Back at it

I chose Andalucía so I could learn how to dance. When I was in Tucson, I took flamenco dance classes for years and loved it. I loved the music. I loved how hard it was. I loved how my feet hurt in the morning when I stepped out of bed. I loved getting new shoes for every Christmas. I loved performing. I was getting decent at it. So I chose Andalucía to get really into it.

When I used to dance in college.

Málaga, however, does not spill over with flamenco schools the way Sevilla or Jerez do. I tried one teacher. The class was painfully easy and she didn't seem to understand that non-Spanish people can and want to dance for real. I tried another. The intermediate class was full of girls who had been going to the dance conservatory for years. She was brutal and I left after each class frustrated, walking down the street to wait at the frigid bus stop and wonder why I couldn't just get it, like everyone else. By the end of the year I wasn't dancing and I wasn't happy about it.

This year I started with a new teacher. He was great. The level was right where I needed, the classes were difficult but not impossible. My atrophied leg muscles were woken up after a long sleep. I counted blisters with a smile. The only problem? The classes were Saturday mornings across town. It takes an hour to get there on the bus, and I hate waking up.

So after returning to Spain after the new year, I kind of let classes slide. I was traveling, or had gone out the night before, or just didn't want to haul all the way out there. Last week, I decided that enough was enough. I went to bed and set my alarm to get up and go to class.

The next morning at 10 a.m. the alarm woke Joseca and I up. Shit. I needed to get up at 9. I wasn't going to make it. Joseca offered to take me on the motorcycle, which would make an hour bus ride into a 10-minute trip. I agreed and got up to shower. I came back in, frustrated. I didn't want to make him go all the way out there. I didn't want to go.

"You know, before I got the moto, if I wanted to go anywhere I had to walk all the way down the hill and catch the bus. And when I came back I had to walk all the way back up," he said. "If you don't want to go to class then don't go. It's not work, it's a hobby, and you don't have to be there. But don't say you're not going to go because of me. Don't say you won't go because it's far. Es lo que hay, es lo que te toca hacer si quieres ir a clase."

It is what it is, he said, it's what you have to do if you want to go to class.

I remember my dad telling me about when he was young and working on a boat in the North Sea, off of Scotland. He was doing some mundane task like washing something and rushed through it. The captain came around and saw it. "If you aren't going to do it well, don't bother doing it at all," he said, walking off looking annoyed. My dad said that those words really stuck with him and really affected his life. It stuck with me too.

I jumped up, put the coffee on, showered, threw my stuff in a bag and José took me to class.

The first day back is rough. My feet are killing me, my legs are soft and don't obey me. My weight isn't under me. They put together the second half of a seguiriya and almost an entire bulería. I'm way behind. But it felt so good to get back there. To work and sweat and remember how to move my arms and listen really closely to the rhythm and contratiempos. This week was even better. I'm excited to be back in class and am excited that I'm so excited to be back.

I don't want to be the kind of person that always makes excuses. A lazy person. Someone who doesn't follow through. Sometimes it takes another person telling you the way things are to get you moving again, literally and figuratively.



In other flamenco news, this Wednesday I have tickets to see Arcángel, the singer I saw for the first time back in October or so. He is coming again to Málaga as part of a program that the Agencia Andaluza del Flamenco puts together every year called Flamenco Viene del Sur. It´s about ten shows that are put on in the major cities of Andalucía. I went last year to about five. A few were exceptional, a few were experimental, one was weird, but all were interesting.

There is also a series called Jueves Flamenco that they are putting on each Thursday in the Auditorio Diputación. The shows are 4 euro each and are pretty good.

Here is the program for Flamenco Viene del Sur this year in Málaga. If anyone is interested in seeing any of them let me know!