Music is my Soul - My first flashlit shot

Music is my Soul, originally uploaded by LooseCanon.

Since the very day I started photography, i've absolutely hated flashes. Whenever I've used the flash on my camera, it has only spoiled the shot with flat looking subjects, screwed up colors and horrible shadows.
But then a read through this very famous website (http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/) changed things drastically. I finally collected enough money and mind to buy a Vivitar 285HV flash unit. It's a fairly dumb, fully manual flash... and I love such stuff because if offers complete control (yeah, i am a control freak).
Anyway, I bought the flash unit along with a 10m sync chord and hot-shoe adapter and now I was ready for off-camera lighting.
I requested my friend Arpita to pose for a test shoot. Considering the amount of text I had read about flashes and off camera lighting before buying the 285HV, it hardly took me any time to setup the light and start the shoot. As it was just an experiment, we decided to shoot on the terrace of my building. The trees and taller buildings all around practically killed all my creative space leaving me with the only option of shooting towards the sky... and that actually worked for the shot.
So, for this shot, I put the flash to the camera right about 60 degrees at 1/4th power. Then I asked Arpita to swing to the beats of a song and started clicking. I'm glad that by the end of the shoot, I had a good picture of her where I could portray her passion for music and also my notion that "flashes are bad" got shattered for good.
Now i'm collecting some more off-camera lighting setup and hope to do a better job in future.