Salsa and shimmy

Well who would have thought that an evening at Belper Musical Theatre could have so much in common with an aerobics session!

I had the text warning fairly early on that I needed to wear my frilly shirt and Cuban heels as we were going to be focusing on a spot of salsa dancing in between the singing at rehearsals last night. And how much fun it was.

A quick warning from Liz first that we needed lots of space, then straight in to a few hip rocking steps to get us warmed up and ready for movement. At which point it quickly became apparent that the reason for needing lots of space was that when your average BMT member is focusing on stepping left, behind, forward, flick, back, right, forward kick etc, they rather rapidly lose the ability to recognise if anyone is in front of them, beside them or behind them. So can  I just say sorry to everyone for the bruises that resulted.

As if it wasn't challenging enough to get us all engaged in this salsa swinging movement around the floor, Liz then called Stacey (star pupil) to the front of the room to give us a demonstration of how to shimmy. Liz found it difficult apparently. So Stacey is there shaking for all she's worth, quickly emulated by Dom who seemed to find it remarkably easy. And there I was at the back of the room discovering that an attempt to shimmy makes my hips wobble and I look like a real Dad dancing.

Ian was soon on hand to try to explain that it was all about stretching out your arms to make one longer than the other. And after a few moments of helpless laughter, he told me to try doing it sitting down so that I could reduce my apparent reliance on my hips to move my arms. So I discovered that whilst sitting down, and in very slow motion, I can shimmy. But as soon as I stand up again, the ability goes.

So that's my work in progress for the future then - shimmy practice. Left arm out, right arm out, hips stable - why is it so hard to dance?