A Dance Q&A - Vitamin b

Answers to the most frequently asked questions I get about dance (including how much I practice, advice for going pro, and where to dance in New York City)…

I’m going to be featuring other dancers as part of this Q&A series, so please leave a comment and let me know who else you’d love to see on Vitamin b!

When did you start dancing?

While I took dance classes here and there growing up and cheered competitively in high school, dance didn’t become a big part of my life until I joined a student-run dance company my freshman year of college (Shoutout to Attitude Dance Company!)

I discovered salsa dancing in the summer of 2010 while I was attending a Spanish language school in Guatemala (I wrote more about that trip here). After I graduated and moved to San Francisco, I started taking salsa classes and dancing on Couture Dance Alliance’s training team under the direction of Luis Aguilar. In 2016, I moved to New York to dance with Balmir Latin Dance and continue my dance training with Anya Katsevman.

I danced competitively in amatuer and pro-am categories for about five years before finally turning pro and entering my first professional dance competition in October 2018.

How often do you practice? What’s your dance training schedule like?

I practice five to six days a week.

My dance partner and I meet Monday – Friday for two hours a day and take a weekly lesson with our coach Anya Katsevman. We add additional practice time before a competition or a big show. On top of that, I usually have a few additional rehearsals every week for other routines and dance projects I’m working on (my solo, a same-gender routine, special performances). I try and take group classes whenever I can.

On a light dance week, I’m training for about 15 hours. On a heavy week, I’m putting in 20 – 30 hours.

It’s definitely a lot of time and there are some days when I’m exhausted after a long work day and the very last thing I feel like doing is going to practice (when I’m not dancing I work as a writer and marketing consultant). These are some of the tips and tricks I use to help me feel more motivated on those days. We all have them!

How do you balance dance with the rest of your life?

I wrote an entire article about that for Social Dance Community here and shared a few productivity habits that help me balance dance with the rest of my life on my blog here.

In short, it’s hard! There’s no one answer and everyone’s balance looks different. My best advice is: be ruthless in cutting out the things that don’t matter to you, so you can spend time on the ones that do.

How did you know when you were ready to go from an amateur dancer to a professional dancer?

Great question! Making the transition from amateur to pro is different for everyone. There’s no right or wrong answer. For me, I knew I wanted a strong dance partnership to be part of my professional dance journey, so in addition to wanting to reach a certain ability level as a dancer, I also wanted to wait to go pro until I found the right partnership.

There are of course 1,000 things I’m still working on in my dancing, and I’ll always be building strength and working on my technique, but I got to a point where I felt confident about my dance ability and was really enjoying teaching and sharing what I’ve learned with others. I also kind of got to the point where I felt like I was the only person holding myself back. I wrote more about what that process was like here. Combined, those things made me feel ready to turn pro, so I decided to just go for it.

What tips/advice do you have for amateur dancers who want to turn pro one day?

My biggest piece of advice is to keep training and trust that if you keep putting in the work, you will get stronger and stronger. I really struggled to believe this when I was competing amateur/pro-am (even though lots of people told me this). For years, I felt like “going pro” would never happen for me, and I wanted it so badly that sometimes it physically hurt.

Looking back, I wish I could have just trusted that if I kept going, I would eventually reach my goals. Now that I have turned pro, I realize I wasted a lot of time feeling frustrated or upset instead of just enjoying how much I love to dance and appreciating the journey. Progress can be a bitch, cause when you’re in the middle of it, its really, really hard to see how much you’re improving. But if you stay focused and keep working, it happens.

What are your favorite clothing brands to dance in?

For leggings, I love Booty By Brabants, especially their croco skin fabric. They are one size fits most and super stretchy and move with me. There’s nothing I hate more than putting on leggings that stick to my skin and feel itchy after a few washes.

I hate feeling like I can’t move in my clothes, so I wear a lot of sports bras and crop tops. I don’t need a lot of support on top so I look for strappy, open styles at reasonably priced stores like Forever 21 and H&M. I’m also working on my own dance apparel line with 8andone which I’m really excited about!

Do you really think anyone can learn to dance?

Yes, I do! Dance, like any other skill, takes practice, but it’s 100% learnable, even if you think you have two left feet. It just takes time, patience, and repetition.

A good teacher with a strong understanding of how your body moves to produce different movement is so important too. Just because someone is a great dancer, doesn’t mean they are good at teaching others to dance. I’m so fortunate to have had such great instructors and coaches.

I’m coming to New York! Where should I dance?

I’m so glad you asked! Below are a few resources on my blog. Drop your info here and I’ll share even more personalized recs with you in an email.

Have another dance-related question for me? I’ll answer it in the comments below! And don’t forget to let me know who else you’d love to see featured in future Dance Q&As.