On Shoes

Shoe categories

Shoes are a hot topic for many if not most women, an all-important accessory and for some, a compulsive addiction in and of themselves. Yet, I would venture to suggest that for a salsa addict, dance shoes hold even greater importance.

With regards to ordinary shoes, and from the point of view of a normal, non-shoe crazy woman, it is important to note that shoes must be subdivided into categories. You cannot count your shoes and assess your love of this accessory by presenting a simple total number of pairs. No, the number of pairs of shoes a woman possesses should first be broken down into categories. Indeed, under the shoe bracket there are work shoes, holiday shoes (sandals, flip flops and the like), sports and utility shoes (e.g. running, hiking etc), comfortable walk-around shoes, boots and high heels.

Boots occupy their own category. While they can often be accommodated to fit into the work shoe or high heel categories, wearing a pair of boots is a statement. Fact.

High heels also stand alone. You might go so far as having clubbing heels, wedding and special occasion heels or ridiculous "coup de coeur" heels that were bought on a loving whim. My shoe love however does not go so far as to necessitate sub-categories within this segment. I must however confess to owning four pairs that almost defy common sense.

My favourite shoe category

From where I stand, I classify as a rather normal female shoe owner. Not so true when it comes to salsa shoes. I spend more money on salsa shoes than most, I renew my salsa shoes more often than most and I love my salsa shoes much more than I do any of my normal shoes.

It is hardly my fault. From a comfort perspective, the dance shoe is very simply designed to keep your feet happy. The pliable base, the perfect grip underfoot, the straps that keep your heel perfectly attached all contribute to creating the perfect mix, only rarely found in the common street, party or work shoe. I won't confess to mambo basic or spin testing every shoe I try on prior to purchase. I will confess however, to actively making peace with the failure of many an eventual purchase to double as a salsa shoe.

Salsa heels

With regards to heel height, there's an active consideration to be undertaken - how tall are you and how hard do you want to make it for guys to get their hands above your head to lead you into triple spins? I don't have a height problem - well, I do, I generally think that discounting my ego (the mythical creature that I like to believe sits on top of my head), I'm pretty vertically challenged. However, I have noticed that the speed at which I spin with shorter dance partners varies quite considerably whether I'm wearing flats, two and a half inch heels or four inch ones. Incidentally, for those not in the know, spin-speed is inversely related to inches. There are times, when I will guiltlessly sacrifice my partners' energy levels to be a couple of inches taller. What can I say, it keeps my ego happy.

The point to be taken from my diatribe about heel height is that it really doesn't matter. So long as you are comfortable, you can wear whatever you like. Well almost. You should never buy or wear (in my very humble opinion) salsa shoes with a short, chunky heel where the section of the heel that touches the floor is a square with an 8cm diameter (akin to 4 inches). Case closed. Firstly, they are not attractive. Secondly, you get more stability in jazz shoes. Thirdly, they are really NOT attractive. If you're looking for shock and awe on the ugly scale, go for this model of shoes with a closed toe. No comment.

I'm all for the salsa heel being wider than usual for added stability and I realise that those wearing these shoes are likely to be concerned about their height. But there are other ways to get added stability or lose height: wear jazz shoes. If height is your only issue - men will deal with it, wear what you like!

Favourite brands

Let me introduce you to my favourite brand of salsa shoe: Alvarez Dance Shoes. They're from Italy and as far as I can gather (at least in part) handmade. Not only are they beautiful - Italian shoes, need I say more? - but they have a little foot pad to release the pressure from the myriad of steps you'll be making. Oh yeah, and Mr Alvarez Jr is pretty hot. You can buy these shoes online, but it's best to get them at congresses where you will additionally benefit from trying them on, avoiding the heinous port and packaging fee, and the ability to negotiate a discount with the seller. If you're lucky, you'll get to dance with him an his son as well!

Bear in mind however that these are by no means the cheapest shoes available and moreover, they do not last forever (cue: tears dropping down my cheeks). I think I'm on my fifth pair in three years (obviously, I've gone through a number of other branded pairs as well during this time) and I've now figured out which models have higher durability - though not without some repairs and super glue along the way. Indeed, the distinctively wonderful little piece of foot padding described above has the unfortunate effect of weakening the hold of the straps at the front of the shoe. As a dancer, I'm sure you'll appreciate that these straps are in fact essential to keeping your toes in position. No amount of super glue will save you once these become detached.

