. But as I said, this is all improv. So if you're the guy and you want to spin your partner, you lift up her arm above her head. And that's her signal to spin. As long as her arm is lifted, she spins. And maybe if you get bored, you push her so she spins the other way.

Salsa, by the way, is a curvy dance for curvy people. I have never in my life felt too skinny, but last night I was really wishing for an extra 20 lbs or so to flash around.

Last night's original plan had been for V. and K. to give us a few quick dancing lessons and then we'd all head out to a club. The lessons lasted longer than we planned, so we never actually made it out, but we had a lot fun.

I've been dancing for a long time, and I really enjoy it, but I don't have that first flush of excitement that new dancers get when they realize they're actually dancing. Chris may or may not have felt it last night, but he definitely felt the "hey, I'm in charge" vibe that comes with being a lead. And he has been having all sorts of fun with this. I think there may even be a bit of power tripping going on. Because ever since we got back last night, he has been endlessly liftin my arm and saying, "Do a trick!"