Salsa

Fri, Sep. 26

San Francisco, as I have said before, is a commuter college. Most of the students live about an hour away from the university. This year there has been a huge initiative to start ‘Campus Life’ which includes lots of different clubs and opportunities for students to get to know each other outside of class. My favorite part of the week has become Wednesday and Friday afternoons when the Salsa club meets. Two weeks ago I was invited to be a part of the advanced group that stays an hour after the normal club. There are five or six professors (students) who come to teach from 1 to 3 and then from 3 to 4 we learn all the crazy hard moves and just dance. We have been working recently on Salsa Cubana in a rueda which is a bit of a different style. All of the pairs dance within a circle (the rueda) and there is one leader who is calling out passes. Each call, be it enchufa, enchufa moderna, pelota uno, prima, dame, sácalo, quince, treinta, setenta, setenta y uno, hermana, enchufa evelyn, cruza de brazos, etc, means something different. Most passes have you change partners, but regardless, everyone is doing the same thing in the same counts. When we warm up at the beginning of class it feels like speed dating because we are just going through all the passes, changing partners every 15 second and it’s just enough time for you to greet each of your friends. I’m always laughing.
My favorite pass so far starts with a normal spin and ends with everyone holding hands spinning in and out and then a change of partners. I’m going to try and film it one day because words just don’t seem to do it justice.