Catch her if you can

August 26, 2007

I must have arrived at 9 on the dot. Some people were milling around the Club Salsa entrance, which was closed. Others were standing by the gravel parking space. As I approached the nearest group, I asked if Vishal was here. Apparently he was around but not just then. Just then the coach from Ely appeared and stopped a short distance away. I went to see the drive to make sure it was the one for the Scala. Then I started telling people to board the bus.

I saw Mimi talking with a group including Sebastian, Ed and Rachel in the Sauce. That was a pleasant surprise. She had on a really nice black dress. I think I complimented her and said she looked stunning. I’m not really sure if I said that. In any case she really was. I told them to go grab some seats fast and save a space for me before going off to tell others to do the same.

I went around the Sauce, then to Club Salsa entrance, back to Sauce where I saw Sebastian and all still standing about but without Mimi, who decided to take a detour apparently having been reminded of a fiasco on one of our drives to the Rocket. I think they ended up being one of the last groups of people to claim seats at the front of the coach – Sebastian and Mimi directly behind the driver and Rachel and Ed next row down.

I finally spotted Vishal when I returned to the coach. He asked me to count the number of people in the coach. First I counted 26 then I counted 28. Vishal said he saw 27 and confirmed it himself. Math is hard.

Sally, Lindsey and Charlotte were the last to arrive making it 30. They took seats immediately behind us – Sally and Lindsey a row behind me and Charlotte behind Ed. I believe this was a first London Salsa outing for Charlotte. I ended up in what I could call navigator’s spot next to John. Vishal claimed the back end of the coach, which I guess was like the party central for the coach with drinks flowing and with raucous talking. I don’t think Vish succeeded in getting anyone to sing this time, however – no ready accomplices like Lindsey and Nicola this time in the back row to take up the dare.

At first I talked mostly with Mimi. She told me that she finally found a different job – in Singapore/Australia. That killed me. I felt speechless – at least for a moment or two. I knew that she had been trying to do something like this for a long time. I guess I must have muttered a few things like congratulations and about shorter commute to Hong Kong (~3 hours!) and asked about the new job and happening at the old and so on. Also about the best time to visit – sooner the better – when it’s really awful here if we are talking about the weather. Also the topic somehow spilled into her personality – EQ and all that. God damn it. I’m really going to miss her – I don’t have very many people here I have such easy relationship with. She’s quiet unique really – especially for a girl. I don’t think there was ever a moment when she had any negative feelings about me. Perhaps more important I never felt worried about her being angry, distrustful, annoyed and all that about me. She does get along with most people really well of course.

As drinks were getting passed around, I reminded Sally about the stop the coach made on its last trip to Scala. With 30 people onboard I guess it was inevitable. When the driver complained of the camera flashes – it made him think that it might be a speed camera – so that I walked to the back to relay his request that people stop using their camera, some people asked about a toilet break. I said I’ll talk to the driver about it. The driver remembered the petrol station slash convenience store from the last time. Unfortunately it was closed for construction when we got there. I think the last mile or so must have been a hellacious time – I had no urge to go but I could almost feel the tension from several rows back. It’s going to blow! It held until the coach disembarked right outside Scala.

There were a number of people who arrived independently from Cambridge. No need to mention them all – it’s almost certainly not welcome anyway. I don’t think Rajiv or Richard would mind though. Also not a few former Cambridge people like Natalie and Rico. Chris was also there. I also bumped into and chatted a little with Liam.

Poor old Mimi. She did not have a proper dinner before coming. Because she already paid Vish, she would have to go in with us, and Scala does not allow re-entry. So she took a Snickers bar from me. She asked me to hold some money for her, which involved a conversational gaffe (I’ll skip this) – I also borrowed a twenty from her after discovering that my wallet was not in my pocket. When the social started, we started with a couple of dances – nothing wrong with this. However, within two or three songs she came back to me with a sprained ankle asking for her money back. She said she will take the train back to Cambridge because she didn’t think she could dance anymore. Half an hour or so later though I saw her again – apparently there were no more trains tonight. So she was stuck until the coach was ready to take us home - that was a wait of more than 5 hours.

I brought a couple of extra shirts with me this time. After about an hour or so, I switched to a short-sleeved shirt. I did not find a spot with a nice cool breeze until well after 3 although I ended up not making a big use out of it afterwards.

