Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts

Monday 27 August 2012

Bite-Sized Dance Stories: Romantic Novels Don't Translate Well In Real Life

My body trembled out of nervousness. This was a dance venue that I have never been to, and boy was it crowded. If there's anything that I learnt about salsa dancing in slots and tight spaces, this place was pushing me to the ultimate test.

Standing by the sidelines watching how each dancer was able to narrowly miss each other summoned cold sweat down my face. I didn't know anyone who was there and I couldn't spot any familiar faces from my dance school. These dancers also seemed to produce an aura that I wasn't familiar with, and it was intimidating to just watch how they could flaunt their style flawlessly. I felt awfully outclassed and started to think twice whether going alone was a good idea after all. But before I could do anything else, a stranger offered his hand to me. I accepted his offer for a dance out of courtesy, and had my toes crossed wishing myself good luck, or rather, break a leg.

The guy I was dancing to was a good-looking Latino. He struck up a conversation with me as we danced in our allotted slot on the dance floor. He asked me who I am, what I do, and other mundane questions. But when it was my turn to ask him, he didn't reveal much and cracked a few jokes along the way. Somehow, that piqued my curiousity, and found myself slightly attracted to this guy. Throughout the dance, he's been giving me gentle leads, and was also nice enough to apologise when he messed up a move.

As we continued talking and dancing, these positive thoughts about him made me feel like jelly on the inside. It was like going on a date. Consciously, I didn't know that it had been affecting my performance on the dance floor, until at one point, I tripped forward, and fell onto him. Luckily, he was able to sense my imbalance and caught me in time.

It was at that moment I realised that our bodies were pressed against each other. I looked up to see his impish smile and his dark brown eyes piercing into mine. In that moment, it seemed that time had frozen for a split second and it had been just the two of us getting more than the connection we have while partner dancing. And then, a realisation struck me: this is just like the romantic novels, in its heightened ecstatic glory of meeting your potential love of your life. In those instances it seemed that his face glowed more and his hair was gently swept by the wind from the air-con. It's too surreal, and I felt lightheaded from all these thoughts and possible responses I should do. When I was able to gather my thoughts, I did what I knew had to be the best solution to such a situation.


Run out of the dance floor shrieking like a banshee, never to return again.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Guest Appearance: A Lid For Every Pot

Michelle loves dancing.  It’s fun and she loves being part of something that makes her feel so alive!  She always gets a thrill when she first walks in and sees the dance floor.  The only problem was she was starting to have a hard time getting anyone to dance with her.  Darryl wouldn’t dance with her anymore and she didn’t understand why, his face seemed to be healing nicely.  Sean won’t even look at her, as if a black eye is any reason to avoid eye contact.  It looks like Dale is still wearing the cast on his foot, guess she won’t be asking him to dance.  It’s hard to believe that he was hurt that badly, she only weighs about 100 pounds.  Felix is only limping a little; maybe he isn’t mad at her anymore.
Maybe she needs to be honest with herself and face the fact that she just isn’t a very good dancer.  It just doesn’t make sense to her.  Sure, when she dances she likes swinging her hand outwards for every turn that is lead, popping her elbow as a form of styling in close hold and when it comes to the shines she won't hesitate to kick her leg out to accentuate her height.  Is it her fault if someone ends up getting hurt?  Of course, people are a little put off when she hits them in the face, kicks them, or steps on their feet, but there is always a chance that someone is going to get hurt, right?  I mean, isn’t that part of the excitement?  Maybe not, since no one seemed to want to dance with her.
Although it was a little disheartening to see the injuries of her past partners, and yes, she had to admit, nearby dancers were sometimes injured when she tried a particularly bold move, she refused to stop dancing.  She just needed to find a new partner, someone who didn’t know her.  She hated to think about it, but maybe she needed to look for a new venue.  Taking a final look around before she left, she noticed someone that she didn’t recognize, standing alone.  She took a chance and went over to introduce herself. 
His name was Nicholas, and he said he usually went to a other places to dance but had decided it was time to move on.  She asked him how he liked it so far, and he said he felt comfortable here, it looked really familiar with all of the injured people.  Quickly changing the subject, Michelle asked him why he wasn’t dancing.  He said that he wasn’t sure if he even should be dancing and Michelle realized that she had been having the same thought.  After pressing him for a while, he finally admitted that he was clumsy and was always tripping his partners and injuring them.  The shocked look on his face when Michelle burst out laughing made her admit to him her similar problem.  After sharing a good laugh they looked at each other and then at the dance floor.  With a mutual shrug they got up and headed to battle, I mean, to dance.
How do you think their first dance went?


Jim Liston is a guest blogger whose interests include playing insane fast bluegrass on his mandolin, reliving his childhood by collecting Beatles memorabilia, and reading e-books on his Kindle.  Visit him at http://jimsgotweb.com