Salsa Dancing Social Traumsatisaion
DISCLAIMER: I promised you all 30 days of blog posts and because I’ve nearly reached the 30 day mark, I shall conjure on until the finish. Unfortunately, nothing worth blogging has been occurring this week and as a result of this, I decided to share with you all a throwback memory that happened last year which I hope entertains you as much as it socially traumatised me…
JULY-ish 2015 (this article was written for http://melbournetodo.com):
(Before we begin, I’d like to take note that there are no photos in this post as you are not under my wrath therefore I feel no need scare you for life with my dance movement atrocity…)
It was during one particular night after an embarrassingly, long period of watching youth Latin Ballroom comps on youtube, my sister and I did something so ridiculously out of our comfort zone that I could just sense Steve Jobs smiling about our innovative spontaneity from above- we signed up for a free salsa dancing lesson (and the amount of anxiety which accumulated as the date come closer was definitively indescribable).
During the day of our lesson, our anxiety had escalated. There were moments of panic which included episodes of ‘what am I going to wear?’, ‘what shoes do you wear?- no don’t wear those Andrea, they look gross’ ‘No, I’m wearing my nike free runs, that’s what everyone wears’ - no Lauren, you were wrong, they didn’t.
Cue a few hours later after potentially backing out, long moments of contemplation and ‘nonchalant’ walks around the building, we finally got there. Hidden in the Melbourne’s CBD was an upper level building buzzing with Latin music, excitement and energy. There were people there of all ages, keen and ready to dance - and NOT wearing nike free runs. There were dance instructors there as well - girls in those fancy latin ballroom shoes and guys looking super fly in a casual tee and somehow all had some form of a quiff going on. In the middle of the room there was a large dance floor where we saw a worker adding extra flooring due to the large turn up.
At exactly 6pm, an instructor told us to get on the dance floor (I think our hearts just dropped on the floor). He told use to raise out hands if anyone has ever done salsa dancing before- some people did (kill me now) but thankfully, the majority of people hadn’t done it before. He then reassured us by saying he was initially bad as salsa dancing and said these are they ‘easy’, basic steps for Latin ballroom. As the lesson progressed, I become more relaxed, loosened up and had a really fun time! The music was catchy, the people there were friendly and the steps were surprisingly easy to get the hang of. We had to do partner dancing, which was a tad uncomfortable filled with small talk, ‘hi I’m Andrea’ and looking down at the floor to avoid eye contact.
Social traumatisation aside, I had a pretty rad time.
To the place where I got my salsa on, I am sorry for what you had to witness.
Tomorrow’s post will be in the present day (hopefully with far less social humiliation),
- Andrea x
JULY-ish 2015 (this article was written for http://melbournetodo.com):
(Before we begin, I’d like to take note that there are no photos in this post as you are not under my wrath therefore I feel no need scare you for life with my dance movement atrocity…)
It was during one particular night after an embarrassingly, long period of watching youth Latin Ballroom comps on youtube, my sister and I did something so ridiculously out of our comfort zone that I could just sense Steve Jobs smiling about our innovative spontaneity from above- we signed up for a free salsa dancing lesson (and the amount of anxiety which accumulated as the date come closer was definitively indescribable).
During the day of our lesson, our anxiety had escalated. There were moments of panic which included episodes of ‘what am I going to wear?’, ‘what shoes do you wear?- no don’t wear those Andrea, they look gross’ ‘No, I’m wearing my nike free runs, that’s what everyone wears’ - no Lauren, you were wrong, they didn’t.
Cue a few hours later after potentially backing out, long moments of contemplation and ‘nonchalant’ walks around the building, we finally got there. Hidden in the Melbourne’s CBD was an upper level building buzzing with Latin music, excitement and energy. There were people there of all ages, keen and ready to dance - and NOT wearing nike free runs. There were dance instructors there as well - girls in those fancy latin ballroom shoes and guys looking super fly in a casual tee and somehow all had some form of a quiff going on. In the middle of the room there was a large dance floor where we saw a worker adding extra flooring due to the large turn up.
At exactly 6pm, an instructor told us to get on the dance floor (I think our hearts just dropped on the floor). He told use to raise out hands if anyone has ever done salsa dancing before- some people did (kill me now) but thankfully, the majority of people hadn’t done it before. He then reassured us by saying he was initially bad as salsa dancing and said these are they ‘easy’, basic steps for Latin ballroom. As the lesson progressed, I become more relaxed, loosened up and had a really fun time! The music was catchy, the people there were friendly and the steps were surprisingly easy to get the hang of. We had to do partner dancing, which was a tad uncomfortable filled with small talk, ‘hi I’m Andrea’ and looking down at the floor to avoid eye contact.
Social traumatisation aside, I had a pretty rad time.
To the place where I got my salsa on, I am sorry for what you had to witness.
Tomorrow’s post will be in the present day (hopefully with far less social humiliation),
- Andrea x
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