It's 11:31am on Thursday as I type these words. I actually got up pretty early this morning around 7:00am and got some breakfast before heading over to Fronteras university to see if they had a copy of La India's Grandes Exitos--something inspiring to listen to as I practice my salsa steps. Hey, I have a dance studio with mirrors at home, so why not? No excuses.

On my way home I stopped by Panera to get some coffee and ran into my one and only guitar student who just so happens to work in my neighborhood. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed our cafe americanos. For about half-an-hour the sun was out and we didn't need our jackets...nice! But then the clouds passed over and it was time to put the jackets back on and my student needed to go to work. As for myself, I needed to get to work on my blog...and here I am!

Yesterday (Wednesday), I had a good ballroom/latin dance lesson with Marsha. We reviewed the basics for social foxtrot including sway step, turns, rock step and promenade and spent a lot time focusing on improving body communication, ballroom frame and leading. One thing she noticed right away was that my posture was improved, yay! I had been working on that all week.

Then we covered cha-cha turns using third position, side chasee (sp?) , crossover breaks with underarm turn and talked about timing and transitioning back to basic step. We had a little bit of time left for salsa and reviewed latin frame, side step, preparing for fifth position and cross body lead. This is new knowledge that I'm gaining is so cool, cuz when I was at Lucky Bar on Monday night I was able to recognize a lot of the moves the salseros were executing with such style. I was thinking to myself, "I know what they are doing, all I have to do is take lessons and practice."

Although dance studios are like a second home for me, actually taking dance classes is a big step for me, and since Marsha's exposing me to a wide range of dances I have to keep detailed notes which I write down in my Palm Pilot so I can review them mentally as I ride the metro. If you see me waiting for a train, chances are, I'm probably mouthing memory aids like "quick, quick, slow" and discreetly moving my feet in patterns. Right now it's mostly a mental process but once I internalize most of it, I can start relaxing more and going with the feel of the music. OK, yeah so Marsha's my personal friend, but I'm enrolled in this class just like everyone else and I'm taking this seriously...not serious serious though--I'm actually taking these classes with the intent to learn something useful and fun. So, if you're free on Wednesdays during the day, sign up and join me. They're having a party tomorrow (Friday). Check it out.

View from the Old Town Alexandria waterfront. March 22, 2006 5:51pm

I had a little time to kill after dance class and before my gig so I reviewed my notes while taking in the panorama on the boardwalk. A few hours later, Behzad and I finished our first set at Cafe Bonaparte where we perform every other Wednesday.