TANGO and the creepy Yosemite Sam look-alike

March 27th, 2005

So a few days ago Lauren and I went to our VERY FIRST TANGO LESSON! Oh man, it was fun...but I have to say: it's freaking hard! Knowing how to swing dance did not help me at all. I was stumbling all over the place, and since Lauren took 10 years of ballet she picked it up waaaaaay faster than me. But I think maybe at the end we started looking less bad. At least that's what people said...but that may have been just pity praise.

But there were a bunch of weirdos there. So during the 45 minute lesson, I was of course partnering with Lauren, since we went together. But then the instructor told us to "switch partners". I got this nice older lady who was even worse than me...so that made me feel good. But poor Lauren looked at me with "tortured" eyes when she got stuck with the BIGGEST WEIRDO I've even seen! Allow me to describe him for you:

With a bit of a hump, this guy was dressed all in black, and fashioning what could only be described as a feminine "Zorro" hat. He had on cowboy boots and cowboy half-pants. All his facial hair, including eyebrows beard and mustache, was red. His mustache, if you can believe it, appeared to be "gel-ed" and pointed upwards. Hence the well deserving title of "Yosemite Sam Look-alike". He didn't smile often, but when he did his mouth revealed several gold teeth. He took it upon himself to single handedly try to turn Lauren and I into expert Tango dancers by the end of the night. He failed miserably, to put it mildly. But everytime he was explaining a move to me, he would pronounce the Spanish name with a "gringo" accent. When I would repeat it back to him in a "Mexican" accent, he would blink a few times, give me a confused look, and say the word again with the "gringo" accent. After a while I gave up and just imitated him. He seemed to think this was progress.

I'm pretty sure he was only teaching us moves so that he could get a dance with Lauren. She was a big hit at the place. There were several girls sitting down on tables, waiting for a guy to ask them to dance. Since Tango is a seriously macho-istic dance, a girl can't dance unless a guy asks her (it's pretty sad). But I think they were all getting frustrated because all the guys were ignoring them and just asking Lauren to dance. As soon as Lauren and I took a break, all the guys turned into vultures and pounced on her. And she's too nice to reject them, so her feet were really sore at the end of the night.

But all in all it was an awesome time. But it's kind of a rigid dance, so in that way it's not as fun as swing dancing. We're going back again soon. This time I'll try to limit my stepping-on-Lauren to below 20 times. She might appreciate that.