Monday, February 26, 2007
Dancing shoes
Today was my first day of school at Instituto Cultural Oaxaca. I love the old building the school is in...lots of courtyards and fountains and flowers. The jury is still out on the school itself. It´s only day one. As usual, I tested in between two different groups. So I´m spending this week in the easier one, for a review. And I may bump up to the other one next week. It´s a little disappointing because I´ve grown used to being in class with folks who are slightly (ok, often a lot) better than me at speaking. But the shoe is on the other foot in this class. We´re moving pretty slow and the vocab is super easy. We´ll see what happens. Maybe it´s my turn to be patient. Normally this school works on four week cycles, but we´re in the last week of a rare five week turn, so it should be fairly easy to change next week if i care to.
I have class in the morning from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Starting tomorrow, at 3 p.m., I will participate in intercambio, an exchange. I´ll be assigned a Oaxacan student who is learning English, and we will spend an hour a day helping eachother with our language skills. Then, from 4 to 6, we have workshops. Normally, these run in two-week segments, but since this is a rare one-week shot, I decided to try the salsa class.
So today, it was just me and Nell, a woman who also started school today. She´s from New York and I really like her. Our instructor is great. There were two guys signed up for the class, but they didn´t show, and at least for today, that was fine. It´s a lot easier to learn when your partner is the teacher.
But get this, direct from my teacher: "Salsa works on a count of seven. But you don´t count the 4. Count one two three, five six seven."
Hmm. I´m sure there´s a reason for this, a secret trick only known to expert salsa dancers. I´ll understand it one day. One two three, five six seven. Have faith.
Nell and I danced barefoot today, which isn´t a good idea because the turns are kind of hard on the balls of the feet. So after class the teacher told us about a little shoe store where we could get really cheap chemis, or ballet shoes without the ribbons. We walked there after class, passing at least 8 other shoe stores on the way, and finally found the right one. Our reward: lime green flats, a cross between rubber and plastic, that fit about as snug as those covers surgeons wear over their shoes. But they were $2.50. And we´re thinking of painting glitter racing stripes on them. Game on!
I have class in the morning from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Starting tomorrow, at 3 p.m., I will participate in intercambio, an exchange. I´ll be assigned a Oaxacan student who is learning English, and we will spend an hour a day helping eachother with our language skills. Then, from 4 to 6, we have workshops. Normally, these run in two-week segments, but since this is a rare one-week shot, I decided to try the salsa class.
So today, it was just me and Nell, a woman who also started school today. She´s from New York and I really like her. Our instructor is great. There were two guys signed up for the class, but they didn´t show, and at least for today, that was fine. It´s a lot easier to learn when your partner is the teacher.
But get this, direct from my teacher: "Salsa works on a count of seven. But you don´t count the 4. Count one two three, five six seven."
Hmm. I´m sure there´s a reason for this, a secret trick only known to expert salsa dancers. I´ll understand it one day. One two three, five six seven. Have faith.
Nell and I danced barefoot today, which isn´t a good idea because the turns are kind of hard on the balls of the feet. So after class the teacher told us about a little shoe store where we could get really cheap chemis, or ballet shoes without the ribbons. We walked there after class, passing at least 8 other shoe stores on the way, and finally found the right one. Our reward: lime green flats, a cross between rubber and plastic, that fit about as snug as those covers surgeons wear over their shoes. But they were $2.50. And we´re thinking of painting glitter racing stripes on them. Game on!
# posted by Anne @ 6:07 PM 
