Dancing Stupidly

STUBBORNLY YOUNG RULE 8: Try New Things

Last week in a live music night club in Cartagena (great way to start a post!), the band was playing a high-energy version of Cuban-Salsa music that compelled one to dance.  I don’t know how to Salsa, nor does Cheryl.  We’d intended to take lessons but there we were, too embarrassed to just get up there, just our feet moving with the beat.

Then, this guy, about my age, got up and started dancing with his wife.  To watch him dance was, well, he didn’t know Salsa either.  He had both elbows bent at 90 degrees and both hands turned down, fingers down… sort of resembling an ostrich – and he was rotating back and forth at the waist in jerks that made me think of a wind-up toy missing some sprockets.  He didn’t know how to Salsa – and YET- he was smiling, enjoying himself. Cheryl and I admitted to one another that while we were too shy in a night club in Columbia where there was zero chance anyone knew us or cared anything about us, we were still not dancing. And, here’s this guy having a great time! The dancer who didn’t know how was enjoying the evening more than we were!

That bugged me, and I hope the rest of the story motivates you to try something new and uncomfortable.

There’d been a man dancing in front of the band).  He had amazing movement dancing by himself (see video!).  He was clearly either a pro, or could be.  I left my seat and using my Google Translate app, I held this screen up to him:

He stopped dancing and indicated for me to stand next to him and follow along, which I did (poorly, but with enthusiasm!).  It turns out that Walter actually IS a dance instructor.  Then he saw Cheryl, and motioned to her to join us, and taught us together for a song.  A little later in the evening Walter was invited on stage – see the video of that – yes, THIS GUY taught us to dance for a little while! It turned into an amazing night that I’m adding this episode of TRYING SOMETHING NEW to my Experiential Billionaire log!