Cafe Iguana
Sooooo, I was too tired last night when I got home... and then this morning, we had a power outage... so now, I can FINALLY write about my GREAT night last night! woo!
I went to Ft. Lauderdale (Commercial Blvd. and Dixie Hwy.) for Tango class. I'm now Michael (my Tango teacher/professor)'s assistant during his classes.. whenever I attend. Class was fun. I had to play the role of Leader (the guy's part) for about 98% of the time, but it was ok.
Three people (one man, two women) came in late for class and had never EVER danced Tango before... furthermore, we had already moved on to other figures... so, I offered to give them some personal teaching time to get them caught up. Even though it wasn't perfect, all three of them were dancing basic Tango steps by the end of the first class - I was so proud.
This girl (a friend that I met through the Tango classes who travels a lot, so I hadn't seen her in a while...) showed up for the second (Intermediate/Advanced) class. After class ended, she asked if I felt like going to check out a club/dance spot in Ft. Laudy. Not sure why, but I said yes. (I was kinda tired and my knee has been bugging me for a few days... against my better judgement, I agreed to go anyway.) So, we went to this place called Cafe Iguana... I'd heard of it before (some commercial on Power 96.5 or something...), but had never been. Well, the place was pretty packed (but not overwhelmingly) and EVERYone was Salsa-dancing. I was thrilled. My friend had mentioned that she really liked this place because they had a wooden dance floor so we would be able to wear our dance shoes. Five minutes after we walked in, she grabbed a drink, we slipped on our dance shoes, and hit the floor perimeter. Then, this guy comes up, asks me to dance (I agree - duh) and off we went. Holy poo! This guy was an AMAZING dancer!
We danced for about 6-8 songs... I couldn't keep track. Salsa and Merengue... I was one happy camper. Then, we took a break and he took my friend out onto the floor. She's such a sweetheart: she's not a very good dancer, but she LOVES Salsa... (those are her words - not mine - by the way...) and some other guy asked me to dance. His lead skills weren't as impressive (the earlier guy had our arms twisted up like pretzels, but still managed to pull off some fantastic turns and tricks...), but we had a good time. Then, after promising he'd be back, the first guy disappeared , and the Reggaeton began. I'm not a huge fan of this style of music/dancing, but it was fun watching people enjoy it.
**I have to pause here in my story to share my thoughts about something. I was really impressed with Cafe Iguana... the people that were there... they were there to DANCE. Seriously. People would leave their drinks *unattended* at the bar for the length of 3-4 songs to go out and dance... then, they'd come back and polish off their drinks without giving it a second thought. And the level of dancing skill was EXTREMELY impressive. Wow. I spotted at least 20-30 really skilled dancers... it was awesome! Ok, back to the story...
My friend started getting tired and said she wanted to leave. I reluctantly agreed (I was having so much fun!!) and we stopped to take our dance shoes off and left. I was bummed I hadn't seen my first dance partner again - he was such a great lead and had complimented me on my following skills and said that I was really fun to dance with. We started out towards the parking lot (by the way, parking was free - YEAH!) and there he was...
My first dance partner! He's from England (with an accent to boot!) and loves dancing. He heard the Bachata music playing inside and asked me if I liked it. Before I could say a word, my friend chimed in with a comment I had made earlier. (I had said that I didn't like Bachata because it's too slow... and frankly, it's boring to take two steps to the right and then two steps to the left over and over and over and over again!) Shocked at my opinion, he offered to show me the style of Bachata that he knew, determined to change my mind... and there we were, dancing his crazyawesome rhythmic stlyings outside the front doors of Cafe Iguana for all the passing/parking cars and incoming club patrons to see. Geez... it was brilliant.
:) Lovely night.
I went to Ft. Lauderdale (Commercial Blvd. and Dixie Hwy.) for Tango class. I'm now Michael (my Tango teacher/professor)'s assistant during his classes.. whenever I attend. Class was fun. I had to play the role of Leader (the guy's part) for about 98% of the time, but it was ok.
Three people (one man, two women) came in late for class and had never EVER danced Tango before... furthermore, we had already moved on to other figures... so, I offered to give them some personal teaching time to get them caught up. Even though it wasn't perfect, all three of them were dancing basic Tango steps by the end of the first class - I was so proud.
This girl (a friend that I met through the Tango classes who travels a lot, so I hadn't seen her in a while...) showed up for the second (Intermediate/Advanced) class. After class ended, she asked if I felt like going to check out a club/dance spot in Ft. Laudy. Not sure why, but I said yes. (I was kinda tired and my knee has been bugging me for a few days... against my better judgement, I agreed to go anyway.) So, we went to this place called Cafe Iguana... I'd heard of it before (some commercial on Power 96.5 or something...), but had never been. Well, the place was pretty packed (but not overwhelmingly) and EVERYone was Salsa-dancing. I was thrilled. My friend had mentioned that she really liked this place because they had a wooden dance floor so we would be able to wear our dance shoes. Five minutes after we walked in, she grabbed a drink, we slipped on our dance shoes, and hit the floor perimeter. Then, this guy comes up, asks me to dance (I agree - duh) and off we went. Holy poo! This guy was an AMAZING dancer!
We danced for about 6-8 songs... I couldn't keep track. Salsa and Merengue... I was one happy camper. Then, we took a break and he took my friend out onto the floor. She's such a sweetheart: she's not a very good dancer, but she LOVES Salsa... (those are her words - not mine - by the way...) and some other guy asked me to dance. His lead skills weren't as impressive (the earlier guy had our arms twisted up like pretzels, but still managed to pull off some fantastic turns and tricks...), but we had a good time. Then, after promising he'd be back, the first guy disappeared , and the Reggaeton began. I'm not a huge fan of this style of music/dancing, but it was fun watching people enjoy it.
**I have to pause here in my story to share my thoughts about something. I was really impressed with Cafe Iguana... the people that were there... they were there to DANCE. Seriously. People would leave their drinks *unattended* at the bar for the length of 3-4 songs to go out and dance... then, they'd come back and polish off their drinks without giving it a second thought. And the level of dancing skill was EXTREMELY impressive. Wow. I spotted at least 20-30 really skilled dancers... it was awesome! Ok, back to the story...
My friend started getting tired and said she wanted to leave. I reluctantly agreed (I was having so much fun!!) and we stopped to take our dance shoes off and left. I was bummed I hadn't seen my first dance partner again - he was such a great lead and had complimented me on my following skills and said that I was really fun to dance with. We started out towards the parking lot (by the way, parking was free - YEAH!) and there he was...
My first dance partner! He's from England (with an accent to boot!) and loves dancing. He heard the Bachata music playing inside and asked me if I liked it. Before I could say a word, my friend chimed in with a comment I had made earlier. (I had said that I didn't like Bachata because it's too slow... and frankly, it's boring to take two steps to the right and then two steps to the left over and over and over and over again!) Shocked at my opinion, he offered to show me the style of Bachata that he knew, determined to change my mind... and there we were, dancing his crazyawesome rhythmic stlyings outside the front doors of Cafe Iguana for all the passing/parking cars and incoming club patrons to see. Geez... it was brilliant.
:) Lovely night.