Salsa Dancing - From Frankenstein-like Agility to Being at Least the Wolfman

They say you can tell a man's lovemaking skills by the way that he dances.

No wonder I don't have children.

You know those guys who throb across the floor, gentle but mannish, totally in sync with their partner? That's not me. I'm the guy who remains seated for the safety of other dancers. Some people say that I have two left feet, but it could be as many as three or four.

You have to feel, then, for Jay Byam, professional dance coach who, due to anti-discrimination laws, had to welcome me into his class. Jay teaches salsa three times a week, starting with el básico: one, two, three, five, six, seven (you pause on the fourth beat or suffer Jay's wrath).

For the sake of us gringos, Jay sometimes counts with a slower, more Frankenstein-like, "Boom boom boom, boom boom boom..."

Jay demonstrated with a flair that made us ooh and ahh like kids on the Fourth of July. He prowled the floor like a matador, spinning two girls at once, panache dripping from his pockets.

Jay emphasized the value of being smooth. I believe his exact words were, "If you're not suave, I'll kill ya dead."

Salsa is a sexy dance. In certain parts of Brazil, it's hard to tell where the dancing ends and foreplay begins. You can just hear National Geographic whispering from the bar: And here, the song nearly finished, we see the female flash her luminous tail feathers, a sure sign of approval...

Jay's class isn't so spicy. Dancers start at ten years old and go up to the age where it's impolite to ask. By night's end, the guys all smelled like perfume reps at Macy's.

Salsa isn't line dancing, where you just grab your belt buckle and go; the man has to think up dips and turns and debonair faces. As if it weren't enough to pay for dinner, now we're in charge of choreography. So it goes.

Liberated woman Dee Turner found it hard to give up control, the same issue that cut short an otherwise promising salsa career by Gloria Steinem.

Unfortunately, if both dancers led, it would be like driving a car with two steering wheels -- peligroso. So, Dee, you just make sure your man's dinner is warm and his clothes are pressed when he stumbles home from the bar at two in the morning.