I had two goals when I moved to Panama... learn Spanish and learn how to Salsa dance. I've been taking private Spanish classes for almost a year, and although learning Spanish is useful, I don't get excited about the prospect of conjugating verbs.
Dancing, though, is something to get excited about, and I was thrilled when my community director put salsa lessons on our activity calendar.
We had salsa lessons poolside, in a covered social area with plenty of open space. The dance company brought in a team of 4 instructors, turned up the music, and taught us how to salsa.
If you haven't danced the salsa before, it's fast. Very fast. As you can see from our funny photo, most people didn't wear the correct shoes, which made us look like we should be taking the short bus to school than sexy dancers. My neighbor Denise shucked her Birkenstocks and tried step-ball-changing in bare feet. It didn't go so well. She said next class she'll wear tennis shoes. My fiance Kleriston wore flip flops and spent most of the class just doing his own thing in typical class-clown fashion. Since he's my dance partner of choice, I'll make sure he's properly out-footed for next class.
After an hour, we'd learned a dozen different salsa steps and had burned more calories than we would have on the treadmill. The photo was taken after our class, when we were all dripping with sweat. We looked more like Survivor contestants than the ultra-glamorous dancers you see on Dancing with the Stars. (Next time I'm making sure the class photo is taken before class begins.) But it was fun. Crazy fun. Yes, definitely more fun than conjugating verbs.
Stay tuned. I might even have a video to post in a few weeks... although it may not be of me!
Dancing, though, is something to get excited about, and I was thrilled when my community director put salsa lessons on our activity calendar.
We had salsa lessons poolside, in a covered social area with plenty of open space. The dance company brought in a team of 4 instructors, turned up the music, and taught us how to salsa.
If you haven't danced the salsa before, it's fast. Very fast. As you can see from our funny photo, most people didn't wear the correct shoes, which made us look like we should be taking the short bus to school than sexy dancers. My neighbor Denise shucked her Birkenstocks and tried step-ball-changing in bare feet. It didn't go so well. She said next class she'll wear tennis shoes. My fiance Kleriston wore flip flops and spent most of the class just doing his own thing in typical class-clown fashion. Since he's my dance partner of choice, I'll make sure he's properly out-footed for next class.
After an hour, we'd learned a dozen different salsa steps and had burned more calories than we would have on the treadmill. The photo was taken after our class, when we were all dripping with sweat. We looked more like Survivor contestants than the ultra-glamorous dancers you see on Dancing with the Stars. (Next time I'm making sure the class photo is taken before class begins.) But it was fun. Crazy fun. Yes, definitely more fun than conjugating verbs.
Stay tuned. I might even have a video to post in a few weeks... although it may not be of me!
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