Those were my words as I was walking away from the salsa class I just took at the Mission Cultural Center a little while ago. I'd been looking forward to my first salsa class in SF - there are just so many of them scattered throughout the city that I have several lined up to try out.
The salsa class I used to attend in Kissimmee, FL was taught by Salsa Heat, and they were by far the most organized class I've seen. That is, when you put into consideration that it is a walk-in class, and has about 20-40 people in a class, often 2 or 3 going on at one time.
This one tonight, though - not so good. The teacher, Mr Jaime Martinez (pictured on the left with the maracas and the Hoochie-Koochie Chiquitas), is a good dancer - but there really is no way to teach salsa properly without a female co-teacher. This being a basics class, he taught the basic salsa step and then proceeded to teach this big combo move with back-to-back turns and multiple twirls that had us all scratching our heads. But he turned the music on (too fast for a newbie group) and gave us a "have at it!"I should have just stayed home.
There was no question that all the guys there were good people, and it would be fair to say that some of them had some inkling of what was going on... but most of the time I was coaching my partners. It wasn't so much because of the fact that a lot of them were total dancing numbskulls and were getting really pitiful to watch, but it was more because they had to be in my face for the next few minutes (until the teacher would say "switch partners!") and I might as well make it a little less humiliating and a little more bearable for myself while they were there. Near the end of the practice session, I was in agony because some of them were starting to think "hey, I'm getting the hang of this!" and were getting a little overzealous and pulling hard and fast on the back-to-back turns.
How do you say "Excuse me sir, but I like to keep my shoulders in their respective sockets, thank you very much" in Spanish?
I haven't lost hope in the salsa classes at the Mission Cultural Center. After all, there are other classes there taught by other teachers. But I think this night has taken my away my appetite for salsa dancing, at least for the next few days. For now I'll stick with the kind that I can put on a Tostitos chip.
Listen to the Radio Salsa channel on the RadioCubik website.
Other class venues I'll be trying out:
Dance Mission
Metronome Dance Center
Rhythm and Motion
Dance SF
Studio Gracia
Barrio Tango
Tango Mango
