The Salsa Diaries – Monday Night is Salsa Night!

At some point during 2011 my friend Leanne and I decided to go and try out a Salsa class. We wanted to try something new, meet new people and get ourselves out of the house.

My cousin had been to Salsa Yarm’s Monday night class at Sassaris and suggested we go along. We were slightly worried that we wouldn’t know anyone (true) that we’d get everything wrong (definitely true in my case) or that we wouldn’t like dancing with strangers (sort of true but it’s only strange the first time!).

But everyone was so friendly, we picked up the basics quite quickly, and we’ve been going ever since.

The teachers, Chris and Sue, are both experienced professionals, not to mention lovely people and there’s a core group who come regularly with newbies and others who come when they can.

I should say at this point that whereas Leanne had previous dancing experience, ballet from four-nine was about it for me, unless you count bar dancing (I worked at Chicago Rock) in my miss-spent youth.

Coordination is not my strong suit, and those who know me will tell you that ‘a sense of direction’ is a bit of an alien concept to me.

And yet after the initial lesson, where I pretty much used the wrong foot, went in the wrong direction and missed the signals every single time, I began to trust my instincts, as well as my partners, and learnt to follow (sort of).

I still have some trust issues, and panic if the leader wants me to do something I don’t understand/haven’t learnt. Plus there are certain things I always do wrong. ‘Flaring’ being the main one.

But overall it looks harder than it is. We are shown a routine and think ‘Oh God, no chance!’ and then we learn it and realise we can do it!

Salsa is great fun, good exercise and full of cool words - My favourite being that ‘cucaracha’, a basic side step, means cockroach in Spanish. You get a sense of achievement when you do something well and you can track your improvement simply by dancing with better dancers.

Leanne and I have developed a nice habit of going to Salsa and then going somewhere for tea, usually one of the handful of places which are still open at 10.30 on a Monday and, more often than not, we order the same things!

We’ve also started socialising outside of Salsa with a couple of new friends who we would never have met without the class.

And tonight we are off to Fellowship Hall in Yarm for a ‘Salsa Social’- usually a mix of styles such as Salsa, Kizomba and in this ‘Bachatango’!
I’ve never tried ‘Bachatango’ so I’ll let you know how I do.

In the meantime, if you want to try Salsa, Salsa Yarm has classes on various nights dotted around Teesside. See the website: www.salsayarm.com for details, find your nearest class and go for it!

The View from the East Stand – The Bleak Mid-winter

Firstly, let me just start this blog with a mention for Darlington FC, I can’t pretend to know what the fans are going through, nor would I feel comfortable writing on the subject but I’ve watched the ‘demise’ and ‘revival’ of the club with interest, and sympathy, for the players, the staff and most of all the fans.

But back to the Boro, because while I’m not an authority on the subject, I am most definitely a fan.

Much has been written about Boro’s tendency to have a massive dip in form, and the results to go with it, over the Christmas period. This season it didn’t really happen on schedule, but we are smack bang in the middle of it now.

Winter 2011-12 has been somewhat delayed, the frost didn’t really kick-in until January, so it makes perfect sense that ‘Typical Boro’s slump would likewise take a while to materialise.

Although it may not seem like it when reading my blogs sometimes, I’m a glass half full kinda girl, in fact at times I’m an ‘oh wow, sod the glass, someone gave me a full bottle and I’m loving it kind of girl’.

But I have this cynical streak that generally manifests itself as sarcasm. Anyway, it’s this cynical streak which is worried that we won’t be able to get back to where we need to be.

We were lucky and in my opinion out-played in the FA Cup against Shrewsbury, lost 3-0 away to Blackpool and the highlight of the Burnley match was talking to the fan sat next to me, with an accent that sounded suspiciously ‘Burnley’ and, even more tellingly, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Burnley team!

One bright spot of the Burnley game, other than the Clarets’ sunshine yellow kit, was Boro new boy Lukas Jutkiewicz.

He’s young and hadn’t really had the time with the team to gel or even find his feet, but he got stuck in, put himself about and showed lots of potential.

Injuries have started to kick in, but mostly our lack of goals is starting to cost us.

Hopefully Lukas can go some way to restoring the deficit and hopefully Mowbray has some magic left up his sleeve to inspire another push from the players, and fans, who have put their faith in him.

Fingers crossed for Saturday!

The View from the East Stand - New Year, No Let Up!

With less than half an hour to go before Blackpool v Boro, I’m going to keep this short and sweet so, notes from Boro v Peterborough: We actually played much better than we did against Hull, we were more aggressive, we pushed them back more effectively and enjoyed most of the possession, particularly in the first half. But we didn’t take our chances and we didn’t kill the game off when we were on top and we could very well have lost it in the final few minutes. McDonald spurned easier chances before scoring and hitting the woodwork twice and it was hard to see where a second goal was going to come from, the answer unfortunately was weak defending from us which produced a soft equaliser for the Posh.

Speaking of goalscorers, Emnes seems to have decided that contrary to popular opinion, his laurels are an excellent place to rest. Without his goals earlier in the season we wouldn’t be where we are now. Trouble is he’s looked disinterested the last two times he’s come on, and whilst it’s understandable that he wants to be a first team player, we need everyone to give one last push from now until the end of the season to get us promoted – get on board or stay on the bench!

Blackpool will be tricky today, and it looks like we are missing Nicky Bailey. Without Bailey sitting back, Bates and Williams aren’t afforded the freedom to go forward, something both players relish. Thomson is a decent midfielder, but he’s too fragile and lacks Bailey’s solid presence, we may need to adjust our game plan accordingly or it could cost us.

Come on Boro let’s make this a nice day at the seaside!