I felt that observations at Shboom the day before Thanksgiving might be skewed so I decided to take another visit on a very cold night the week after.

The drive to Shboom from Union City is the worst of all, at 3:30pm in the afternoon it took me an hour to go up 880, then across 238/680, to a traffic-free 680. I can only imagine the hundreds of people that have to go through the same freeway each workday!

I came to Shboom a bit early to beat traffic and work on salsa so I was fortunate to find that there was wireless internet access at the club. At 5:00pm the holiday decoration was already up throughout the club, a nice addition to the already nice decor.

At 6:00pm the buffet was opened and i was surprised to see a *very* nice selection of food: grilled chicken breast with some pesto sauce(?), grilled vegetables, mashed potatoes, green salad, and some sort of pasta.

Today's lesson plan was Intermediate salsa at 7:00, beginning at 7:30, and bachata at 8:30. After last week's downgraded intermediate bachata lesson, I was definitely happy that the intermediate salsa lesson was challenging enough to learn:

Crossbody lead, outside turn w/ linked hands, Open break to reverse crossbody travelling double inside turn, outside turn w/ left turn and right-armed hair brush, crossbody inside turn to right broken-arm position, followed by a travelling inside turn!

I guess I might be the only one that understands my writing! Anyway, the intermediate lesson started with 3 couples (plus me without a partner) and grew to some really good numbers by the end of the bachata lesson. The unforunate thing during the lesson was this: there were not enough men taking the classes.

Bachata lesson was actually better this time. Being an exclusive on-1 wachata dancer, I was suprised at how quickly I learned how Merengue and bachata are from the same country of Dominican Republic, and how I had a very easy time picking up on the hip motion.

I was surprised at how much control you can have by having your hips right against each other. I was dancing with a woman twice my size in width and I had no problems getting her to follow my steps as I held her oh-so-very-close to me at the hips.

Rodney made some wise-crack remarks like "You have do bring your arm like this, smooth, like Jimmy Smooth" as he demonstrated his pattern with Marcella.

"You know how he keeps saying J Smooth? He means me" I told my temporary partner as I pointed to myself.

"No, you? I don't believe it" she replied with a laugh.

Hmm, perhaps if I told her I was the president of Salsagang she might laugh also. Sooo I kept my mouth shut.

The bachata lesson was a lot better than last week, probably the result of having a smaller class to control and a regular crowd that's been doing it longer.

Now the main observation is the crowd that shows up after the lesson. Shboom's floor was clean as usual however what bothers me the most was that there weren't enough men. There were plenty of women to dance with but not enough men to ask them to dance. Where's all the men? How long will the women continue to come if they don't have someone asking them to dance?

The crowd isn't big, it's roughly the same size as Pete Escovedo's crowd on Fridays when they were open. Plenty of room to dance on and plenty of open space to lounge in. I had no problems carrying a clear conversation with someone across the table from me at a table.

Lots of bachata music as expected. Although I'm not the most pattern-savvy person at bachata yet, I definitely was able to work on my hip and crotch-grinding moves on the dance floor.

Okay I really didn't crotch-grind anyone, but what I found was that bachata really *is* led from the hips and it's the hip rotation motion you do against your partner that could turn you on if you're not focusing on *not* be turned on. Geez, I was so turned on dancing bachata with one particular person Which of course will remain undisclosed.

No it wasn't with Rodney, that would be just brokeback. However I think the club is going to be around for awhile and I think that Shboom might end up being known as a club that you can really dance bachata at.

It's been awhile since I went to a club that a actually liked.

Weeks ago I was watching a couple dance at the outer edges of the dance floor (at Agenda Nightclub) while 2-3 veteran salseros were watching on the sidelines. Sometime during the dancing, the dancing salsero steps out and immediately in comes another guy. This proceeded for quite some time, one guy after another, until the original salsero steps back in.

