Angela Ahimsa – Israel Andalón

To all my friends from USA, Happy Thanksgiving day!

Despise the origins of the celebration, this day is a cool day to say thanks to all the cool things and blessings that you have received in this year.

Thanks to all my dance students for following my classes and supporting me in some crazy adventures: Thanks to Gaby, Eric and all the fire friends for teaching me the mystic art of fire dancing. Thanks to Chelo and Mauricio for giving me another opportunity to teach and participate in one of the coolest dance congresses in the country. Thanks to Angela for believing in me and for all your teachings in fire and spirituality. Thanks to Shirley for being my Yoga Guru this year. Thanks to Luis Mario and Big Steps for the dance training and the opportunity to keep teaching. Thanks to Azul, Ivette, Jaime, Víctor and all the team of Somos Teatro that gave me the opportunity to start in this great experience of acting. Thanks to La Bodeguita del Medio for allowing me to be your default teacher for all these years. Thanks Maeva and Francia for helping me out with all these Bodeguita classes. Thanks to Jess and Henry my roomies for helping out with La Maison du Tango and with Rumba. Thanks to Tere and all the team of Elforoteo for all the nice coffee and food (a lot of food) in all this year. Thanks to my friends Aldahir, Karla, Joe, Francesca, Fanny, Alfredo, Cheko, Sofi, etc for sharing with me this cool birthday trip. Thanks to all my friends and my family friends for supporting our family in these though health times and in the passing away of our grandmother Vicky. Thanks to my Dad Emilio, to my mom Lety, to my sister in law Pris and to my brother Josh for their support during the hard times and on all the new adventures I take. Thanks to all of you that I am sure I am missing here.

And thanks to you if you are reading this!

Gracias! Danke! Merci! Arigato! Obrigado! Dĕkuji! Dziękuję! Grazie! Xiè Xiè! Spacibo! Danyavaad!

In one of my previous post, I told you that I was teaching a regular Cuban Salsa Class at Cloud 9, when my portuguese friend Victoria, told me to dance with one of her friends visiting from Canada, Angela. We had a couple of great dances, but then she left. Some days later, Victoria asked me about the Dance congress Vallarta SBK and although she only went to the parties, she convinced her friends to attend the congress. So on the first day of the congress as I was helping in the check-in process, and Angela came and waved me. At first, I didn’t recognize her but as usual I carried on with the talk. She told me that she was there for the congress, but she might need a place to stay for the last 2 days of the congress and I offered La Maison du Tango.

@iandalon
Gracias a todos los que asistieron al taller de introducción a la #Salsa #RuedaDeCasino en el VallartaSBK.
♬ son original – Israel Andalón

On the second day, I gave a beginners Rueda de Casino class. Angela took my workshop and later invited me to partner with her for the advanced dance lifts workshop. So although I was very tired after so many activities, I joined this 2 hour workshop and I prooved not to be that bad. However, in one of the dance lifts, I accidentally dropped Angela to the floor and she felt on her head. So I was really ashamed.

@iandalon
taller de cargadas con Hector y Mariana en el Vallarta SBK. Gracias a mi partner Angelita @Chakra Goddess por la paciencia y perdón por los cocolazos.
♬ Cargadas – Israel Andalón

Angela and Israel at the dance lift workshop.

Although she said it didn’t hurt and she was ok, I felt I owed her something. As the workshops finished, I invited her to eat. She told me she was vegan, so we ended up going to Veggitalia, which is a great vegan Italian restaurant in downtown.

That night, there was the last social night themed blue and mermaid. (I was not able to get on time a merman t-shirt so I just went in blue). The party had some many, too many shows and then lots of Salsa, Bachata and Kizomba night, which was very fun. I ended up dancing these 3 dance styles a lot with Angela. As the night was coming to an end, I offered to give her a ride to her Airbnb for her last night there.

Angela and Israel on the Water Dance Night.

The next day, I came to pick Angela up as I previously told you I was going to host her. We were both tired so we ended up resting all day. But as she has told me, she is also a fire dancer, so she wanted to do some fire dancing with me during the night. So at night we had fun going to the beach to do some tricks. we used alcohol as she didn’t want to use gasoline, so the flame didn’t last long, but it was very cool, and she is an amazing fire dancer.

Angela and Israel training dance at the beach.

The next day and before she had to go back to Canada, she wanted to explore the nature, another of my specialties, so I took her in my Motomami to one of my favorite natural spots, the waterfall of El Nogalito. I believe she really enjoyed the hike there with me.