Place of Birth - Guatemala City, Guatemala

Occupation - Professional salsa dancer and choreographer for the Salsa Memphis Dance Company and La Mafia Chango.

A little bit about myself... I practically live on Denny's breakfast food.

How did I discover salsa? Salsa changed my life completely. I was 16 years old when I first came to the United States. At that time, I had to use a fake I.D. in order to get into clubs in downtown Los Angeles because I was underage. I was so homesick and I began to drink excessively. The first time I walked into a salsa club, I was amazed by how awesome the dancers were. The only dance I knew was merengue because it was easy and it was the popular dance back in Guatemala. When they would play merengue in the clubs, I would ask women to dance. When they played salsa, I would sit there, watch, and drink, drink, drink. I did this for about a year until that one fateful day...

I was at the salsa club and I had my eye on this gorgeous female salsa dancer. She danced so good and I watched her dance all night long. I finally had the courage to ask her to dance when they started playing merengue. As I took her out on the dance floor, the music changed and they started playing salsa. I had no idea how to dance salsa and I began to pretend like I knew what I was doing. It was a complete disaster!! I stepped on her feet, spun her the wrong way, and accidentally hit her a few times on the head. She was so furious that I had embarrassed the both of us that she cussed me out in front of everyone and left me in the middle of the dance floor all by myself. I felt so bad when I went home that night and that's when I decided to take salsa lessons.

I took lessons from this Cuban guy and he taught me my basics and a few turn combinations. When I realized how much fun it was to dance, I began to take it seriously and I practiced hard. I gave up drinking and went salsa dancing almost every night! One year later, I began to make a name for myself in the salsa clubs through social dancing and from winning competitions. Later, I was invited by Francisco Vasquez to join the Los Rumberos Dance Company and thus began my career as a professional salsa dancer.

....One night while I was out salsa dancing, I felt a tap on the shoulder and when I turned around, it was that same gorgeous female dancer that had left me on the dance floor that one fateful night. She asked me to dance because she had been watching me dance all night long. I told her no and throughout the night, she kept approaching me wanting to dance and I kept refusing her. Finally she asked why I was being so mean and thats when I reminded her about the incident long ago and how terrible she had me feel. She apologized and then we finally danced. Later, we laughed about the entire thing and are good friends now.

What do I enjoy most about salsa dancing? Everything.

Future goals - To spread my love of salsa dancing to others. I want to teach and train the people here in Memphis to be world-class dancers.

Favorite quote - "Dance from the heart."