Today was my first Salsa class. As expected, it went somewhat disastrously, although was highly enjoyable. Our Salsa teacher is quite a character. He's Cuban, but he's lived in Chile for years and years so he's got Chilean slang down cold. To the point where every step we did was called a "hueveo," a word derived from the extremely multipurpose "huevon," a Chilean word roughly approximating "dude" that can be changed slightly to be used in pretty much every part of speech.
Extremely serious about salsa, he warned us not to be late or miss class, even if we were sick, and I wasn't entirely sure if he was kidding. He's also one of the more machista people I've ever met. He was lecturing us about how we all had to know the steps and then changed his mind and pronounced it the man's responsibility to know everything.
Other memorable phrases included:
"Tienes que agarrar la mina!" - You have to grab onto the chick!
Manejar la mina! - Drive her!
At least by this point, my dancing skills have improved that I am now able to let people lead me around without problem. So as long as my partner knows what he's doing, I can sort of passably get by, although I usually end up moving the wrong way and crashing into them or stepping on them or God knows what else. The good thing about Chileans is that compared to most Latin Americans, they're pretty bad at salsa(at least the ones in my class are, to avoid making unwarranted generalizations), although this can problematic when they think they are awesome just because they've mastered the most basic of steps.
At the end of class, the teacher asked if it was my first day. "Ahh, yes, that's why you're so bad." This bodes well....
When your at the bottom there's only one direction to go!!!
ReplyDeleteBuena suerte!
Padre'