Hispanic Dancing

There are many things I'm not an expert on, but I might try to pass myself off as one anyway. Dancing is one of these things. Sure, I'm not exactly graceful, but I can claim to know a thing or two ... even if I can't do it myself.

The reason why I can say this about dancing, though, is because I had someone break down Hispanic dancing for me.

2003 was a pretty good year, at times. I was in the beginner's class for fencing at UH. Our instructor was a heavyset man, from Guatamala, named Carlos. Carlos was a physics grad student who was pretty fit, but was stocky. Either way, he was an excellent instructor as he was thorough in teaching the basics.

One of my favorite parts about fencing, aside from the rogues' gallery I met, was the sense of community. Sure, practices lasted 3 hours, which was longer than most marching band practices, but afterwards, we'd eat together. I may have mentioned that I've always found eating to be a social event. Carlos would go with the beginners, often to Wendy's. After such a long practice, we would be hungry and tired, but still wired from all the work, so we'd talk for a long time, even after we'd finished eating. Sometimes, we'd go down to play some pool and continue to hangout. It was fun.

Carlos had the gift of gab. He's a gifted storyteller and had good comedic timing. So, when he'd tell us a joke, he'd take his time getting to the end, but the journey was always enjoyable. However, when he would tell a story, we weren't always sure if it was the truth or not.

One day, he told us about the secret of Hispanic Dancing. Being Hispanic, I was interested. He gave us a demonstrations as he spoke. He said that behind all the moves in all the styles the men's parts involved a lot of moving, but if we really noticed, none of that moving took place at the man's midsection. This was to make sure the man's belly fat didn't giggle. He continued dancing and sure enough, the arms, shoulders, legs, feet, and behind all shook but not the midsection. He then showed us what would happen if it did. Lo and behold, he was right.

I hadn't really danced prior to that but when I finally did start, this sagacious memory was always close to mind.