Introduction and how I got into salsa

Hi,

I'm a salsa-dancing, DJing computer programmer who lives and dances in Manchester, England.

In this blog I will talk about how I got into salsa, and a few of my [mis]adventures on the way, including why I am mainly interested in Cuban salsa, and I'll debunk some myths about on-2 dancing.

I will also give handy links to other resources as and when, such as the online book on Rueda that I maintain. I might even be pushed to reveal some of my favourite tracks, both for private listening and for DJing with (meanwhile, hunt down some Salsa Celtica!).

I am fairly well known in Manchester's salsa scene, not least because I DJ in the only salsa club in the North West of England, so I'll try to avoid being critical of individuals, or I might find an elbow flying my way a little more often than usual on the dance floor!

So, onto actual content:

A Dearth of Dance

I started dancing ballroom when I was 10, in Preston, mainly because my mother needed somewhere to dump me while she went shopping for my birthday, and I liked it, for at least two reasons.

I found the ratio of girls to boys very much in my favour, especially around my own age, as the bulk of boys were 2 or 3 years older than me. Some of those became amazing dancers (Gary Woods and Wesley Atack are the ones I can find with Google).

I eventually taught children then adults there, but then moved to Manchester to study. It was hard to get up on a Saturday morning to get back to Preston, especially seeing as the money was meagre. I tried a few ballroom places in Manchester, but the atmosphere wasn't the same, and people really just wanted to do their usual routines, which is a limiting factor in ballroom in the North West, at least.

I didn't want to just learn new routines for the sake of it, as I had got to a level where I could improvise fairly well. I think this resistance in Manchester gave me my dislike of routines, that has served me really well in salsa.

So after 10 years, I gave up ballroom, pretty much. I was doing my Industrial Placement (internship to foreign readers) in Teleca in Didsbury, as a Programmer (more like black box tester, don't believe them in interviews. Ever. It's easier for a normal employee to escape than a placement student.), when a friendly Swedish cow-orker by the name of Mats Knutsen told me about the classes run by Les and Lorraine in La Tasca on Deansgate.

That was 5 years ago. Les and Lorraine gave me a nice jumpstart into salsa and, I've just remembered, Lorraine owes me some money. Must dash!

I'll discuss Les in a later post, but I'll have to change his name then. The name will NOT be Fred, that's all I'll say now.