A friend of mine is branching out to teach his own salsa lessons (he’s previously been working as a teacher for someone else). I know that he’s going to do well because he’s so into it and very talented.
The fact that he’s a salsa instructor gives hope to every geek who has ever dreamed of becoming a well-rounded person. Years ago, he found the magic of dance through Dance Dance Revolution which he played religiously until be completely dominated it. Then he needed more! He started going to dance classes and watching Flashdance over and over again (okay, I made up the bit about Flashdance).
He puts everything he has into whatever he is focussing on at the time and what he’s been focussing on for the last 5 years is salsa dancing. He was asked to teach at the place he was going to for lessons at after only a year (that’s some sort of dance prodigy right there!) and last year he was the 2005 WA State Professional Salsa Champion.
When I saw the above graphics (from his website) it was a little too celebrial for me. I thought “sugar and spice is all things nice?… wait that’s not right…” Then I looked up “Azuquita” on Google Translate and it all made sense. “Azuquita” is the Spanish word for “sugar”. From there, even my fairly rudimentary maths skills were able to determine that “Azuquita Salsa” equals some sort of explosive dancing experience! I’m sure it is. Good Luck Hean-son!
Note: For details (times, dates, costs) on enrolling in Hean-son’s salsa classes see his classes webpage. He also has pages on special events and social nights. The opening night is in two weeks (Saturday 4 November) so for those beginners interested, it would be a good time to start.
Links to videos after the jump.
This page on Hean-son’s old homepage contains video downloads (in .zip files) of him playing Pump it Up and DDR (back in 2001). I have a friend who’s girlfriend is a DDR champion and she was amazed by these videos. Whereas other DDR players can be more showy, she said that his technical skill is very, very impressive. Apparantly, not many people try songs that are that difficult in competitions, and few score well on them if they do. Here are some (crappy) screengrabs:
Here’s a recent video of Hean-son out social dancing at the Swan Hotel. Check out how much he’s bulked up over the years. Why does he work out heaps? The dance. Being all musclely helps with the dancing. That’s some dedication!
Wow he is quite good! Ive been a dance student (salsa, merengue, danzon, foxtrot.. all kinds of ballroom dances) for about a year and thats some good technique he’s got! I wish I could lead like that. He seems on par with other’s who I know have been studying it for as long. Tell your friend a mexican fellow salsa dancer sends kudos!
I’ll be sure to let him know. He actually wasn’t too happy about his dancing in that video. From his website:
“Kinda weird knowing that you are being video’d, it made me a bit uncomfortable and I definitely wasn’t dancing anywhere near as well as I could have due to that.”
But yeah, I thought it was awesome (so decided to post it her)! If you know anyone in Perth who might be interested in his lessons, please let them know 😉