Nieves Latin Dance Studio Review: Enjoyable Salsa Class with Unique Partner Rotations

So my wife told me that one of her coworkers invited her to check out a salsa class. My wife is going to a Latin Dance Studio? I’m going with her. I wanted to see what they were about right from the start.

So we went to take the Tuesday 6pm Salsa 101 trial beginner class with two of her coworkers. When you first arrive there is a small period where the new people sign up and fill out a waiver, then at some point the instructor takes over and starts teaching the class.

I’d have to say that the class instruction was pretty good. He did a great job of breaking things down and explaining it all. It was fairly easy to follow his directions and we received great instruction. I believe the gentleman’s name was Daniel, but I could be wrong. I’m not the best dancer, but I do follow rhythm and can learn patterns. It is just a matter of practice. My wife and her colleagues were also following along for the most part.

At some point after practicing the solo basic movements they move on to what they call partner work. This is the part I wasn’t too comfortable with. During the partner work, they have you rotating from one person to another.

All in all, I got to spend about 1 minute dancing with my wife, then the rest of the time I was jumping from one woman to the next. They encourage you not to look down but to make eye contact with your dance partner or focus on a neutral spot like the forehead. I wasn’t feeling the switching to begin with, and this made it a bit more awkward for me.

What I wanted to do was connect more deeply with my wife, not 15 strangers. This changed the experience for me. Instead of learning together, we were both focusing on dancing with different people. That’s my one critique of the program. Other than that I think it was well run, and it can be fun if you are comfortable with switching partners.

I’ll discuss my thoughts with my wife and see what she thinks. I didn’t enjoy the awkwardness I felt, and it’s not something I’m interested in working on because I care less about that aspect. Dancing is a very personal and connected activity that I wanted us to share together, not with random people. That aside, I’d say it was an enjoyable evening and they all seemed to have fun as well.