Coming to London is not as exciting as it used to be. I like it still but it’s not the same. I guess it’s not all about dancing either although it must be a big part of the equation too. Take tonight for instance. Most of the dances were good. Every one with Cambridge-associated people was decent – average at worst and in one instance the best dance I had yet with that particular person. In fact pretty much all of the dances with everyone else was decent too. Some people seemed almost thrilled to dance with me whether from the outset or as the dance wore on. Some appeared pleasantly surprised or at least amused. This is still good but is no longer novel - just a different set of people. So this all sounds good, right? Yes and no. Novelty was not the only thing lacking - I'm not sure if I want to delve into it right now.

On negative side there were a couple of dances, which I thought was led in a bland uninteresting with too much unnecessary moves – it did not help that the song was boring. This is bound to happen. Worse were two dances. One because my partner seemed very unimpressed – it might not have helped that I went in thinking that it probably won’t be any good. Again, this happens to everyone. Some people who are impressed with me might think poorly of one of my friends while another who is impressed with another of my friend might think poorly of my dancing. The other one was more unusual involved my partner collapsing to the ground on her buttocks – I don't know why or how that happened. The scene turned more bizarre because the girl in question became upset and left in tears - not because of pain but perhaps out of frustration or embarrassment. I really don't know. An explanation given to me was that she is very young - I'm unsure what to make of that either except maybe that young people are more likely to lack perspective and thus likely to blow things out of proportion. Perhaps I shouldn't talk about it and will regret having said this much. Also I suppose there was a third dance where I accidentally bumped into Sebastian twice within a minute or so – I have no idea why the collision happened – I don’t think I was moving a lot. This might sound funny but my partner at the time seeming extra cautious about moving might have made it worse – maybe it made me overcompensate. Scala Bank Holidays really does get too crowded. It really does. Perhaps this is not surprising. After all, their main floor has barely more total space for dancing compared to Bar Salsa.

One of the highlights of the event was the dance competition.

The amateur competition was won by the winner of one of the Scala heats I watched earlier this year. At the heat, they were dancing On2 but I wasn’t paying enough attention to see if they were dancing On2 tonight. I liked their music choice the best – the guy sitting next to me complained that it sounded too old but I like the old sound. The winning couple were head and shoulders better than the third place (couple number 1) and the fourth place (couple number 2) in my opinion. The second place finishers (couple number 4) were quite good too and had put on a real crowd pleaser with decent partner work (which I felt the bottom two especially the fourth place showed way too little) thrown in. I actually thought that couple number 4 was going to win and might have rooted for them a little even though the winning couple was better dancing-wise. I think a part of the reason why I did not predict them to win was because the dance seemed too much like plain good social dancing seemingly thrown together with choreography in mind (note: this is different from musicality – they were quite good on that account without being too obvious about it) and I thought the judges would be looking for more than that. It’s rather ironic for me to say this because the way the winning couple danced was by far the closest to the way I would like to dance sans making a visible effort to engage an outside audience (e.g. by making eye contact with the audience or dancing to the audience during shines, etc).

The professional level competition was won by Lee and Shelley. Hooray. The couple who came in second just didn’t grab me aesthetically – I think I have seen them or at least the girl several times before. Third place went to Laith Sami, who my mind I was actively rooting against. Nothing personal against him. For all I know he’s a great guy. In reality I don’t know any of the competitors aside from having few superficial and brief conversations with Lee and Shelley. Laith can put together a fairly entertaining dance routine. What I don’t like is that he seem to represent what I might consider very strong and forceful lead in social dancing, and I didn’t want such to be advocated or become representative of Salsa in England or anywhere else. I guess it’s a bizarre maybe twisted reason for hoping one couple to win over another. For whatever it’s worth, I did like Lee and Shelley’s routine the best – albeit by a rather small margin and the first word that comes to my mind to describe it is ‘clean’ rather than a more grand word like ‘spectacular’ or ‘sublime’.

How about the music? It was typical. Not horrible except for a few patches with really poor sound. There was one song where you could barely hear Conga drums and the bass both rather muffled and essentially nothing else. The system had a hiccup or two on at least two other songs. Generally songs I recognized and liked (e.g. Mambo Mongo, Merecumbe, La Salsa Nunca Se Acaba) were too popular for everyone else too. Other songs I remember being played include Hacha Y Machete (Alfredo De La Fe), Ahora Quien, Contigo (I'm not completely sure), La-La-La (DLI), Otra Oportunidad (I think so, not sure again), a seemingly newer version of Swing La Moderna (the only version on the internet I could find was by Mandingo Y Su Son… not sure if this was it).

Not much else. I found my wallet on my seat back in the coach. Almost everyone was asleep for the trip back and I talked with Ed, who stayed up the whole time.

Book of the moment - Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger (I must be careful or I'll run out of reading material before Friday)