What is it about salsa dancing that keeps it spreading rapidly like a very contagious virus all over the World?
I have been dancing salsa for 5 years now. The beginning of my dancing career began with ballroom dancing. Let me tell you, after competing and working really hard to be noticed by the judges, I realized that the ballroom crowd is actually not my type exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the ballroom dances. It’s just that the level of “stuckupness” (I just invented this word) didn’t quite fit my idea of enjoying oneself.
So after testing the US (East Coast) ballroom happenings and spending 3 years in getting people to even say Hi to me, I decided that’s enough of ballroom.
I was lucky that a friend took me to a salsa dance and what I saw grabbed me from the getgo. People were smiling, sweating like crazy, friendly and talking to strangers, asking anyone and everyone to dance, making new friends, I mean, that’s what dancing is all about, right? Having fun.
So, there you have it, 4 months after that I joined a pro team in DC and started getting ready for performances. There came the first one, then the next one, and the next thing I knew, I had performed at most of the major salsa congresses in the U.S.
I was loving it; the travelling, the preparation and thrill before the performance, the joy of pleasing the crowd, meeting new people everywhere we went.
In the meantime I also travelled to many other countries for work or pleasure. I went to Africa, Germany, Thailand, China, Mexico, Peru, Italy, and guess what…SALSA was just everywhere.
It was like speaking a common language without actually opening your mouth to pronounce any words. Amazing! People spoke the language of salsa dancing and that was enough.
Of course you may never see that person again (especially if you don’t speak a common language) but who cares…All that matteres is that you had a blast and danced the night away.
To be honest I didn’t expect Chinese people to be so much into salsa but let me tell you, they blew my mind away. Those tiny Asian men and women were spinning like no other.
Then, after a knee injury I stopped performing and moved to Chicago where I found the Dance Academy Of Salsa and it’s owner Miguel Mendez. He embraced me as I am his own daughter and gave me 3 classes to teach right away, without even asking me if I had any experience in teaching salsa. He had only seen me dance but that was it.
So, that’s how I started www.salsawithsilvia.com
Peope who dance salsa are the nicest, warmest, friendliest people in the World.
Little that I knew, soon after I started teaching, people started piling up to sign for the classes and for private lessons. So, even more joy for me. I get the reward from teaching and seeing people learn and pass my knowledge to them, inspire them to dance and tell them that dance is a way of living; it makes you a happy person. We really need that these days, right?
You would think the economy going down would slow down the salsa business but no, it actually got better. I think because people find this as a way to relieve stress.
What do you think?
