Peter Marklund's Home

I found an interesting interview with Johnny Vazquez - one of the world's best salsa dancers who I had the honor of taking a workshop with at the salsa congress last weekend in Zurich. Here is what he says about how he learned salsa:

"I learned how to dance salsa really fast because three months after I arrived in LA, I was in a nightclub with my brother Louis, and this girl came and she told my brother, "Is that your little brother?" "Yes he is." "Oh, I'm gonna dance with him, he must be as good as you." I didn't know how to dance then, only the basics, back and forward. I said, "No I don't know how to dance." "No, no come on." She took me to the dance floor. I told her a thousand times, "I don't know how to dance. " "No, you are one of the Vazquez brothers, how can you say that?" We started dancing. After two minutes she left me on the dance floor. And she stopped and she told me, "That's all you can do, the basics?" "I told you I don't know how to dance." She told me, "Oh, so when you do learn more, then ask me to dance." And she left me. You don't know how much it hurt me. That night I was crying in my bed. Because everybody was looking at me when she left me on the floor. And being a brother of somebody who was really popular in LA, my brother Louis, it was so embarrassing for me because I didn't know how to dance. So that night I said to myself, I'm going to learn how to dance. Believe me. One year later I did the competition and when I won, she came, the same girl came to me. "Oh, I can't believe it, Johnny!" And she hugged me. "Oh, I can't believe it, when you are done with all your friends, will you ask me to dance?" And I looked at her and I said, "When you learn how to dance better, you can ask me to dance" and I turned around and I left. Now I cannot thank that girl enough because she gave me the impulse to learn."