After the Meals on Wheels volunteer with my two friends in the morning, I joined my first salsa class at the Crunch in SOHO.

The class started at 3 o’clock. When I first got there I thought the class was cancelled because nobody was there. However, I saw the instructor talking on the cell phone. When she saw me, she was sort of happy but I was kinda scared because I knew I would be the only one in the class. All the attention would be on me.

Last week was packed. I think the past week was a week before Labor Day; people left the city for the beach before the summer is over.

Ten minutes later, there were 3 women joining the class. I was the only guy there.

The instructor warmed us up with Ricky Martin’s song.

It was my first time in my life that I felt like I was so incapable of dancing. I believe I am a pretty good dancer myself but this is tough. Salsa needs a lot of steps- the rhythm can be 1 2 cha cha cha- twists and turns. But the most difficult is to harmonize my whole body together. My upper body has to move elegantly. My hip has to swing smoothly and my feet have to follow the quick steps.

However, the first class of salsa, my upper body was paralyzed. My hip was dead and my feet were in chaos. I think I was too much concentrated on the foot steps that I could not harmonize other parts of my body.

The whole class, I looked at my instructor’s moves all the time. I was not sure if she thought that I looked at her butt.

I think salsa is very challenging. I always like the way of those Latin people move their body when they dance. I think it is very beautiful.

Even though I felt like I was not very successful for the first class, I still love it. I had a chance to experiment my first salsa lesson by mixing it with my own dance moves in Roxy the same night at the Junior Vasquez’s birthday party. I and one of my best friend and best dance buddy danced our ass off. We swept the whole dance floor. We jumped, turned and twisted. We danced until we both agreed that we were about to pass out.

It was the great party that I have not been for a while. I danced straight for 9 hours.

Salsa really elevated my dance move to another level.

Tae Athikomvittaya