Picture the scene: A brightly lit church hall on a Thursday evening in January. Outside the weather is freezing cold but inside the walls are dripping and the air is thick with the tang of B.O. and talcum powder deodorant. The noise is deafening: Stomp, Stomp, STOMP! Stomp, Stomp, STOMP! Like cows stampeding in time. A voice is screaming above the herd, “One, Two, Three, HOLD! One, Two, Three, HOLD!” while fifty women stamp shoulder to shoulder trying to keep up. Have you stumbled upon the marching practice of the territorial army Special Pudgy Unfit Division? Nope, ‘fraid not, it is instead the Salsa-Slim class I signed up for in the spirit of “Trying New Things and Meeting New People.”
I admit I had something different in mind when my mother rang me up and suggested we take this class together. You know that BBC ident that usually comes on just before Eastenders with all the couples salsa dancing each wearing some item of red clothing? Or, even better the tango dancing one where all those lovely skinny dancers are sliding their legs around on a cobbled street in the rain? Well, that’s more like what was playing in my head when I rang the booking line and paid my 100 Euro.
Tomorrow night is the fourth of ten weeks and I’m already chalking this one up to experience and resolving to just have a laugh. I don’t like to be mean…buuuut (don’t you love when people start sentences that way?) I have to wonder how some of the ladies can find the coordination to walk out of the gym in a straight line, never mind day to day activities like turning corners and standing up out of chairs. Four weeks in and we’re still going over (and over and over) Left Right Left Pause . I mean, I’m no Ginger Rogers or anything but Left Right Left Pause is walking isn’t it? On the bright side the only two songs on our instructor’s CD seem to be Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5” and Ricki Martin’s “She Bangs” so it is rather fortunate really that the sound of a hundred left feet drowns the music out.
We Irish just don’t do Latin passion.