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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

5-6-7-hold on 8

My friend Neighbor Matt and I are taking a salsa class on Wednesday evenings. It’s a community education class, which means that it was really cheap and our classmates are really diverse. There are about 15 other couples in the class… Some in their 20s, some middle-aged, some Hispanic, some black, some gray-haired ladies and one or two gray-haired men. We are the token gays.

They expect us to automatically be great dancers. I know it.

Because it’s a community ed class, the instructor – an attractive female in her late 20s who drives a beat up, tan, old Buick – takes things slow. Like, really slow. Like I could have learned the first step, taken a trip to McDonald’s, gotten a milkshake, some fries and chicken McNuggets, come back and not missed a thing. Left foot forward, right foot up, left foot back. 1-2-3-hold on 4.

I lead and Neighbor Matt follows. The class fumbles along. And then the instructor says, “Time to switch partners!” I stay in place and Neighbor Matt trudges off to the next lead, who is of course a male. We do this about 10 times. I ask him later if any of his partners seemed awkward dancing with another male.

“No, they all seemed to be very comfortable and had fun,” he said. This makes me happy, and I imagine the same scenario in my small Michigan hometown. The image falters because few men there would go to a dance class in the first place.

When one lady in her 60s comes to dance with me, we turn out to be quite good partners. She follows my lead well and we are clearly ready for some new moves.

“You already have the hip movement down,” she said.

“Well,” I reply, “I wasn’t trying for that. … I guess I just have a natural swish.”

Posted by Aaron on April 16, 2008 9:52 PM