Buenos Dias
Good Days.
They sure have been. I arrived in Cali, Colombia three weeks ago. One of my major goals of the trip was to dance salsa in Cali, the world capital of salsa. I figured that if I arrived on Monday and started lessons immediately, I could be ready to hit the clubs by the weekend. That didn’t work out for a number of reasons. One reason is that, never having danced before, I started out looking more like a third string defensive back doing warmup drills than a dancer. After one day of classes I realized it would be quite a bit more than a week before I could be seen dancing in public. The other reason is that my knee, which was only mildly painful and stiff when riding the motorcycle, flared up under the daily stress of dancing and running.
My dance instructor referred me to a knee specialist who turned out to be one of the best in a country of great doctors. He is the doctor for the under 23 national football team here so he has some experience with tweaked knees. Turns out I have a grade 1 tear of my medial collateral ligament as well as a torn miniscus, prescription: three weeks of daily physical therapy. So I have been taking salsa classes, rehabing my knee and running as much as my knee will allow (don’t tell my therapist).
After three weeks of salsa classes, there has been some progress. Rather than simply knowing that I can’t dance, I now know all the specific and detailed ways in which I cannot dance. As of a few days ago I was beginning to think that the main takeaway from this experience would be the character gained from repetitively doing something that I am neither natural nor good at. Attempting to keep my hands, hips and feet moving in unison while negotiating my way through the reasonably complex salsa moves is a bit, for me, like trying to play chess while patting my head and rubbing my stomach in circles. The look of focused concentration on my face is a far cry from the relaxed enjoyment I see on the faces of people on the dance floor.
A couple days ago, I had a breakthrough. While practicing on my own I found my hands moving in concert with my hips without my conscious attention. This reduced by 25% the things I have to think about while dancing. At my current rate of progress, I feel that in as little as a decade I could be dancing comfortably on the dance floor.