This will be a 3-day international convention held at the Grand Sierra Resort with a Pre-Party at Pearl Champagne Lounge during Latin Thursdays from January 8 -10, 2009.

Rodney Aquino, a well-known salsa dancer, is bringing sexy back to little ol’ Union City.

Using pelvic gyrations, quick feet and spinning transitions, Aquino, who likes to go by “Rodchata,” teaches salsa and another dance form called bachata all over the world. Recently, he traveled to Australia to perform and teach.

Now he has brought his love for dance to the Tri-City area.

For $12, visitors can drop by the Tahini Dance Studio at 30987 Watkins St., off Smith Street near Union City Boulevard, to learn some basic salsa steps and fundamentals.

“It’s a perfect class designed for beginners,” Aquino said.

Last Saturday, the first scheduled class of about 10 people learned some of those basics. The demonstrations consist of Aquino explaining each move and the reason behind it.

“It makes it easier for students to learn,” he said.

In addition, he will teach men how to lead women — or vice versa.

However, “We need more men,” Aquino said. “I don’t know what’s up with the guys, but maybe they are just shy … I don’t know.”

Like most dance styles — except for the twist (for you oldtimers) and the running man — salsa requires a partner to perform the moves. Ironically, Aquino admits that when he was younger and went to clubs, he was a wallflower.

“I was very hesitant to ask women to dance,” he said.

Read the whole story here…

It’s natural to believe that if you had one-on-one attention you would learn faster. Smaller schools mean better attention or smaller classrooms mean teachers give more attention. For salsa private lessons smaller, one-on-one doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get better in a heartbeat.

The frequency to which you take private lessons is the primary factor in how quickly you’ll get better.

Children go to school 5 days out of the week, their lessons are 5 days out of the week. If the class size was small, very likely they will get more individual attention.

Salsa private lessons are typically set up for once a week. If you were to compare the two and gave the same curriculum for both (without homework), which group would progress faster?

If private lessons was your route to success, you would have to take private lessons 5 times a week! However that rarely ever happens because we:

1. Don’t have the Time.
2. DOn’t have the Money.

If you took private lessons before you read this article, it’s very likely you stopped for any of the two reasons or:

You realized you weren’t getting anywhere fast. Read the complete article here…

Read the complete article here…