Valencia Salsa Congress 2006

Wow. What a super 3 days, (I should say nights) of dancing. I didn't do the day workshops at the congress this time, chose just to watch the shows and dance all night instead. Hmmm...guess I didn't do justice to my one-and-only hobby that I am passionate about. But you know what, unless you have a decent partner (confirmed!) to dance the workshops with, it's practically useless. There is nothing worse than getting stuck with some dude for an hour who cannot dance to save his life (but thinks he his Mr. Hotshot), it is torturous. Although the list of instructors was fantastic, I didn't want to take that chance. Besides, I think if you make it a point to try and catch the good dancers to dance during the fiesta, in that 5 minutes of dancing with them, you could learn way more than in a an hour long choreographed workshop. Anyway, the minute the workshop is over, you don't remember anything you've learnt; well I don't anyway!

Performances were incredible as usual. Swing Guys (Italy), Latin Motion (Australia), Nuno and Vanda (Portugal) and Adrian/Anita were performances that just rocked the stage.

And, the crowd gave a standing ovation to Valencianos Pady and Nico; Nico (she) is 80.
She came on stage with her line 'Salsa no tiene edad!' (Salsa has no age); and then was tossed up in the air, pulled through the legs and lead into a triple spin. INCREDIBLE. Unfortunatley I have no pictures.

I am disappointed with myself for not dancing with the instructors this time. Normally, I'm the first one to take a large slurp of my rum-and-coke and have the courage to ask one of the world-champion-instructors to dance. My experiences have been extreme: either highly encouraging, or disastrous. When they encourage your dancing, happiness knows no bounds, you are in the clouds for the next 2 days atleast. But when you don't manage to dance well with these hot-shots, your confidence hits a tremendous low.

One of the teachers (Adrian - definitly one of the hottest instructors I know of) actually asked ME to dance, night 1 of the Congress. We were in a hall where the AC was on full-blow, it was freezing and when I was dancing with him, I kept wanting to sneeze! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
So obviously I was so unfocused, couldn't dance with him at all; his 2-minute long free-style said it all. Was awful.

Anyhow I promised myself that I would catch him over the next few days to dance again. But I don't know why, I just didn't. Perhaps I was afraid of letting him (and myself) down again, and rather not dance, than dance badly and feel like I can't dance the rest of the night. It's like you rather dance with people you know dance well with, just to keep your spirits up.

No. Bad excuse. I should have danced with him. Mierda. Isn't it amazing how your conscience plays games with you when you don't want it to! *sigh*