Well I have survived my first night at Latin dance classes. The classes will run for 11 weeks - we can learn to dance in about 5 weeks but it takes 11 weeks to learn how to pronounce the instructors name. He is Latin American as you would expect and ensures us that you don't have to be Latin American to do Latin dancing. We started with a bit of pep talk about how everyone can dance. The instructor, I will call him Guedo, told us that everyone has rhythm as they have a rhythmic heart beat. He also told us that we all have co-ordination as we use it every day when merging in traffic. I felt inspired and was ready to start.

We formed 4 lines on the dance and Guedo talked us through a simple four step without partners. Being extremely brave and not at all self conscious I stood in the back line. I looked to the left and the right and was pleased how straight my line was. Guedo talked us through four step, foot in front, same foot behind, repeat four times. So far so good. Then we repeated the four step with a bit of a shuffle. Look I am dancing, I thought. Just when I was getting the hang of it Guedo added a side step and we repeated the four step with a shuffle on the other side. I was starting to think there was a whole lot less to remember when merging in traffic. After a few minutes I finally go it. I was starting to feel like a real dancer - Ricki Martin look out!

Then something terrible happened - Guedo had the front line move to the back of the class and all the other lines move up one. At this point I realised that someone behind me would be able to observe my moves and worse yet this system would repeat until I was at the front of the class. Also it stuck me that the moves would become increasingly difficult and it would be about that time I would be standing at the front of the class. Guedo put on the music and we did our little step. I started out fine but then Guedo increased the tempo of the music. I started to loose my Rhythm and everything was going pear shaped, then I remembered what Guedo had said about heartbeat. I listened to my heartbeat ... it was beating about 100 times a minute and I realised that would be great for techno dancing but no good for Latin dancing.

At some point the music stopped and a few seconds later so did I. Having mastered the four step slide four step dance (which does have a Latin name which I forget) we were ready to move onto the next dance step. What??? I thought, there is more than one step! The next step was a kind of slide to the side, feet together side to the side and then back again step. Fortunately this one was a bit like some Step aerobics and I was able to stomp my way through it. At this point I had reached the second row and was growing increasing self conscious about the people behind.

I realised at some point that I had not eaten and put my inability to move in time to the music down to the fact that my brain was not functioning properly due to lack of food. Proof of this can also be found in the fact that I not recall any of the other steps we learnt in during our one hour lesson. This situation was furthur compounded by the fact that I had reached the front row and my feet wanted to go back to doing the four step instead of the new step we were learning.

I do however recall being given homework. I am to stand in a doorway with my hand on the sides so as to stabilise my upper body. Then I have to bend one knee so my hips move to the side and then straighten the same knee and bend the opposite knee so the hips move to other side. It has prompted me to get curtains.