September - If this is salsa, where are the tacos?

It’s the tail end of September and I need to squeeze in a dance. I cast my eye down the dance class menu with eyes primed for the words “beginner level”. There is only one. It’s Sunday Salsa.

I arrive with 10 minutes to spare & wait in a sweat-smelling hallway with two other complete beginners who look refreshingly more nervous than me.

We are greeted by a petite but perfectly curved Latino lady with raven curls, perfect skin and zero sense of humour. She collects our money, on behalf of her husband who will be taking the class, & asks if we have ever salsa-ed before.

“Only under the influence of tequila,” I respond.

(It’s an honest response.)

She doesn’t look amused.

She hands me back my fiver & tells me to leave.

I am told to come back & try a beginner’s class. I am a little bemused why this beginner’s class isn’t a beginner’s class, but decide I’m going to get nowhere with the Latino android & run out into the sunshine to eat ice-cream.

Two hours later I come back (mostly out of spite).

She clocks me immediately & whisks my five pounds note away again.

This time I’m allowed into the classroom. It doesn’t smell much better than the hallway.

The class is large & evenly balanced on a man to woman ratio. I cast my eye about the room & try to work out who the husband/tutor might be. There he is! The lithe man carved out of mahogany wearing a studded & bejewelled pair of jeans.

We all look sickly & wan in comparison.

Our tutor starts by teaching us the basic salsa steps. Thankfully these are pretty simple, provided you can count up to eight & walk. (This is possibly where I have been going wrong with my previous tequila salsa attempts on both counts).

Our tutor reminds me to smile whilst dancing.

I remind him that I’m British.

So I force myself to look at his bejewelled buttocks once more & crack a smirk.

We are fast learners & before you know it we are partnered up & counting our steps around the room. After each small sequence the girls are rotated to a different dance partner. I feel like a speed-dancing swinger.

We are told that this means we get to dance with all levels of male leaders. All levels that are within the beginner’s level that is. But truth be told, some are better at counting (& personal hygiene) than others so it’s refreshing to be rotated around the room like a doner kebab. And after an hour of stepping & spinning I am just about cooked.

All in all as a lady fresh to salsa it seems that if you have a good partner to lead you, then you really have little else to do but count to eight, smile & look pretty. I’m sure this rule can be applied to other relationships of life – provided you like to smile & follow. Emily Pankhurst, what would you say?