I want my two years in IB to be a time where I step outside my comfort zone and try new things, as the thing I hear the most from older students and alumni is how they regretted not joining more activities while they were still in high school. So I joined the Cuban salsa dancing activity. 

I’m not very good at dancing, so joining a dance activity was another way for me to challenge myself in an activity not previously undertaken (LO2). The first couple of lessons were the hardest, as I focused hard in learning the basic steps and rhythm (pausing on the 4th and 8th beat, listening to the strong triple notes in the song, etc.) 

So far, we have learned the basic steps, enchufla, dilequeno, arreba, and a few others. Due to a lack of male dancers in the group, some of the taller girls (including me) have had to learn male steps, which is actually pretty fun and most of the time they are reversals of female steps. 

What I love most about Cuban salsa dancing is how rhythmic and free everything is, as well as the connection you have to maintain with your partner. It’s a great way to express yourself whilst learning to work together and guide your partner through the dance (because I dance male steps, I do most of the guiding, eg. when to do enchufla from basic steps). You learn to communicate in a non-verbal way, like by raising your partner’s hand early to indicate that you will turn them, or giving them a slight push on the back to swing them round during dilequeno. It is a very fun and vibrant activity and now my goal is to learn the female steps as well as male steps.