A roadblock and a steaming-hot Rocket

May 13, 2006

With a pair of giggling Swedish girls in back seat and with Cyrille in the second car with two passengers of his own including the kid with the super energy (whose name I re-learned is Wayan), we departed from Club Salsa at 9:05 PM. Traffic on M11 was initially very light, and I was pleased to see that the construction work between exit 9 (A11) and exit 8 (Stansted) finally was completed. The delightful pair in the back amused themselves chatting away at times and singing along to Salsa songs I was playing on my iPod (sometimes following the percussion, sometimes singing lyrics, and once translating the lyrics to Swedish and singing in Swedish). I at one point laughing quipped, “I’m going to have a lot of fun writing about this in my blog.” Despite some early pre-journey trepidation, the trip was looking quite pleasant.

And then we hit the worst traffic jam ever I have seen in the UK; I spent approximately one hour in crawling along between exit 7 (Harlow) and exit 6 (M25). First we feared that there was a serious accident. About an hour later, I saw that the cause was simply more roadwork, which caused a three lane road to merge into a single lane. I had originally thought that we would be at the Rocket by no later than 10:30 PM. By the time I got past the jam (and Cyrille caught up with my car), it was nearly 11 PM. Rest of the drive was smooth, except that I missed my final turn into Holloway Road (followed by turning onto a one-way street, which forced me into making a 5 minute detour). By the time we hit the Rocket (sans the Swedish pair who took a short failed detour to meet a friend at a nearby bar), it was almost 11:30 PM.

Rajiv had been waiting for us for a long time; he and his date (just kidding – I mean his tenant – mmm… too formal – friend – too vague – I give up for now) had been there since 9 PM (and suffered a wrist injury). He greeted us saying, “You took your time getting here,” looking somewhat nonplussed. I explained the traffic situation, to which he replied, “Ouch.” The floor looked quite packed; approximately 400 people were in attendance. Unfortunately, the upstairs room was still closed (soundproofing work was apparently not completed yet). Worse, the room was hot and humid and the AC was not coping with warmer outside temperature (compared to last time) and larger number of people. After a desperately needed urinal break, we braved the sauna called the Rocket and started dancing.

Aside from the temperature, dancing was good if not consistently spectacular. Speaking only of dances with strangers, only one dance was a pure delight. One dance with a partner who was at least my equal if not better was just okay. Every other dance was with people around my level or below and was of various qualities – tolerable to pretty good. Unfortunately, the days of dancing with Londoners and thinking that every dance or every other dance was either really good or spectacular appear to be no more. I am sure I am making mistakes all the time (and I probably overestimate my abilities in many ways as well as underestimate others), but I seem to find faults with my dance partners a lot more than I used to. And really good dance partners are very popular – no surprise there. I feel as if I am just close enough to getting pretty good but then again, I am sure pretty much everyone thinks that – I probably will reach another point where I think I am doing great again only to go back to thinking that I need to get a little better once again the following week. Still, it was a nice opportunity for more practice – better than Cambridge mostly because of sheer quantity of available decent if not transcendental dance partners.

At several points in the evening, I would have loved to stopped and tell Vishal (who wasn’t there), “See what they are playing here!” Then again, I suppose he might have done the same to me with some other songs that were played. By the way, I counted 13 people with Cambridge connections tonight.

There was only one showcase – an interesting one albeit a mostly gymnastics and light martial arts demonstration rather than a dance. I liked slow motion-like aspect of their acrobatic movements the most. The demonstration ended with one of the performers destroying a light fixture – the ceiling was not high enough.

It was nice to get an unexpected Cambridge discount from Joe, but better would have been the room upstairs being available and better temperature control. I plan on asking about these two factors next time. I am convinced that the temperature in particular was a major factor in the way some dances were danced. I also suspect that with better temperature control, the floor would have been more packed much of the time.

Six of us stayed til closing time. Our departure was further delayed by one factor after another, including a flirting episode involving our Swedish guest. I wondered briefly whether she would rejoin us (despite an earlier conversation about the Swedish Salsa scene dominated by Latin men who like to treat the Salsa scene as a meat market – and how as a veteran of the scene, they were no longer bothered or fazed. Cambridge scene demonstrates more gentility on the whole.). After guiding Cyrille to M11, I sped away to arrive in Cambridge by 4:30 AM.

Also as we were departing, Cyrille asked me whether I would be interested in buying his ticket to the UK Salsa Congress. Apparently he has a scheduling conflict. I said I will think about it – it’s a tempting offer.

Meanwhile, I now get a break of one day away from Salsa on Sunday. I will try to have at least two days off during the week next week, but the weekend has the Guildhall on Saturday and arguably the best SOS option for the month of May.