Students arguing in salsa dance studios. I know of some salsa students who are at each other’s wits. For some reason they don’t seem to click. They can’t even dance with each other during practice. Well, they dance but their face is expressionless and emotionless. They’re just going through the motions.
Sometimes it’s funny if you know the two who are at odds. During dance rehearsal when they’re paired together, you could watch them collaborate. Sometimes you just laugh to yourself.
I remember during salsa practice, I kept hearing a girl’s voice yelling something out loud. I didn’t pay attention at first. However, it kept persisting and the voice was growing a little louder. Looking through our practice line, I was looking for the girl that was yelling.
I didn’t see who it was. Sitting down after practice, my friend mark sat next to me. I asked him who was yelling and he told me it was Karen. “It was Karen,” I responded. It was a total shock because she seemed like such a nice girl.
“What happened?” There’s always something happening during practice. You know there are a number of people and everyone got their own drama. Mark told me she was having an attitude and just kept screaming for everything.
I thought to myself, Karen is a reasonable person and she’s not just going to start freaking out for no reason. Mark wasn’t telling me the whole story so I pressed on because I just realized he was the only one Karen was banging heads with.
Basically, mark said she kept giving him directions every time they paired up. He would spin her and she would say you’re timing is off or you turn right and left not left and right. He couldn’t put his arms around her without Karen telling him to squeeze a little tighter but gentle. Gentle, mark gentle, she went on.
This is something she kept on doing for over a month, so mark finally lost it because while this was happening for a while it’s the first time I heard her yelling.
Growing a little wiser in life, I realize this is just one side of the story, so I pressed on and mark finally told me the truth.
He picked up the pace, going off beat and rushed Karen throughout the night. She kept yelling slowly down, slow down, you’re going to fast! He didn’t care he put on the pressure. He was forcefully spinning her and wasn’t swayed by her.
All this time she kept yelling and he found delight in making her uncomfortable, he didn’t care the whole class heard everything. Every sound of her cries brought him a sensation of pleasure as the class danced through the night of Hector Lavoe.
Ladies has this ever happened to you. It’s not the most pleasant experience. There is a mark in every guy and when you get to his boiling point, he’ll seek away to get his payback.
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
To prevent this episode and others like this we must keep the doors to communication open. We must be able to express our thoughts.
If Mark would have told Karen his feelings from the beginning this would never had happened. We may be a little timid or shy and don’t like to hurt someone’s feelings but we should let this go. After all we are taking dance lessons to learn and grow. There’s nothing wrong about constructive criticism, we should invite it.
Two months later Karen never returned to class. If mark and Karen could have worked this out earlier, it could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship or perhaps more. Their anger and pride got in the way.
I understand some people may be impossible and if that is the case than don’t waste your time and move on. However, I believe this relationship could have been salvaged.
Work it out guys and be open.
I remember telling mark, it appears Karen stop taking classes. He noticed and told me she looked so beautiful in her blue dress the last time she came to class.