I try Merengue... maybe I'll do it again

September 8, 2006

No word from the pack. I decided that it would be fun to see Johnny and Serap - I hadn't seen Serap in about a month. Also I thought it would be informative to get a fresh feel of Friday crowd for next week.

I was expecting very few among the CBL hardcore group, but I was mildly surprised find several women. Not so many men though. I kept my dances fairly simple and relaxed for the most part - with caveat that some people wouldn't see it that way.

Music was about what I expected - perhaps a little better than expected. There was nothing that made me want to move at full speed all the time. Serap thought my cross body lead was much improved and said she liked the "pauses" done well. When dancing with Sally, I used one of the moves she taught last night (the instant gratification one) and was briefly stunned and dazzled by the speed she zipped right through it. Later in the evening, my dance with Lindsey felt like borderline Merengue (something of a nonsense statement in retrospect given that I have refrained from dancing Merengue in the past), and I said as much to her afterwards; she suggested dancing Merengue later but it never came to pass because she was occupied and I didn't feel inspired to dance once Merengue came on next.

Much later in the evening, I was asked for a dance as a Salsa song was ending (I had asked her first earlier). The song ended almost immediately after we got down to the floor and a Merengue came on, so I decided to try dancing Merengue. It was quite interesting and novel - certainly much better than trying to dance Salsa with someone who cannot dance in time to the music. I am pretty sure I haven't danced Merengue in well over a year. It's even possible that I have danced Merengue with only one person before - Serap (grudgingly on my part at the time as I was fixated on getting better with Salsa and saw Merengue as a distraction). I improvised many moves I don't even remember trying to do when dancing Salsa. Maybe I'll try it again another time.