Shade Zahrai

You can do beginner, intermediate and advanced at once, but just do the classes, not the privates.

You'll get more out of it.

So I, you know, impatience needed to do it.

It was super fun.

But then we needed to practice.

So after class on a Monday night, our group would go to a local kind of dance club where they just play Latin music and you get to just dance with each other.

I walked in first time and the bottom floor was a chaotic mess of movement and hands and beats.

I felt so unsafe because there was so much uncertainty and so much movement and chaos.

And I froze.

And then my friend who was with me grabbed me by the arm, yanked me because it could have been a bit dangerous, pulled me up the side to a little staircase to a balcony, which I saw had a lot of beginner and intermediate dancing at a much slower pace.

But from that vantage point, when I looked down, suddenly I felt more safe because I'm not going to get hit.

You know, anyone who has done Latin dancing knows that like an elbow to the face is common, both whether you're the leader or the follower.

It's happened many times.

But I was looking over this balcony thinking, oh, wow.

I can actually see the movements now.

I can see the patterns.

They're doing this turn pattern.

Oh, cool.

They're doing that.

So it gave me this completely new perspective where I could see what was happening.