The great thing about Salsa is that you can choose to go without planning weeks in advance... Infact many's the time when I've suddenly found out my kids are not spending the night with me and so releases me to dance...
I used to print out Salsa Jive's weekly classes and store them in a folder which was left in the car... along with dance shoes and Joop (you need a strong fragrence in Salsa)...
Every new venue would require an entry in the Sat Nav (which I call Di - short for Directions) and I would also type in what night the venue had dancing...
All this seems to be a distant memory - but last week I found myself revisiting old haunts - sampling new places and restoring my faith in Dancing (see previous post !)
.. Friday - The Chapel Cheltenham...
There was nothing on regionally for me... Birmingham seemed too far for some reason and there was nothing west of London (M4 Corridor) or South of Bristol.. which explained the Huge influx into The Chapel in Cheltenham..
Joy an instructer from Swindon/Chippenham was there as was many of the Swindon/Oxford crowd (presumably because nothing else was on).. A few from Cardiff I recognised and the rest from Glos and Cheltenham...
The dancing was of a higher standard than usual although too many dips going on... (I like to leave my dips on the buffet table where they belong) Very pretty girls in Cheltenham - call me un-PC if you like but hot pants and tight tops... short skirts and deep red lipstick, a pretty face and lovely smile pretty much seals the deal when it comes to choosing who I dance with.... disgraceful ladies I know... sorry... me thinks I may get into more hot water on this subject so quickly back pedals with of course there are many women I ask that look good dancers that I will also choose... Phew ...did I get away with that ? NO ? Bollocks
Anyways... Highlight of the evening was a dance with a beautiful Special Needs Teacher from Cheltenham who stopped mid dance to wave at her son who was staring through the open door of the club hoping to catch sight of his mum...
The experience un-nerved me a bit - but decided to wave also at the young chap - who didn't look old enough to be carrying that Smirnoff Ice - and complement my Dance partner on looking so young (far too young to have a lad that old)... which helped get over the fact that I felt that I was being judged on how good my dancing was or "What the f*** is that bloke doing holding my mum so close"..
Sunday... Aztec Wine Bar - Bristol
Sunday nights are a good learning night for me... but can also be a lazy night... laziness overuled the burning need to improve my technic and I decided on 5 min drive rather than 1hr and bridge fee to Cardiff - where Andy Witt - one of my fav teachers was starting a new venue up -
This was as a replacement for the popular Wharfe venue that stopped Salsa some 6 months ago - proberbly when they eventually worked out that the revenue from 100 salsa dancers = 3 pissed up Rugby fans...
Anyways... Aztec West it was and "lazy" pretty much sumed up the atmosphere...
Dancers....regulars from North Bristol...
I think I had danced with 80% of the 15 women there before.. (100% by the end of the evening)...
The music was OK - not loud enough - the dancefloor good... and the venue not a bad one - but I don't see numbers getting above 50 long term... I may be wrong...
Thursday... Le Diab'litho - Paris
The Diab'litho is pretty much the best club in Paris well at least the best on a weekday.. Good value at €10 entrance which includes Soft Drink and Buffet (Nice Chilli and rice thankyou very much).
Its in the North of the city 2 stops from Gard Nord.
The class was Rueda which explained the cuban bias later in the freestyle.. A good mix of abilities and I'm sure the UK ladies would love it as I counted 16 guys waiting to pounce by the dance floor at the end of the lesson... The guys all seemed tall to me and too handsome by half - so took the terribly polite english stance - trying my best to be Hugh Grant and coming across as Mr Bean...
However - I was not refused once and had some lovely dances... I did however feel quite old... It was a trendy club and most were under 30... No-one spoke English - or at least they told me they didn't... The Music was classic Cuban - no Reggaton - No Bachatta..
The Standard in Paris is much higher than the rest of France - I danced in Nice last month and found they have only recently (2 yrs) got the bug in that region... Paris was good but only compares to a good night in Brum/Newcastle/Nottingham and falls short of London (though pains me to say it)... and Barcelona - which is BY FAR the best place to dance in Europe.
