Dancing

Like I say, I am a naturally born horrible dancer. I suck at it, my sense of rithym is non existent and even in a slow song I manage somehow to step on my partner’s feet continuously.

My prime witness and sufferer of this sad fact was my now very good friend and dear ex-girlfriend Tina.
She had to be one of the most frustrated 2-step teachers in the world. Almost any other friend of hers could do it better and her beloved and apparently smart boyfriend had two big left paws instead of feet. I really tried, it must be that the spanish blood has something against the country beat but my frustration became her frustration and vice versa.

Despite this innate handy cap I have always enjoyed “dancing” to all kinds of music. I have always been in pretty good shape so I can move swiftly and jump very high in the air. I am very good at bouncing all around the place and shake like a marionette with parkinson in the middle of and earthquake. I call that style the “sambito” dance and it is always the same regardless of the music.

Surprisingly enough, this uncoordinated and violent random shaking of limbs is not unique to myself. When I was in Finland in 2003, I met a very special group of finnish young men. These guys were very intelligent, held high paid full time jobs and also were in magnificent shape. They even performed gymnastics on a regular basis and had mastered all kinds of impossible tricks and flips in the air, but like me, they just could not dance worth a shit. Each one of them, Pasi, Matti and Veli had their own dancing style but for sure, when people on the dancing floor made a circle around them it was not out of appreciation. I believe people tried mostly to avoided being hit or kicked by one of their powerful kung-fu style moves.

I believe I have the strength and agility required to become a good dancer. I can jump high and I am not afraid of falling but I lack the proper training.

One day I figured that with some training I could make the mediocre dancer category at least, I guess I was wrong. I did take a few tango lessons in the spring of 2003. I even got my father to join the classes, I realized that the dancing handicap was probably genetic. All my partners happened to be women over 50 so somehow I figured I had chosen the wrong type of dance. Somebody told me that good dancers are greatly sought after by women, that is what motivated me to take those classes, but it was salsa, no tango what I should have taken. I know now for next time.