Dancing Queen - Day 6 of 35 days to 35

I have a very active imagination. I spend a lot of time visualizing myself doing all of these really cool things...but not just doing them but being REALLY, REALLY good at them. In my little world I am a hilariously witty, athletically gifted, brilliant, and skinny woman with a million friends (shut up, this is MY world!). So when I walk into my salsa class today I just know that I am going to be the next coming of Jennifer Lopez. Not so much.
Let's rewind....so I find this beginners salsa workshop online that looks like it would be the perfect place to start my lessons. Given the snow we have had in the past few days, I am not sure if anyone else is going to show up, but I am so ready. The studio is right around the corner from my house and as I arrive the festive music hits me as soon as I open the door. I follow the music to the basement of the studio and am greeted by a room FULL of people talking, laughing and dancing. DANCING WELL! Everyone looked as if they had come out of the womb doing the salsa and my first thought was "Shit! I'm in the wrong place! These people damn sure aren't beginners!" I'm not sure what to do so I try to walk into the room undetected but there are people everywhere and there is no spot that I can slip into and observe. While I am standing there with a look on my face that I am certain is a mix of terror, excitement and confusion, a really friendly looking woman comes dancing over to me. She introduces herself as Diana, the instructor, and explains that what I have walked into is the end of the weekly "practice session" where students come to make sure they have not lost their moves since their last class. She tells me to hang tight and class will start soon. I can't get over the incredible mix of people there and the fact that they all look like they really know what they are doing. I am wondering if I will ever be able to get my body to move like that and questioning the intelligence of my decision to take this class. See, if I take the class and find out that I am horrible and that my hips and feet refuse to move like that, then Darlene the Salsa Queen who lives in my head will die a very grace-less death. But if I run up the stairs before I make a fool of myself then my inner dancer can live on. What to do, what to do....
So as I am inching over to the stairs, ready to try to slip out, I see a woman with the same confused/excited/terrorized look on her face and immediately recognize her as a fellow salsa novice. We start to talk and I decide to stay since I am now sure I won't be the only one tripping over her feet. Two more students come to class and we are ready to start.
Diana goes over the basic steps and I am thinking "okay, this isn't that bad, I can TOTALLY do this". My feet are going where they are supposed to go but my hips and shoulders haven't quite got the salsa flavor yet...I am praying that will come. So I'm feeling pretty confident at this point, smugly thinking how right I was about what a natural I am at this salsa thing. Then came the turns....let's just say the salsa gods have not blessed me as much as I thought they had.
By the end of the two hour workshop, I felt good about the salsa skills I learned. I feel like if I were out at a club and the dance floor was REALLY crowded and I had a FANTASTIC partner and a few margaritas in me, I WOULD BE AWESOME! If any of those were missing...again, not so much. But I had a blast and am seriously considering buying some "dance shoes" and going to weekly classes. I met some really cool people and discovered that even though my hips don't move quite like J-Lo's, with a little practice, Darlene the Salsa Queen may move out of my head and onto the dance floor.
P.S. My damn camera ran out of batteries so I don't have a picture of me in all of my salsa glory. SO BUMMED!