¿Porque bailamos?

A friend recently told me that he'd never 'got' dancing: couldn't understand what people got out of it.

What got me into salsa a few years ago was that I thought it looked really cool. I saw a couple dancing really well at a gig where everyone else was jigging up and down, and I thought 'I want to be able to do that'.

Looking cool, though, has very little to do with what keeps me dancing. Men who are principally concerned with how cool they look while dancing tend to look selfish and narcissistic, and not a lot of fun to dance with. It was better put by a non-dancer I overheard while I was dancing with a small and talented Australian called Kylie (not, not that one). "Man, that looks like so much fun."

But it's more than fun, which is why it's so difficult to explain to non-dancers. It's that absolute focused connection with a partner. A focused connection that may only last for one dance: on more than one occasion I've had one great first dance with a woman that I've never managed to repeat. A focused connection that may only be about dance: I can have great, empathic dances with women but then find there's little connection once we're off the dance floor. But while it lasts - for three, five, seven minutes of absolute mutual concentration, judging the lead to her follow and the moves to her level of ability, spinning her, spinning myself, stopping and switching direction, working together to play with the rhythm, holding the missing '4' as long as possible to build up the momentum for the 5,6,7 - there's little to match it.