Having said that, any comments I make about durability should be taken with a pinch of salt. I think it's fair to say that I dance fairly frequently. It's also fair to say that I was completely and utterly shocked when a friend explained how she had gone for two years living off the same shoe. Seriously? Mine would have long since fallen off my feet if I hadn't bought new ones before the two year mark. Perhaps my admission that one pair of shoes only lasted me three months was a little shocking too (cue: guilty addict face)…

So comments about durability aside, as this is clearly a highly subjective variable, Alvarez Dance Shoes are fully and utterly worth buying, despite the price tag and whatever I might say about them eventually dying on me, because…(wait for it - drum roll - wait for it)…because, ultimately, they are the only brand of shoes I have ever bought, that I could instantly wear for a marathon 7 hours of non-stop congress dancing (a big thank you to those who organised the Athens Salsa Festival), without one single blister! Granted, the soles of my feet were a little sore - but then anybody's would be if they were only to stand in one place for that length of time.

If I had to recommend another brand of shoes - though God knows, I'm a pretty loyal Alvarez customer so most definitely haven't tried them all - it would be Burju's shoes. Instantly recognisable to any female salsa addict, many a dance floor has seen women point to other women's shoes with an enquiring smile. The words "Burju?" are quietly uttered and the positive nod in reply is sufficient to make both share a knowing smile.

Burju shoes are pretty, they come in a million shapes and sizes and they have the great advantages of being cheaper, made in China and lasting a great deal longer than my much loved Italian brand. A little wearing-in may well be necessary, but it's worth it to rack up those knowing smiles as you walk around the dance floor. By wearing your Burju shoes, you unofficially gain entry to the club of other wearers. There are only personal psychological and mostly imagined benefits to being part of this club, but what the hell, they make you feel like you're dancing on air, and that, in itself, is well worth it!

And thus ends my diatribe on shoes. There's no doubt more to say, but as I said in the beginning of this post, I'm not that into shoes. What I'm really after is the fact that my perfect dance shoes enable me to move exactly how I want, without asserting their presence at the end of my limbs. Except to look pretty of course.

The Geography of the Dance Floor

Well firstly, let’s be clear, the mapping out of a dance floor depends very clearly on the kind of music that is being played.

Say you’re in a Cuban-oriented salsa club where a variety of tropical music is passing through the decks. By this I mean a general mix of Cuban salsa, salsaton and salsa Romantica. Throw in a bachata here and there, a merengue, the odd reggaeton or even a kizomba if you’re feeling racy. I’ve just set the scene for a place that attracts a fair amount of non-dancing riff-raff and a gaggle of latinos out to have a good time. Let’s be clear, I’m not judging here, just setting the context in what I hope is a fairly descriptive manner.

Right, so in this club, you’ll typically find that the Cubans, Brazilians (if there are any), Colombians each have a corner that they have colonised. The serious dancing folk also have theirs – usually somewhere that the floor isn’t too sticky, the drunks aren’t too oblivious and the lights aren’t flashing too much. The less serious dancing folk tend to be on the dance floor and going back and forth to the bar for liquid replenishments and general social breaks. The dodgy men either stand around, dance or circulate depending on whether they’ve found a prey. Their prey or “newbies” wonder around lost, ever so narrowly escaping one dodgy man, only to fall into the highly suspect arms of the next.

The newbies, being new by definition, and not having understood the not-so-complex map of the dance floor, stand out to all and sundry. Seriously, you could be carrying a neon sign on your head that says “pick on me”.

Not to worry, they soon become addicts and learn how to defend themselves or disappear in shock and horror, never to return again. For those who do stick it out, watching them gravitate the steep learning curve is eye-wrenching. However, only experience will help them learn all the signs, push them to seek help from bouncers, DJs or fellow dancers when necessary, and save them from hours of potentially back-breaking, badly timed dips, shuffles and spins.

Having said that, in the war to avoid the Dodgy Salsa Man (I will write a post on this group at some point), we women may well escape from some battles unscathed, but over time, many will be lost. These men have been around for longer and have built up an armoury of tricks that will lead to repeat defeats for all of us. Sometimes, whatever the experience you may have fending these men off, you just don’t see it coming!

