Two left feet or a dancing queen?

It has been about five years, and possibly more, since I wanted to learn to dance salsa. Come end of the year and I would put it on my mental list of NY resolutions, again. These are some of the excuses I came up with, at various times, for missing yet another dancing season:

1. I was too busy with two small children
2. Husband was traveling too much so we would miss too many classes or I would have to (shock, horror!) dance with some stranger
3. Taking classes with the said husband would imply a complicated logistical babysitting operation
4. Too costly
5. I wouldn't understand the instructions in Hungarian

All of them are so lame that I am embarrassed to even write them. The real reason? I have long suspected that I had no gift for dancing. I was convinced that I had two left feet and would very likely make a fool of myself and get completely frustrated by that dancing business. So assuming I would not be brilliant I was afraid to try and fail--enter lame excuses--but kept wanting to push myself outside of that particular comfort zone. Ah, the internal struggle...

Then I moved to Geneva, found a course next door, during lunch time, at a reasonable price, so I had no choice but to bite the bullet and face the scary and fascinating world of salsa learning. Of course, I am loving it! The joy of learning something new and the pleasure of sheer physical exercise are immense, and now that we are two months into the course, there is a certain camaraderie forming in the group. We might still not know each other's names, but everyone dances with everyone else and we end up joking and laughing a lot. It's great fun.

Certain skeptics (you know who you are) will say that salsa is simple and what's the big fuss? Except that I don't think it is. It might be easier and less sophisticated than, say, tango, but there are dozens of different steps and variations within steps, if you want to go beyond the basics. There is no preset choreography--you can mix and match the steps as you like, with only a few exceptions--so you need to read your partner's signs very well if you are to be in sync.

Salsa is the kind of dance in which the male dancer leads, so he decides what is happening next. The really fascinating bit for me is that he should communicate his intent only through gentle movements of his hand. If he wants you to turn, he lifts your arm; if he lets go of your hand, you are both turning; a gentle push on your back lets you know that the next is dille que no.

The entire communication lies in his hands, literally, which is why salsa is usually more difficult for guys to master (or so my teacher says). We are supposed to just follow the cues, even if being led does not come naturally to some of us ("You have to let him lead!"--teacher to me). It doesn't take long to realize how much smoother everything flows if the person you dance with knows how to lead as opposed to moving about indecisively. Sending mixed signals, in salsa just as in real life, is a big no-no.

Back to the title: as of today, I can officially announce that I do NOT have two left feet. Dancing queen? I'm not sure there are huge reserves of untapped talent here but the keyword is: fun.