Please Excuse Me. I'm Wearing Flats Today.

To heel or not to heel? Considering I can't walk into a store and not come out without at least three pairs of high-heeled salsa shoes, that seem like a ridiculous question. However, every once in a while, that little voice inside my head begs for me to keep the high-heeled kicks in the shoe bag.

Now before you jump to conclusions, I'm not whining about sore feet. If you burn up the dance floor in heels several nights a week, it's kind of assumed your soles will ache. Sore feet mean you had an amazing night of dancing, so that's not the issue here. What I'm talking about is the obligation of heels...

What? Did I just say obligation?

Yup.

The obligation I feel I am faced with as a salsera is the expectation to be "sexy" on the dance floor. Well, who says I can't be sexy in flats? The music is supposed to inspire my movement, not my footwear. It shouldn't matter if I wear sneakers or stilettos, right?

But maybe the real question that little voice inside my head is asking is why do I always have to project "sexy" when I'm salsa dancing? Yeah, yeah, salsa is supposed to be sexy, but why does salsa have to be synonymous with that word? I don't know about you, but I don't always move my body with the sexiest of intensions. Depending on the song, I’m sometimes inspired to be silly. Other times, I'm motivated to be a little funky in my movement. And if I have a dance partner that is willing to be playful, our dance has so many, many more layers than your stereotypical "sexy."

Salsa is an expression of so many attitudes, and I really enjoy discovering all of those different attitudes...sometimes in heels, and sometimes in flats!