Now, let’s compare this club setting to that of a salsa social. I now refer to a location that isn’t in a club but in a dance studio or hotel ballroom. The music played is primarily for cross-body dancers, whether on1 or on2. The drinks are barely flowing, the dance floor is smooth and clean, the lights do not flash and it is rare to see more than one or two exaggerated dips or attempted acrobatics.

Moving from one type of event to the other, one would be excused for thinking that the salsa social is snobby. Indeed, the salsa social provides an appearance of order, not the least because everyone dances in a clearly delimited slot. The picture I painted above is very much one that extracts the order from the chaos, because to the outside observer, this typical salsa club presents an appearance of exactly that. Not so, with the salsa social. So long as there is sufficient room to walk around the dance floor, this venue is much easier to map out.

To begin with, there’s a hierarchy. Generally, the best dancers will be in one location, the beginners in another, and all of those in between, will also be neatly stratified in their appropriate dance floor sections as well. I read somewhere that this is because we like dancing with our friends and those of similar levels to us. We therefore congregate in the areas where we feel comfortable or where we might be able to grab the next dance partner of our choosing.

Or, as crazy dancing folk, we stand near the fans.

As a new entrant to a salsa social, it is therefore best to map out the geography of the dance floor before you move onto it, so that you can place yourself in the location that will guarantee you the best dances (all highly subjective of course).

So when, heaven forbid, the location of our favourite salsa social is moved, if only for one week, chaos ensues! What happens? Well no one knows where to dance anymore. The newbies and juniors never really understood the map anyway – they haven’t been around long enough and are still focusing on the 1-2-3 5-6-7 of it all. The advanced dancers no longer can find their preferred partners fast enough and end up lamenting the fact that no one appears to be there. And you get a terrible mix up on the dance floor where those who are doing triple spins are getting stepped on by those who are learning to execute their first shine (bless them!).

Dancers, like most people, are creatures of habit. Why else do you think they keep returning to the same places week after week? The salsa order must be maintained. Luckily, it’s a bit like the American Dream – if you’re driven enough, you can make your way all the way up the scale over time, learn all the necessary skills and hit whatever salsa nirvana might be for you. Teach, perform, start a dance school, organise events, design shoes – it’s all there for the taking!

Rationalising the habit

As you become more serious about salsa, it necessarily starts to take a place within your weekly plans. At the beginning, it may be your weekly class, later, your weekly club night, later still, your weekends and holidays. The point is, whatever the regularity of your habit, you start making time for it and become less flexible about cancelling.

In so doing though, you never say "I can't cancel, because I'm hooked", but you make up a number of other excuses to justify to yourself and to others, why this seemingly unimportant activity, scheduled to occur on a regular basis, cannot be missed. Bear in mind that the excuse needs to be good enough to explain why you cannot simply put it off until the week after.

As the addiction progresses, the justification moves from being event focused to a full-on lifestyle justification.

1) Commitment - When you start, you make an active commitment to learning to partner dance. Before the addiction set in, you actually needed to convince yourself to get out of the house and into a new location full of new people. It's easy to cancel, but you don't, because you know that if you do, you'll probably chicken-out of turning up again. That said, I was "committed" to learning to dance long past the point that I became addicted. Unfortunately though, the "commitment" argument only works for activities undertaken only once or twice a week. Once you migrate to taking multiple classes and going to multiple club nights, you can no longer use this excuse.

2) Limited time frame - This one goes hand in hand with the previous argument. So long as you can claim that the reason you are dancing every night is because you have one chance to do so, for a limited time frame before you quit, your activity is acceptable. I indulged for a summer, testing the limits of whether I could dance for 7 nights in a row without getting sick (the answer is no). But this was fine because it was the last hurrah before I moved on to better pursuits (i.e. start a new job and start taking life a bit more seriously). Also note that with salsa, the last hurrah attempt doesn't work, it will only get you more hooked.

3) Stress relief - "I have a high pressure job and need salsa as an outlet for the stress". This one works for a while, but once you've survived your high pressure job for a year or so, people tend to assume that you've learnt to deal with the pressure and can spend less time seeking stress relief and more time socialising outside of the salsa scene. Obviously, abandoning the salsa scene is not viable, so a new excuse is a must!

