"You shake your hips too much," my wife told me. "People notice that," she continued, "so you should be careful not to overdo it when you do the cha-cha."
I get mainly praises now from people who see me dance because I've been going to dance school for close to a year. Just not from my wife, who is my harshest critic. I know, however, that she wants me to be better than I am, so I welcome her comments. The dance instructor I respect the most, out of several, does not shake his hips too much. He can make his hips glide from right to left, left to right - smoothly, effortlessly.
The guy is a lean and tall European, so he has the advantage of form. I am short by American standards, and stocky, so I can't really move like that guy. It's a good thing that I don't wear my hair shoulder-length long anymore, otherwise people might look at me and pronounce me a dancing Hobbit. (To borrow a description given by one of the Dancing with the Stars judges for the way one of this season's contestants has looked at times.)
Last year at about this time I took my son, Cesar Jr., to Dance World U.S.A., a dance school owned by Filipino acquaintances. I felt my son could benefit from formal dance schooling because of the obvious advantage of being a good male dancer in a world populated by young and eager female dancers. Cesar Jr. is still a bachelor.
After one class, Cesar decided it was not for him - because he thought straight men don't go to dance school. I immediately liked the idea of formal dance lessons, however, and I've hung around dance schools ever since. Though I remain friends with the owners of Dance World U.S.A., I have since transferred to the Tony Delgado Dance Club, a much bigger school with a huge enrollment and a lot more instructors.
Delgado dancers dominate the local dance competitions. In the latest region-wide dance contests, the Delgado dancers came in a close second to a team from California. The California team that won first place had a lot of over-50 dancers who took a lot of golds. If Delgado has a weakness, it is in the over-50 dancers category. Delgado instructors and students are for the most part young. There are few over-50 students, most of whom are in their 50s. You can count with the fingers in one hand the number of dancers who are in their 60s. Guess where you would put me.
If Delgado is to win the coveted Western U.S. region title next year, it must field more over-50 dancers. They can count on me, because I do intend to compete next year. They might also want to recruit heavily in the Filipino community that turns out regularly in Gold Coast Casino and Sun Coast Casino, where a Filipino band - the HNLV or Honolulu-Las Vegas band - plays almost nightly.
The over-50 Filipino dancing crowd is the dominant group in most of the dances at Gold Coast and Sun Coast. Filipinos love to dance. We are a graceful people. We are coordinated, we like to be on stage, singing or dancing. We like to entertain.
Filipinos as a group represent the biggest minority group that regularly shows up for classes at Delgado Dance Club, more than Hispanics, even though Tony Delgado and his wife are Mexicans and most of the dance instructors are Mexicans.
If more over-50 Filipinos decide that they need more formal instruction, they could take Tony Delgado to the pinnacle of dancing schools in western United States.
My goal in next year's western region competitions is not just to compete, but to win. I do the rumba and the cha-cha well, so I'll start with those two. I might compete in the tango and the fox-trot too. We'll see.
The only thing that will prevent me from competing is this damned exercise-induced asthma that I developed in July, when my wife, son Paul and I spent two days and one night at Zion National Park in Utah. I didn't know it then, but a licensed reflexologist I have consulted with has since informed me that the Utah air is one of the worst in the country because of the tiny suspended particles from all the rocks that are constantly breaking up in the mountainous regions.
For the uninitiated, a reflexologist massages the nerves that terminate at the feet. All nerves end at the feet and a trained reflexologist can tell you about the health and condition of most of your body's organs by examining the condition of the nerves that end at the feet.
The reflexologist told me about the condition of my abdomen, saw that I had had surgery in my right abdomen, informed me that I still had issues in my stomach, told me that I would soon feel pain in the back of my neck - all from merely feeling, massaging and examining the nerves in my feet.
My trip to the reflexologist sidelined me for a few days because my feet were sore from the one-hour reflexology session, plus the fact that my asthma symptoms worsened since the nerves in my lungs had somehow been disturbed rather violently from all the massaging and rubbing.
The session at the reflexologist has been for the most part beneficial because the hypochondriac me knows better what is going on in my body when the pains and aches come, linger and try to discourage me.
I'm a big believer in researching on the Internet whenever I feel pain in my body, so I have an above-average knowledge of my body to begin with. But the reflexology session confirmed much of the information that has been available to me and I have even better knowledge now.
It's full steam ahead to the western regional dance competitions in September 2010.
