Man this is a busy class (Salsa Partytime, Wimbledon). There were three different levels of Bachata to choose from, and then five of Salsa! I reckon there were around 130 people there, that’s a lot isn’t it.
My love affair with Bachata is showing no signs of receding – I just can’t let go. And it does really feel like I’m cheating on Salsa; all the sexy, up close, subtle, hippy movements, and the way they sneak the Bachata tracks inbetween the Salsa ones, ha ha. Actually …

Seven days on the glorious island of Bali. An immediately calming but strengthening environment.

This time I saw more of the beaches and ventured inland to Ubud – a cruise-y, spiritual town.

Fun times were had on surf board, bike, yoga mat and dance floor. And there was plenty of fuel from the nation’s superb Bintang and anything-with-peanut-sauce dishes :)

I hope I make it back again some day…

Went to the Watussi gig at The Basement last night. SUCH fun.
Support was from a Peruvian band and a Brazilian samba group with a party spirit that warmed the place through.
Watussi were superb. I won’t pretend to know heaps about their back catalogue but they were passionate, fun and godammit those boys can even make percussion sexy. My favourite was the first encore number, they absolutely nailed it.

Night out at Slide cabaret for the official launch of the new charity, Softacare.
Wicked, wicked performances, good food, lots of white wine, good chat.
And rounded it all off at the Boat Shed, natch!

I’m in Melbourne for work this week (ad:tech Melbourne) so I had a quick Google to find somewhere to go dancing last night. Candela do cuban lessons and then open dancing at Revellers Bar in Fitzroy so I went along.
I’ve never turned up to a social night on my own so I was a bit nervous :) but it was a good, friendly crowd and I got a lot of dances.
It seemed that most people had come through the dance classes/ school as lots of the guys …

Haven’t done many updates but that’s because I’ve been out ALL the time :)

It’s been a lot of 1, 2, 3 am finishes, I’ve met heaps of cool people, and, the best news – it’s really starting to come together. The lessons are great for bedding in basics, and building on the moves that I know. Plus it’s good to practice with the same people without reading a new lead. Also we do Rueda which is too much fun to even start talking about.
But the social dancing is where the magic is really happening. A couple of huge break throughs this week: this might seem like an odd thing to say at this stage, as in a bit late, but I felt like I got the rhythm better than ever before, it felt great. And, I was out one night and this guy who I see out all the time asked me to dance – this alone was an achievement to me cos he seems pretty advanced to me – but the best part was the we killed it on the dance floor.

I haven’t exactly been foxtrotting to the office but there’s been a fair amount of dance action.

Actually, apologies if you’ve been sat next to me on the bus as I , erm, groove to reggaeton….

I’m pretty sure this was the same night that I went to last year. Mostly it was salsa but there was also bachata and merengue. It was a lot of fun, bout 40 people, and there were people from the last dance night, the classes I’ve been to in Manly and the class last night. I practised some of the steps from last night, although I had forgotten the footwork, but mostly I tried to practise the cuban salsa body movement – hips and shoulders. That …

OK, so I’m always banging on about how I could be alright at dancing if I had lessons. Enough jib jab, get on with it Jamesy…
So tonight I started lessons with Picante Latin Dance. I did the Intermediate 1 class which was great, covering the fundamentals of cuban salsa in detail and a good chance to practice rhythm, body movement and, yeah, nail the foundation steps.
But then I stayed for Intermediate 2. Now that was fun. We did heaps of wicked moves. These cool tap steps …

Following two-ish weeks in Bang Wan, I had two-ish weeks with Lise seeing ‘the rest’ of Thailand. With no agenda at all we could have gone anywhere and yet Bangkok was magnetic for us, we just kept coming back.

I know it’s a big messy, metropolis city. I know the tourism isn’t always savoury. And yet I also know that we had the most fun, easy time here, both sight-seeing days and smashed up nights out.

No-one is more surprised than me but I’d recommend a trip to Bangkok in a heartbeat!