Here are some reasons why I am grateful to be a Salsera:

Pain– After a great evening of salsa dancing you should be in pain. Normally people experience pain as bad, however this kind of pain is very good. It is the sore body of someone who has had a wonderful work-out. It is a blissful pain! It is the happy knowledge that you did not need to go to gym and be bored out of you skull while your body received its painful conditioning. No, all you did was dance you sweet little heart out and now you are in pain! …Glee!

Boldness– It may be old news but it is true. Dancing teaches you to be self-confident. Once you can shake your boody and do all kinds of other movements with your boody in public with no skaam (no shame, for my international readers) there is very little else for you to be shy about. This lesson from dancing is very real to me. I was an incredibly shy little mouse before I started to dance. Now, a few dancing years later, I am a very bold little mouse!

Trust– Salsa not only teaches you to trust yourself it teaches the ancient and almost forgotten trust in strangers. When you dance with a person for the first time, it is very exciting, you have no idea what is coming next! It is also very scary, you have NO IDEA what is coming next! Therefore you need to take a step of good old fashioned blind faith. You are trusting that this person, woman or man, will treat you well on the dance floor. You are trusting that for those three or four minutes (or, oh horror, is this track longer than four minutes!?!) that your new strange partner will move to the music, fulfill their role in the dance, will move in and out of your personal space without hurting or breaking any part of your body and will not take advantage of you in any way.  Where else do you find such trust in stranger except on the dance floor?

And with these in mind I say to you,

Happy growing, and happy dancing!