4) Skill - Once you've become proficient at salsa to a degree, you can no longer claim to gentiles that you're committed to learning the broader ability of partner dancing, since you've clearly reached and passed this particular post. You thus may go through a phase where you explain away your addiction by depicting to your family, friends and colleagues that you are still pursuing the habit for the technical skill involved. This one is particularly useful when you start attending congresses, or when you learn to dance on2 - it's no longer about learning how to dance, but about honing your technique or learning from the masters. Somehow making salsa sound like a science seems to smooth the news that you won't be attending yet another high school reunion due to a non-descript salsa party somewhere.

5) Friends - "I'm not going to dance, in fact, I don't even want to dance, but it's the only way I can see this particular (group of) friend(s)" or "It's the most convenient way for me to see this many people in a short space of time" or "I'm not hooked, they are - my friends refuse to see me unless I turn up at their salsa club (of worship)". So many options revolve around friends - you can quite easily blame them and thus absolve yourself of almost all salsa-loving responsibility. Pleading with a non-salsa friend about the importance of the salsa friends is a delicate balance though - you want to emphasize how loyal a friend you are, while de-emphasising the real frequency with which you see your salsa vs. non-salsa friends. Citing one particular person is always a good bet as well. However, the excuse must be phrased in such a way that you avoid the "but you see them every week" comeback. Incidentally, friends are a highly valid excuse - why else would you explain that those who break limbs, twist ankles or are sick beyond belief still turn up, crutches and all, to salsa clubs? The point here is to find a way to express this to non-salsa friends in a way that leads them away from believing that you just looking for your latest salsa fix.

6) Guys - I have been known to feign a crush on a guy to add relevance to the friend scenario cited above. Being pathetically under a man's spell - most people can relate to that, right?

7) Family - Ultimately, the salsa community becomes your family, your support centre, your point of stability. The community provides you with the sense that you belong to something bigger. Salsa addicts know this, gentiles may well understand it. However stay away from words usually used to describe religions or sects when explaining it to them!

8) Travel - As you become further entwined with the salsa world, the tendency to go jetting off to salsa congresses becomes one you need to justify as well. People generally find it harder to comprehend why you might fly to the other corner of the earth to dance for a small fortune, when in their non-dancer opinions, you could do so in your backyard for a lot less money. Options 5 and 6 are yet again worthy excuses as meeting up with friends from remote locations in less remote common locations is a worthwhile excuse. And who needs to mention that it's a salsa congress, right? You can also refer to Option 4 - access to highly skilled teachers unavailable locally. Alternatively, having the travel bug is somewhat of an accepted modern day affliction. Remember that it's best to come back with pictures of the city you visited though for this argument to be credible!

9) Full on denial - Sometimes it's just unreasonable to tell people that you are going to yet another congress. While I do not advocate lying, the true addict may feel like they will save themselves from the loony bin for a little longer if the sheer intensity of the addiction were not disclosed to all and sundry. Trips to see faraway grandmothers, high school friends' weddings in foreign countries, flying home to see the parents all qualify. How can this be wrong? As a bonafide salsa addict, if you were doing these things, you would have probably found a way to go out dancing anyway, so the gentile probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Incidentally, my parents still do not see a difference between attending a congress and dropping into a congress party night - have tried explaining, but gave up.

10) Acceptance - Please note that I do not refer here to acceptance by the salsero of his/her addiction, but by the acceptance by the gentiles of the salsero's true nature. There comes a point in your salsa life when even so much as suggesting you are going on holiday with a group of friends is met by a sceptical gaze and an assuming comment to the tune of "is this another salsa thing?". At this point, either it isn't a salsa thing and you find that you've lost all credibility, or it is, and you end up feeling rather uncomfortable at the realisation that the gentiles seem to have accepted that you have a problem, while you yourself are still in denial.

The crazy people

A question for other salsa/mambo crazies:

Does every obsessive dancer have moments where it occurs to them that they might just be mildly insane?

In the run up to the New York congress and my first escapade out of the UK in two months, my mind is completely preoccupied with the event on the horizon. I'm so excited that I can barely think of anything else. Don't get me wrong, most of the time, I'm much more balanced, but after a particularly great night out or before a congress that will undoubtedly be amazing, I cannot fail to get this huge buzz.

And in feeling this, comes the feeling that somehow, indulging in my hobby to the extent of travelling far and wide for it, may be just a little bit unhealthy. While I understand that dancing is not actually physically unhealthy, as no one will deny the health benefits of a little/lot of harmless exercise, I am aware that most of society probably regards my activities as akin to some pretty serious over-indulgence.

