The story begins in February 2006, during which I was going through a recent break-up. I was living alone in
my appartment, away from family and friends with only a couple of neighbouring friends living in the same appartment building.One night I was not in the mood of going out, so I decided to rent a movie. I went to the DVD rental machine and started scrolling the movie titles. At some point, my eye caught this kinda bizarre name for a movie, it was called "Shall we dance?". Richard Gear and Jennifer Lopez starred in it so I though, what the heck, I'll just try a dance movie. The last one I watched was "Dirty Dancing" quite some time ago which I loved like crazy.
After I watched the movie I was totaly mesmerized by the storyline, the rythmic latin music and the sensasional dancing the two actors managed to portray successfully! At that point I thought to myself "Wouldn't it be great if I could learn how to dance as sensationally as Richard Gear, like a gentleaman?" Those words came out as a self-fulfilling prohecy right the very next day.
I was leaving the appartment building to go to a friend's house, when I saw my friend Dina driving away.I stopped and asked her what she was up to and she told me she was going to a lesson.I asked further, what lesson and she said that she had recently taken up Latin dance lessons at Shakallis School of Dance. I thought to myself "Wow, this is too weird to be coincidence. Just last night I was thinking of starting dance lessons and now my friend is telling me that she is going to Shakallis". And if that wasn't enough, the stroke of luck came when she told me that a new beginner's class had just started that same week. I was facinated by this strange sequence of events, I said to myself "This is a sign from God and I should follow it".
So I contacted Shakallis School, found out that there was a class the following Monday evening and went to that class. They were having their 2nd lesson that day, and I that's when my Latin learning began. My first latin lesson was a reality. A month later, I registered for the 1st Cyprus Salsa Congress in March 2006 and that was it, I was sucked into the Salsa world and have not given up dancing ever since! Since then, I'm constantly trying to learn new moves through my dance lessons and at the same time improve my own personal dancing style by going to every latin party there is in Cyprus and dancing with a variety of lady dance partners.
My instructor said it from the beginning that the best way to learn and improve is simply by dancing at latin nights. "Practise makes perfect" definately applies here! So, my passion for latin drives me to practise everytime I get the chance, at latin nights, special latin parties, Salsa Festivals and of course Congresses!!! I have taken up and quited a lot of other sports and leisure activities throughout my life, but I really feel that dancing was my passion in life all along, eventhough it has taken me 26 years to discover it. Better late than never I quess!
I'm hoping that through my own Latin webpage (and others around) people can get inside information about the wonderful world of Latin dancing so that they too can get "hooked" just like me. It is a wonderful way of sociallizing and meeting new people of various backgrounds and nationalities. Truly a very rewarding experience!
