Last weekend a friend took me to this fantastic salsa club in San Francisco and got me all excited to start dancing again. I'm from NYC, salsa is an institution there. For 2 years, my Friday night consisted of heading uptown to the Bronx in a yellow cab only to return at 6 am in a gypsy cab on Saturday morning with incredibly sore feet, a sweat-soaked dress, and a smile from ear to ear. In those days, I took learning salsa, merengue, cumbia, and tango, very seriously. I had to be good, at least respectable with my steps, It's embarrassing when men line up to dance with you and then run to avoid you in the expanse of 15 minutes! I was making progress on my own with my clear rotation of partners, however, I was beginning to run out of venues. I needed a private teacher to help me cut patterns on the floor just as well as any Latina chica.
I looked in
magazines, newspapers, dance studios, bulletin boards and finally hired a cool woman who had
studied classically in Cuba. Her lessons helped me go from wallflower to center stage in a few months--all for a price I could afford as a graduate student.
Have you ever wanted to just learn something fabulous from someone who truly knows how to teach? Sure you have. There's a linguist, a guitarist, a yogini in all of us just waiting to come out.
So, after this embarrassing evening in San Francisco Salsa land forgetting everything I ever learned in the "hood", I searched online to add the Lo to my first initial "J". I was super excited to learn of a new website that helps people find local teachers and classes to learn just about anything. This Seattle-based website helps people learn all kinds of new things by connecting teachers to students, check it out Rumor has it they're coming to San Francisco.
Here's what they have to say about their motivation..."We started Teachstreet because we’re curious about the world. We like to learn new things and so do our friends. We want to get away from our computers and out into the real world. We want to build community, make ourselves a bit smarter and empower the great local teachers living in our hometowns."
This is a very similar concept to Laborfair.com so you can see why I love this site. Thank you Teachstreet team for making this possible..anyone for Mandarin?
Cheers,
Jota Lo
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