Why do mere mortals (i.e. the non-dancing folk) shake their heads when they hear we are going to yet another salsa night/party/congress? How do you separate a hobby and from an obsession? At which point do you become actually become addicted? And why do we often get more disappointed looks for planning a weekend around salsa than a binge drinker does for planning yet another pub crawl?

Firstly, who are these judgemental folk whose thoughts make us feel like we're toeing the line with regards to "crazy"? Mere mortals aka the "normal people" are emotionally balanced. They approach things in a measured manner. And they certainly are not salsa addicts. Normal people are not only those who do not dance, they are those who do not dance regularly. Those who can dip in and out of the salsa scene once every three months and profess to being satisfied with a basic level of ability. They are those who are more interested in developing a breadth of knowledge across a number of activities than the depth of knowledge that others (like myself and the other crazies) are seeking.

Ultimately, being a "crazy" does not depend on your ability. I have an old friend who recently became addicted and she's only been dancing for 12 weeks. It took less long than that for her to catch the bug. It doesn't really depend on your activity of choice either - you could be crazy about kizomba, about tango, about skiing, or kitesurfing or anything else. What defines us is the unflinching ability to focus on one activity and pursue it relentlessly. Most "crazies" from other disciplines understand the "salsa crazy" people - if not for their interest, then for their focus.

Perhaps everyone has a proficiency level they are aiming for or will ultimately be satisfied with. Once reached, maintenance is all that is necessary and depending on your skill sufficiency level, this may not be very much at all. According to this theory, the "breadth" dancers set themselves a sufficiency goal early on and once there, they accept that they have reached it and move on. The "depth" dancers on the other hand operate with rather more flexible goal posts. Once a goal is reached, a new one is set. This supposedly continues until there are either no new goals, or none that are reachable within reason. Is our progress ultimately capped by our ability? Or is it capped by our attention span?

Thus far, my abilities have proved insufficient to capture more than temporary satisfaction, my focus is unflinching and my addiction lives on.

The happy congress feeling

So I'm off to the New York Salsa Congress next week and in anticipation, I'm reliving the emotional roller coaster ride that each new congress brings (in this section - just the emotions of getting there).

Anticipation, aka "Bubbles of excitement" - Before going, I always get butterflies. It doesn't matter where it is, who I'm going with, who's going to be there, I get the distinct feeling that I want to jump up and down like a schoolgirl, giggling all the while. Now, as a fully mature and socialised adult, this isn't really acceptable behaviour, so I desperately try to contain this feeling, and consequently feel like a glass of champagne, constantly on the verge of bubbling over, with occasional random smiles alerting the world that there is some distinctively positive force eating away at me from the inside.

As the first party approaches, running into other congress goers usually serves as a "bubble release" with excitement flowing over, hugs shared, normalcy ignored. More excitement builds up after this initial defusing, as all excitedly follow the urge to find the dance floor.

The arrival - What I'd describe as the "arrival" is that moment when you walk into a congress room and come face to face with the main dance floor. There are usually two concurrent feelings that hit me at this point.
1) "I'm home" - Home with the other crazies, back amongst the other addicts, in a place where all is indulgence and happiness - music and dancing everywhere - what more could you want?
2) "Ahhh" - Going through life trying to pretend that there isn't an ever-present urge to dance running through my veins is something I find rather tricky. Trying to maintain the pretence with myself, my non-salsa friends and my colleagues that I am a fully normal and non-obsessive human being takes up a rather substantial amount of time and energy. Walking into a congress hall and seeing that there are many other people just like me is something I therefore find incredibly comforting. Hence the "Ahhh"...

Combine "I'm home" with "Ahhh" and throw in the happy bubbles of excitement and you get the emotional effect of a raging wave finally reaching shore and relaxing as it spreads out onto the sand, or what I call the happy congress feeling!

Cannot wait for the next one!

Welcome

Salsa Girl here. Your one and only source into the every day life of a salsa addict.

If I knew more gossip about the London salsa scene, I would add it here. But I don't, so you'll just have to put up with my musings on the matter instead. I understand that everyone these days has a salsa blog and therefore have no expectations as to the originality of mine. My aim in creating this blog is simply to express my thoughts and create a memory of my life and times as an obsessive compulsive salsa dancer.