Hello everyone,

from now on there will be no more Salsa classes in Chiang Mai, neither at Chiang Mai University nor at the Can Do Bar.

I decided to finish teaching Salsa because I haven’t been able to build up a stable group of people, let’s say 10 people or more, who come most of the time and with whom it is possible to work with on a regular basis and develop more advanced Salsa dancing skills.

I started to teach Salsa in May 2006, always on and off, I have been abroad, we had to move a few times to a new venue and it always took me some time to find a new one, but somehow still, after a year, I had hoped to have a bigger group of people who are eager to develop their dancing skills on a regular basis.
A lot of people have been enthusiastic about Salsa, came to class once only and have never been seen again. Some came two or three times and then disappeared.
I have never really understood why there is such a big fluctuation in the Salsa classes. Is it because people don’t have to enrol  in a course and therefore don’t  “commit” themselves to come for 10 or 12 weeks? So maybe the “form” in which Salsa classes take place is not suitable.
Or is it the dynamics of Chiang Mai, people come and go more often and travel much more than people living in Western cities?
I don’t know.

Trying to build up a Salsa group or “Salsa scene” was much more work than it might have looked like from outside. I contacted many different venues, different faculties at CMU (and had to write official letters and had to make my “official visits”) and restaurants outside, it took me long hours and days to organize all the e-mail-addresses and to send mails to everyone and finally to build up a yahoogroups account (only ten people can be added in 24 hours, there are more than 100 people on the e-mail list), I spent time distributing posters and leaflets, I had to organize music (there are not many slow Salsa songs, many songs are also difficult to dance to), bought and copied a lot of music in Germany, I often had the problem with the transport of the loudspeakers (or to organize loudspeakers respectively, before I bought my own ones), and I also tried to teach Salsa continuously (here Lucas was so nice to teach a few times) so people can be sure that Salsa classes take place every week.
I also tried to make Salsa affordable for everyone, the fee I collected probably covered a little bit more than my expenses, expenses for loudspeakers and amplifier, fees for the use of different venues (or small presents to thank the owner of the venue), Internet shops, telephone costs, CDs, rod daeng, etc. 
All this took a lot of my time and energy but I had the idea in my mind to finally have a nice Salsa venue in Chiang Mai, where people love to go to on a Saturday evening, with people, beginners and advanced dancers, getting together socially and on the dance floor. A place which I don’t have to take care of every week but which will “run by itself” as more and more people from the Friday and Saturday classes come and become part of the “force behind” Salsa Chiang Mai. But somehow this didn’t work as I hoped.

Also without a Salsa dancing partner I couldn’t develop my own Salsa skills. So I felt like being stuck with the beginners’ steps with no chance to teach and work on advanced steps at the same time. Without this “inspiration”, teaching Salsa becomes too much of a routine.
We had a small group of more advanced people for some time but also this somehow didn’t really work out.

So, finally, Salsa Chiang Mai has come to an end.

I will be grateful for any comments, suggestions, critique or any kind of feedback. Maybe one day in the future Salsa Chiang Mai will be revived but for the time being it is not any more.

You can write to me at:
salsa_chiangmai@yahoo.com

If you have comments you want everyone to read, you can send it to: salsa_chiangmai@yahoogroups.com

Have a nice week,
Cheers

Dirk