You want some Salsa with that?

I'm convinced that a treadmill will never help me shed pounds. I stare it down at the gym and it stares right back. We take a walk together and after five minutes I'm ready to jump ship and haul my ass over to Dunkin Donuts. Absolute boredom drives me to food. It's inevitable.

Because of my allergic reaction to anything stationary, I started a mission which I had contemplated months ago, to try new forms of exercise. You already know about the Yoga experience (read prior entry), so this time around I went for something a little more lively and a little less stretchy. Dancing. I love it, it seems to love me, how could it not work?

At my sweet 16 I was caught on tape trying to dance to salsa music with my uncle, instead I was actually a mess of flailing arms and legs. A few years later while in college, I dated a salsero... Thank the Lord Almighty for bringing him into my life, who knows what kind of fool I would be on the dance floor were it not for him. With many private dance lessons under the belt, I've sharpened the skills and can say I'm pretty good. However, I had no idea what to expect from a dance class so I decided enrolling in a beginner's course would be best.

By word of mouth, I came across this dance school www.eddietorres.com and on Tuesday made it a point to at least try. On 54th street I came to the building marked on the site and jumped into an elevator with a woman that happened to be the instructor, Maria. I followed her and a student to the studio where 3 or 4 other women awaited us.

Great! There's hardly anyone here, and on top of that no men! How will I learn to be lead?

I waited outside for some time to pass and with it (to my relief) arrived a ton of people, both male and female. I paid my $15 fee (quite a bargain for 2 hours), eyed a guy that I SWEAR I know from somewhere and took my place in the back of the class. Within the first 15 minutes the room filled to at least 50 people. Ages ranged from 20s to 40s and there were enough ethnicities to make up a mock UN.

Maria wiggled her way to the front of the room and belted out, "To all my newbies, welcome! To all my regulars, you better not let me down show them I know how to teach!" And so she began leading us into a 1-2-3-(pause) 5-6-7 , immediately I was thrown off because I never COUNT when I dance, I just ...dance (gasp!) After tripping over myself, I regained my composure and repeatedly reminded myself that I knew how to do this.

When I learned to ignore the awkwardness of counting, I was able to get the hang of the steps and quickly caught on to everything that followed. My eyes fluttered sideways to a man who couldn't grasp the concept of not moving both of your feet at the same time. I wanted to help him but Maria shouted, "Turn p'alla! (i can't spell spanish). Which means... p'alla!" No, I didn't hear her wrong, Maria had no intention of translating everything for us. While, I'm lucky enough to know some basic Spanish (p'alla translates into "over there"), there were some people who didn't have a clue and, missing the command to turn bumped squarely into their neighbors, ouch.

After spending an hour on learning a short routine, my heart was racing and the sweat was reaching the surface. I smiled at my aching thighs and knew I'd made the right exercise decision. Until I realized there was still an hour to go. How would I be able to walk after this?

The second hour was dedicated to partner work. Everyone was pretty open to sharing any partners they had come with so we formed a "musical partners" assembly line of sorts where the women stayed put and the men rotated. The level of dancing talent these men possessed varied so greatly that I was either running the risk of falling over and cracking my head from their inability to keep a beat, or I was turning beet red from the embarrassment of not being able to keep up.

I was twirled and tossed until my hair was a mess, but I loved every minute of it. There was not one man who I danced perfectly with and I saw this as a blessing, it made me dance harder. The one dude I swear I knew finally rotated into my partnership and I asked him if he had gone to Rutgers, "cause I swear I know you from somewhere." "Nope, I didn't. Are you Dominican?" I'm not sure how that was going to narrow down where we knew each other from, but we had to rotate again before finding out.

At 10 p.m. (30 mins after we were scheduled to end), Maria finally began to close down shop. I collected my stuff, and sashayed outta there like Jennifer Beals with a sweatshirt cutoff. Ain't not stopping me now, I'm on the move! As I walked to my train I took each step with a 1,2,3(pause) 5,6,7 .. and never tripped once..

Maybe this counting thing isn't so bad after all...