Hay Que Sentir La Musica & One Happy Island

During my 3 years of dabbling with Salsa and Bachata dancing the advice I’ve been given most often is “hay que sentir la musica Malcolm!”. It means you have to feel the music to dance properly, and unfortunately isn’t so easy when you don’t understand the rhythm or the words.

In Colombia, and several other Latin countries, salsa is as common as pop or rock back home. Turn on the radio and you hear Salsa. Get in a taxi and you hear Salsa. Go to the supermarket and you hear Salsa. It’s everywhere, and no less so than in the hearts and souls of the people.

If you go to a Salsa place in England, you’ll find a lot of people dancing awkwardly, unable to find the 1 beat to start the steps on, focusing mega intensely and looking like a cross between Mr. Bean and Ricky Gervais. At least that’s what I noticed the last time I watched a video of myself dancing.

So here’s a video of me trying to “sentir la musica” and forgetting to smile as usual while dancing Cuban style salsa after a week of lessons in Colombia.

This last week in Medellin has been pretty dance intense. I had private classes every day trying to make the most of the great prices and the opportunity to learn a new style. I went out to 2 salsa clubs, alone as usual due to the predictably unpredictable Colombian way of making plans.

Whenever I go dancing alone I have a massive internal battle to firstly get myself there and secondly actually dance. Even after all this time, I still find it painful to turn up alone and then ask random people to dance.

So much so that when I was in Colombia in 2013 my friends in the dance class decided one night I needed a roleplay session in which I had to repeatedly ask them to dance with confidence, style and swagger. Needless to say they found my fails very funny, sending me back to my seat to start again over and over until I got it right.

The Colombian way is to enthusiastically inform the woman she’s about to get up and dance with just one word: “bailamos!” (let’s dance!) and a sexy look of course. My version, on the other hand, would translate to “Good evening, would you like to dance with me?” whilst sheepishly looking like I was already prepared for rejection.

This week though, I think I hit a new milestone. I managed to stay in a club alone for several hours, made some friends, danced with lots of different women, and not once was I rejected. Miracles do happen! Perhaps it was because it was a place where lots of people go alone just to dance. But it still left me feeling like I might actually be getting somewhere.

Rejection is something you do have to get used to as a beginner partner dancer in any country, no matter how friendly the people are. It’s usually someone who just watched you invite someone else to join you in an epic dance fail.

And sometimes they genuinely are a bit tired – until the best dancer in the place rocks up with an irresistible “bailamos!” and all of a sudden they aren’t tired any more. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles. But when it doesn’t crumble, it tastes amazing.

One happy island

So after 3 weeks in Medellin I finally decided to get my skates on and explore somewhere new. Slightly randomly I arrived yesterday at a yoga retreat in the Caribbean island of Aruba.

Within 3 hours of arriving I’d done a yoga session, over-enthusiastically told some bemused Arubians I was delighted to meet them, had a sunset swim and started a little mosquito bite collection on my right leg.

Up until 4 days ago I didn’t even know Aruba existed. After passing through immigration I checked my passport stamp as usual and couldn’t help smile when I saw this:

And so far it’s proving to be an unusually happy place, full of incredibly friendly people, amazing beaches and a weird mixture of languages.

As luck would have it it’s carnival week, with the route passing one street away from the yoga center.

Yoga by day; rum and merengue by night.

It’s going to be an interesting week…