Hi, my name is Naba and I'm a salsaholic...

I started learning Cuban salsa a year and a half ago, and for the last few months, I’ve been teaching it as well. When I read that sentence back, it sounds bizarre. Two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined myself doing this, and even now I can’t quite believe it. My ‘dance journey’ is probably slightly different to some of the other teachers: it’s exceedingly short. I’d never done any dance seriously before this. That isn’t to say I hadn’t tried it, only that my previous attempts ranged from ‘mildly disappointing’ to ‘calamitous’. I tried ballroom at university with friends and shuffled around uncomfortably for a few weeks before deciding it wasn’t my thing. Maybe it was just the wrong sort of dance? How about Argentinian tango, I thought. It was going to be great, milongas and Malbec, Piazzolla and passion. Well the passion turned out to be ‘walking around the room slowly and in silence’ and the milonga was a working men’s club in northern England. So that didn’t really take off. I did try a salsa class once. Actually, I thought it was going to be salsa, but it turned out to be bachata. I remember a sum total of zero steps from that afternoon, but the single memory that remains burned into my brain is of me standing awkwardly with my partner in very clearly not the correct configuration, with the instructor looking at me, one eyebrow raised, saying, “yeah… it’s obviously not her that’s the problem, mate.”

All this served only to entrench me further in the belief that dancing was not for me: I have two left feet and no rhythm, and so on. But one day my wife, a seasoned dancer and trier of all dances new, asked me if I wanted to try ‘Cuban salsa.’ And I thought, you know what, I’ll give it one more shot. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made. Sorry, the second best decision. (After marrying my wife, obviously).

I remember my first class with Ben like it was yesterday. Despite having studied anatomy at university, Ben turned out to the first person to convince me that I did not, in fact, have two left feet, but one of each kind – and that (with a little concentration), I could move one forwards and the other backwards. This alarming discovery is what set me off on the journey into the world of Cuban salsa.

One of the things I really appreciated about Aimi and Ben’s classes is the way we learned how to dance, not just how to do a dance routine. It feels a bit like learning a language. So far, I’d only done the dance equivalent of memorising a few stock phrases (Où est la plume de ma tante? Le chat est sur la chaise!) - or spending hours on Duolingo Spanish only to be able to communicate that ¡los elefantes beben agua! In these classes you learn the vocabulary, the grammar, the sentence structure. Eventually (and this is the best bit) – you can start to actually say something.

Let me proselytise about Cuban salsa for a bit – after all, this dance (also known as casino, for the purists) is now a huge part of my life. What’s so great about it? In that first lesson with Ben, I had no idea at all, having never heard of it before. I soon found out that it was not really like the sort of salsa I’d seen on TV. No gravity-defying heels, no waxed-chest-baring open-necked shirts, and definitely no sequins. I’ll say this without hesitation: it’s far cooler than that.

The first thing you notice that’s different is the rueda, the circular dance formation unique to Cuban salsa. Dancing in a rueda is, quite simply, immense fun. You’re simultaneously dancing with your partner and with everyone else in the room. You switch partners, you switch back, you do a formation move involving the whole group. All the time you’re playing this game with the rueda caller where he or she is trying to catch you out and make you mess up at some point – and everyone laughs – and it’s just fun. It’s a party, it’s a carnival, it’s a blast.

But this is a partner dance too, and one unlike anything I’d seen before. Watching casineros dance is like seeing an Escher drawing come to life: they continuously wind and unwind themselves in and out of knots with movements that appear, at times, physically impossible. But it’s not impossible – not at all. It’s totally possible, and when you get it, it feels amazing. Dancing casino, there’s this tremendous momentum, always moving forwards, always travelling. You have this really strong connection to your partner, often with both hands, and you’re constantly turning around each other and around the room, like a pair of binary planets. You can really get lost in it.

One of the things I’ve really loved about Cuban salsa has been learning about the dance as well as just the dance itself. There’s more to casino than just executing cool-looking turn patterns on the dance floor. There is a wealth of history, culture, language and music to explore. I can be a bit of a geek sometimes, and all this really appeals to the geeky side of my personality. (Ben if you’re reading, yes, I read your blog posts, and yes, even the maths ones). But for me, these things just add flavour to the whole experience.

As a teacher, all I want to do is to share this amazing dance that I love with as many people as possible. I want to show you that it’s fun, that it’s cool - and that you can do it. And if there are people out there who feel like I did a few years ago, then maybe, just maybe, you should give it one more shot.

I want to finish by talking a little about the music. For me, the music is a huge part of what I love about Cuban salsa. My favourite songs are those where you can hear the tribal and African influences, the complex beat patterns and polyrhythms. I’ve always loved drums and percussion - I played the drum kit as a teenager, I used to play tabla a little as well. The first rhythm pattern my drum teacher ever taught me was the basic 4/4 rock pattern: bass-snare-bass-snare, just as every kid with a guitar learns ‘Wonderwall.’ But the second? It was the son clave.

The sound of the clave is an invocation, one that lifts you out of your seat and on to your feet like your body’s possessed. When I hear the salsa music playing, I can’t not dance. One of the most popular Cuban bands, in one of their most popular songs, start with this call-and-response: salseros si llaman – yo vengo. If the salsa musicians call – I’m there. And that’s why I became a teacher – because I want you to be there, too.