Put on your dancing shoes and dance away your blues!

It's almost a year now since I started taking dance lessons. I wanted to learn salsa for a very very long time. I don't know why this particular form of dancing came to my mind but I am sure its mostly because of its fun and sensual nature. After searching a lot for a decent class, I found one close to my house. I was extremely apprehensive about the idea of me dancing. The reason was simple. I sucked at it! (I think I can say that I used to) It had actually come to a point where I had put it in my bucket list and made a resolution to learn it. I was googling away to glory when I chanced upon Conrad's dance class (www.conradcoelho.com). It was at Vashi, it was on a Saturday evening and you didn't require a partner to join the class. What else could I ask for?

I still remember the first day. Scared as shit I was. On reaching I realized that he starts with Ballroom Dancing (Rumba, cha-cha-cha, Rock-n-Roll, Waltz) and then after that had an option of either continuing with Ballroom or move on to Salsa. Though I wanted to start of with Salsa I thought of giving Ballroom a try. Now as I have mentioned before, dancing is not something I am comfortable with. To top that I had to do it with a girl. I didn't realize the graveness of the situation till I actually faced the situation or rather a girl :P I had heard of cold feet but I think I had probably gone cold all over. In fact I don't think I registered any of the girls I danced with. Being conscious was an under statement. It was more like being unconscious as far as I was concerned.

I thought I would be like a laughing stock out there. But fortunately all the guys sucked big time! Within the next couple of classes I felt at home. In fact I had also started looking at my partner while dancing. Though it wasn't before six months that I actually stopped looking at my feet and started looking up. By the end of Level 1, I had got pretty excited about Ballroom, to the extent that I went on to do Level 2.

Its been along time since then and I have now completed 2 levels of Ballroom, 3 levels of Salsa (LA Crossbody) and a Bachata workshop. Currently we are doing Casino Rueda which is basically a Cuban form of group Salsa where people dance in circles.

I swear to God, in certain aspects women are more intelligent than men, dancing being one of them. I know men who feel that dancing is nothing but epileptic attacks (Nabdu Anna) and for a long time I thought so too. Now I feel that I should have done this a long time ago. Its super fun, a good workout and a big stress buster. Though remembering all the dance steps is a tough job. I guess practice is the only solution and that is something I don't do much. That is something I need to work on.

Cliff Richard rightly sang, "Put on your Dancing Shoes, and dance away your Blues..."

PS : I am yet to do a public performance but I think the time is just not right, maybe one day soon :)