I am writing this after returning from India where I was teaching and performing at the recent Bachata Festival that was held in Mumbai a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t help but thinking back to around 3 years ago when not only was I going to India for the first time, but I was going to perform in my first international salsa festival.

Looking back at the first few performances I gave, they went well, no major mistakes and I re-watch them fondly. Then I went through this period, where I performed shows that were put together in a very short space of time, sometimes over a few days. I hadn’t spent the time perfecting them so the performances always ended badly, some of them so bad I can’t even bring myself to watch them on video, even today.

The show we performed in 2007 at the Indian Salsa Festival was one of these terrible shows to begin with; we put the choreography together in 5 days and only spent 2 days practicing it, so it should have come as no surprise that our first performance of it was terrible. By the time we arrived in India, we had spent a lot of time perfecting and practicing the choreography but that wasn’t enough to take the negativity from the back of my mind.

Until this day I don’t know how I got through that first international performance. I don’t think I have ever been as nervous on stage as I was that night, but we performed it well, got a good response and it has certainly become one of my biggest learning experiences.

It took me a long time to get rid of the negativity from all those previous bad performances. I have had to work hard to do it, by ensuring we always have adequate time to put a show together and perfect it till the choreography flows naturally.  This has given me so much more confidence, even debuting a new show internationally doesn’t scare me anymore. I can finally say I actually enjoy being on stage!