What if the best has come and gone?

August 26, 2006

As I started my drive toward London on M11, I wondered if it’s possible that I would soon lose interest in Salsa or if such process has started already. I felt that I might be making a mistake in going to a London Salsa event – in a manner unlike my last London trip last weekend. I wasn’t sure what I wanted – Something new? Something familiar? Nice dancing? Fun socializing? Et cetera.

I must have arrived shortly after 11 PM. I saw that the downstairs Salsa room (Cuban) was fairly empty and that the upstairs Salsa room (CBL) was also sparsely populated although with more people. I also saw quite quickly that there were not many people I knew well from the London scene.

Meanwhile, there was a very large number of teachers, performers, etc. Teachers and performers I recognized tonight included in no particular order Leon Rose, Tamambo, Laith Sami, Mauro & Eva, Tiz, Aiste, Mushi, Emma Moore, Katrina Wiklund (and presumably Alex Amoroso), Mel C, Lee (and presumably Shelley). In addition, there were people from 3 shows I watched around 1 AM (and none of whom I would have recognized as teachers or performers prior to it – or afterwards in some cases) as well as people from 4 shows that must have happened before I arrived. Considering that the total number of people was rather small, it may be reasonable to guess that at least quarter of the couples on the dance floor included at least one teacher/performer.

The sound system upstairs was disappointing once again. I wonder if they will ever get it right. I wonder if I have the patience to wait for them to fix it. The sound system at the Rocket supposedly was never a strong point (according to Sean). Maybe the acoustics is just poor. What a waste of a very expensive sound system!

More familiar faces arrived later – although not very many – some from LDA and some from Cambridge (about half dozen from each). Many people are supposedly at the Colloseum (it seems to be the main competition for the Rocket – possibly with more people in attendance consistently). The Rocket is having hard time attracting many people.

I certainly did not think I was any better than 50th percentile at any time I was dancing tonight. It has been a while since I felt I was below average in the room, and I would have to say that I found the feeling unnerving. It could be nothing but my imagination, but I wondered if some of my dance partners felt more nervous or less sure of themselves than usual. I might have felt more conscious of mistakes major and minor and let them have more lasting effect on the evening than usual too. Having a less than completely enthusiastic attitude from the outset cannot have helped matters either.

My confidence certainly waxes and wanes over time – this is one of those times of dips. In the past I would have recover confidence by adding several new interesting moves. Now I begin to wonder if time is running out on such method of recovery considering that I see less value in leading complex moves after moves (and possibly becoming rusty with less used moves). In the past I would also take no more than few weeks to become supremely (and perhaps irrationally) confident again. It would seem that such thing is less likely this time, but perhaps I always thought the same whenever I was going through a down phase?

Generally speaking I don’t derive much pleasure from dancing with people who are or who think they are much better than me. Often I get nervous and become less confident. I usually avoid asking teachers or performers for a dance – often because I assume that they get plenty of dances (and become tired of) with people they perceive as not as good (or to put it nicer – still have much to learn). I may think the same of people who I think are “superstar” groupies. I suppose this hesitation lessens as I get to know to the person better and a certain level of trust and understanding develops. I cannot think poorly of “groupies” because most people gravitates toward people who stand out and want to become friends with "cool people"; I know I must do it with some people while sometimes other people do the same with me. Usually I think I’m probably right about not asking certain type of people (and thus am avoiding getting a no for an answer or having a lousy dance to avoid bruising my ego), but I am sure I am wrong sometimes. The best are the ones I liked instantly and was liked back in return from the earliest moment – they’re rare and wonderful.

The ramblings in the previous paragraph were inspired primarily by dancing with a fairly prominent teacher/performer tonight.

Am I becoming dependent on having good social backups at these Salsa events? Last night was mostly about socializing and it worked out well. Socializing part “rescued” SOS trip last weekend. Weird - because I used to thrive on going to a completely new scene (with caveat that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to go to a London event without seeing a very large number of recognizable faces (but not necessarily friendly and certainly not intimately familiar – by this I mean people I recognize but have not danced with before or in rare cases had very poor dances with)). Would I no longer consider a Salsa night a great night unless the social aspect was pretty good as well as dancing (or unless the dancing was out of this world)?

Is my expectation that things should always get better (with hard work, etc) going to ultimately disappoint? Should I be remembering the words “You only live once…”?

They closed the upstairs room at 2 AM once again (even though it was probably more crowded than ever at the time of closing). I stood around for about 10 minutes after coming downstairs but did not feel inspire to stay. After all, I might want to conserve some energy for tomorrow at the Scala.

Based upon sound quality and lack of people (floor was fine for me although I heard some complaints about it being too slippery), I wonder if I would want to come back again. It’s certainly no better than going to SOS (with caveat that my last SOS outing rated no better than just okay – like the Rocket tonight – and that much of the negativity may have been in my mind preceding the start of the evening).

I should end noting that it was far from a disaster. I did have some dances that I enjoyed a great deal. I would guess that at least 2 or 3 dances if not more ended with me and my partner feeling pretty good.