THM 003: Dancing Is For Girls... Right?

Vincent van Agtmaal
Apr 5, 2017
4 min read

The beat dropped.

"Who let the dogs out?! Who, Who, Who, Who?"

I stripped my clothes of as I am moving my booty and pounding my chest.

I jump on the couch and it seems as all the energy in the room is mine.

My parents and siblings are watching my gorilla expression with surprising joy.

I’m 6 years old. Just so you know, this was daily routine for me. My body became a jiggling disco dancing snake whenever music bounced off the walls. Sometimes the dance would be very cool and manly. Other times my body would move as a 20 year old eastern belly dancing princess. Not so long after, I was faced with a dilemma.

Being a young toddler boy looking towards male role models on TV, games and real life I found out the majority wasn’t really dancing. Fighting was more appropriate. So I became a knight which I fell in love with. and when I grew up I started doing martial arts, Judo, Boxing, Krav Maga, Muay Thai…

When I was around 10 I was invited to go to dance lessons by my sister, I said "No! Dancing is for girls,” as this was the obvious answer...the answer I thought was expected of me from the blue mother earth. My heart and soul cried otherwise.

Time went by.

Somewhere in puberty I decided to close the tap to my emotions. Not so safe anymore. Be a man, be strong, be cool was my go to. Dancing would slip thru these rocks floating to the surface at rare occasions. Hidden as I expressed it, there would be an epic dragon fight between shame and deep expression of joy and love.

My hearts yearning would not being answered. Energy got pretty stuck. Before I knew it, the emotion tap got rusted looking very nasty and very, very, very stuck.

My expression of heart, desire and energy went into excessive gaming and watching, television, series and porn. So I developed into that direction. Dancing was thrown in the closet and created a design for myself that kept me "safe." However, this became my prison. My emotions, my expression, my passion. All flushed down the toilet. Like a flat wheel that you grow ignorant towards and just stop caring or trying your best to deny it’s existence.

Happily something got shaken inside of me. Finding out I was addicted to porn and gaming were the first steps back into my heart.

I broke free upon finding my first love. Love slowly crept on me. The first beams of love made their way thru the clouds right into my vast realm of expression of my heart. Now being 18 years old I devoted myself to cultivating my first love relationship. I mistook the beam of light to be separate from the sun, the source. I became very dependent to feel fulfillment, happiness and sense of purpose from my relationship and my significant other that I was sharing it. Draining her and our relationship.

A signpost came along, a mentor. Time to change things up. Conscious breakup happened, deepening my heart and soul. Sharing this experience with another human being. Feeling very adventurous and free. The journey just really got started. Helping others on the way… helping others more, and more and more.

Four months later I’m sitting in my room, and a microphone is in front of my mouth. I’m working 14 hours a day on a podcast. Growing a big identification with what I created, a seed was planted in my soul.

A panda Zen master asked me. “What would you do if you didn’t have to do anything”

My answer was dance Salsa, and other expressions like guitar, singing and traveling. All of which I indulged in with the exception of Salsa! Where did that came from?!

The thought of dancing salsa had been playing in my head.

There’s no real time for that, too much work. But the seed grew and everything that was not true vanished into light. All the expectations, shared beliefs about what men do and what I do.

How I am a man?

One can say, slowly I was starting to polish up the tap, and now it was time to open it. For that, I needed a hell of a lot of space!

I quit the podcast and in January 2017 I took my first Salsa lesson. Something happened, some sense of certainty came over me.

“I am born for this!”

Yes the “Who let the dogs out” 6 year old boy, now emerged from the sand and jumped into my heart. Merging with the man I presently am. I am that boy. It wants to express itself. So it did.

Salsa and I have a lover relationship.

We meet each other in special times of the day. In the morning as I’m making breakfast. As I’m writing this blog and at any specific time of the day. We do it everywhere. In the kitchen, the basement and in the bedroom 😉.

There are no expectations, no “have” or “must”, just Salsa, expression of my heart through my body, through the endless creativity and Life with a capital L.

Salsa is life, life is salsa. It is unpredictable, yet predictable. From one moment of total chaos to one fraction of a second later into complete control. The masculine that leads with a balance of gentle and firmness. The Feminine follows with a specific level of playful resistance, giving birth to beauty and joy and the space for the perfect fusion of both. When you are turning her what looks like hurricane of beauty. When your last footstep end unexpectedly on the last rhythm of the fourth beat. That’s when you know you are the sun, you are the source.

Ultimately, we are masculine, we are feminine. We are Human.

Now let my wisdom fully panda you out of your socks.

“What would you do, if you didn’t have to do anything?”