Salsa: ego destroyer

Before I start my salsa recap, I have to share this footage from last season that should've have tipped all of us off about OU's cheatin' ways. How did we miss that?

Allright. Let's talk about ducks...I mean dance. (For those of you who don't know, that's a reference to "Greater Tuna" - one of the funniest freakin' shows I've ever seen. If you're from Texas, especially, and you don't know about "Greater Tuna," you have missed one of the greatest all-time commentaries on West Texas culture ever. I swear to god I'm related to these characters. I've spent holidays with them. Go to the site I've linked to, and watch the video clips listed in the upper right corner. There are more clips at the page for "A Tuna Christmas." Okay, talking about salsa - I mean it.) My salsa class just keeps getting harder - partly because the steps are getting more complicated and partly because our female instructor keeps NOT coming to class, making it harder for us to figure out what the one, male instructor wants us to do. He shows us steps, but until we see how it works with a partner, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't help that the instructor has an Indian accent and yells out all of our instructions making him really hard to understand at times.

This week was particularly annoying because in addition to the yelling and accent, he had 'tude. I guess he was annoyed that the female instructor wasn't there...I guess...I'll be generous. But whatever it was, he needed to stow it. He would show us the step, too fast and without explaining exactly what the steps were all supposed to be leading up to, then he'd get annoyed when we didn't understand and would ask him to show us certain steps again. Uh-uh. We PAID for this class, Mr. Prissy. You're not doing us a favor. If we're all not getting it, it's not because we're idiots - it's because you're not teaching it very well. So, chill with the attitude and figure out a way to get the move across. That or let's just throw down and get it over with. You're not much bigger than I am, and I'm wily - I could take you, pal.

This leads us to Rico. I couldn't take Rico this week. The steps were too confusing, and I didn't need him critiquing me. So, I watched as we arranged ourselves in a circle and lined myself up so that I wouldn't make it around the circle to him until late in the class. I'd hoped I could avoid him all together, but no such luck - I did have to dance with him once. And it was all I dreamed it would be. He sang/mouthed the beats of the music (bah, bah, BAH, bah, bah, BAH), which made looking at him impossible. And while he was somewhat normal for most of the steps, I guess because they were confusing, when we got to one that he was confident about, he threw himself around like an epileptic, swinging his hips and shoulders like he was some kind of Latin dance champ whose abuela had imbued him with the rhythm of dance since the crib. DUDE! You are a short, dorky white guy. STOP it!!!

The Hunkster remained humbled this week, however his shirt was again splashed with cologne. How does he not see that? And he and The Girlfriend kept making out everytime they ended up together. Get. A. Room.

I give props to everyone else in the class, though. Everyone did a great job on a difficult series of steps and was patient when their partner wasn't quite getting something. And it was really cute watching some of the guys as their confidence levels rose. Is that emasculating to call their confidence cute?