It’s 11pm, my university friends and I have just enjoyed an incredible Italian dinner with good wine and incredible pasta, we’ve gone in search of more wine and found ourselves in our favourite cocktail bar. Tonight will be the final night we are all together as a group, the final night before we all go off into the world of work. Over the past few years we have watched each other grow and develop from nervous 18 year old girls with terrible French grammar into intelligent, confident (and much more fluent) young women. I feel so proud of us.
Having sat down in a cosy window seat we realise we’ve happened upon the bar’s weekly salsa night, people mill around to the upbeat music, the atmosphere is brilliant. We’re sharing stories, laughing and reminiscing when a tall silver haired man in his mid 50s approaches our table. He explains he is the resident salsa teacher and wants us to dance with him. Yeah right! I can’t dance! Ha!
After little persuasion one of my braver friends indulges him and we watch as he spins her around, counting her in, telling her where to move her hands – she looks fantastic! As the song finishes he comes back to our table and picks off another friend – I soon realise I am the only one not to have danced. I’m next.
Shit. I can’t dance! I have no idea how to. My mind is furiously racing, searching for a way out of this sure to be humiliating experience. Here he is, on his way over with a big grin on his face “Come on! Give it a go!” he pleads. Oh no! I couldn’t possibly – I don’t know how, I can’t…
Suddenly I hear alarm bells – ‘Dear Self, are you not doing EXACTLY the thing you’ve vowed to forbid in your classroom?’
Can’t is not a word.
*SIGH*
I place my hands in those of this friendly stranger and he leads me to the dance floor, I laugh explaining that I have never even done salsa before ( I refrain from joking that I don’t even like dipping my tortillas in the stuff!). He smiles and explains the first basic step to me – 123, 123. ‘Come on, that’s it! I know you can do it!’…I give in and off we go – soon, to my utter disbelief I am twisting and spinning around the floor with him like a pro! The feeling is euphoric!
At the end of the song he told me he knew I could do and that he was proud of me! I went back to my table and gulped down the rest of my wine, my friends laughing at my slightly reddened cheeks.
So last night I did something I haven’t done in a long time – I put myself in the hands of a teacher. I tried something completely new – something scary and unfamiliar. The feeling I felt is something akin to that which my year 7s will feel in September – new school, new classes, new teachers, and for many a whole new language. So when I stand in front of my new classes in September I will remember my silver haired salsa teacher and that little uncomfortable feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you get up to salsa for the first time.
‘Come on…I know you can do it!’
Bonjour Mademoiselle 