I was a bit curious about this particular act enough that it stuck in my mind after I left. It is not uncommon to see a woman salsa dancer, very capable in salsa dancing, to literally be passed around to other salsa dancers like candy. Words that would describe the event could be:

Pawned off,
Passed off,
Tag Team,
or perhaps even (dare I say) Gang-banged?**

To keep things civilized and clean, we'll use the phrase "Salsa Tag Team" to describe this act. Thoughts of tag team wrestling should be passing through your mind at this point.

From an observant's viewpoint, one has to ask the very important question of:
Why don't salseras participate in Tag Team events?

What else comes to mind is:

Do the women have a say on whether they want to dance with someone else?

In typical conditions the guy would normally ask the woman to dance, whereas the woman has the choice on whether to accept or decline. However if put in a situation like the Tag Team, what then?

I've never seen a guy tell his partner that he's going to tag his friend into the dance; if he has he may have done it before they started dancing. However I've never seen that happen so perhaps I'm not looking carefully or I'm pretty on the dot.

Salsa Tag Teams has it's advantages for the salsero, in particular the "I'm too tired to go dance on" situation. Just like wrestling, if the dancer gets tired and or needs to finish off the dance, he can just "Tag" his buddy in.
But all wrestling tag team matches are evened up, are they not? I don't ever recall Macho Man Randy Savage teaming up with Andre The Giant against The Hulk. The Hulk wouldn't be that stupid, he'd have some back-up at least like The Hart Foundation!

So where's the salsera's tag team partner?

** The gang-bang reference was only brought up for entertainment purposes.

You've seen her before. She's the kind of girl that you make you think that "Salsa Dancing = Sex". All you can think of is sex when you see her dance, even when you're not even in the mood! Heck, you probably be thinking of her WHILE dancing with someone else!

But you don't realize yet that she's the wrong person for you, definitely wrong. All you see is "Hot Salsa Dancer" and not "hot salsa dancer by night, some wierdo by day." This is about (or possibly) one such hottie.

There are some salsa dancers that are just in it for the dancing. There's no interest in relationships, no interest in having extracurricular activities (unless it's salsa related), or no interest in matters that are not related salsa dancing. Whatever it may be, her hotness is like the sirens of Odyssey: sexy and everything until you really get to know her.

Now there are guys out there who are just interested in no-strings-attached sex. Although it is a lifestyle I don't really have any particular fondness for, whether guys do that or not I reallty don't care. I'm more concerned with those interested in some sort of meaningful relationship.

You have two kinds of salsa dancers, the kind that takes up a small amount of space (usually the newbies to salsa) and those that take up a quarter of the floor. This is about the latter.

A friend of mine asks me how can I take up so much room on the dance floor, on a crowded night, and be able to make so much room for yourself while not bumping into anyone. The answer is simply area establishment.

When a couple dances in one place and does not shift very much, couples around them will assume that they will stay in place...their own area of dancing. This is typical of new salsa dancers not familiar with the Crossbody Lead enough.

However when a couple dances and moves around a lot, and quickly I must add, couples around them will not be able to anticipate whether the space the couple was just at will remain vacant or not. Thus, they would rather leave that space alone rather than move into it with the chance of being slammed into.

So you want to bag yourself a hot salsa dancer so that you can make babies with, perhaps make a baby with super salsa dancing skills that surpasses both of you. How would one go about doing it?

Hooking up with a salsa dancer can be hard, or really easy; it all depends on how "easy" they are. No, we're not talking about how easy it is to get them into your potato sack of love, we're talking about how interested they are in a relationship (at this point in their time).

Most salsa dancers, when going out, are like bulls. Bulls see the Matador waving that damn blanket and they're off running for it, ignoring everything around them. Salsa dancers head for the dance floor and ignore things such as:

1. That guy, checking them up and down...wondering if she would do the merengue in his lap,
2. That girl, checking them up and down...wondering if he'll ever ask her to dance,
3. That guy, attempting to grab her hand in the hopes that she'll stay behind to talk to him,
4. A friend of theirs, waving their arms in the air to say hello, from across the room,
5. Or whatever you can think of.