Finding a Place Within Your Heart for Dance

Wednesday night salsa classes offer teacher Juan Aranda of Mountain View the chance to share a fun dancing experience with other locals.

Born in Puerto Rico, Aranda first realize he loved dance at the age of three. He explained to Mountain View Patch how the opportunity for a weekly dance class "Juan's Latin Potpourri" at  located in has given those who join him every week at 6 p.m. the chance to escape from their everyday lives into a world of relaxation and fun, if only for a few hours. 

Mountain View Patch: Where do you live?

Juan Aranda: The Rex Manor neighborhood in Mountain View.

Patch: Where did you grow up?

Aranda: I’m from Puerto Rico. We moved to Mountain View back in 1995.

Patch: What brought you here?

Aranda: I came from Puerto Rico in ’85 to Sacramento after I got my Master’s degree. I got a job working for Independent Union of Public Service Employees two days after I got there. I was the director for three years. When we merged, I lost my job. I started working for the State; they sent me to San Jose as a tax representative for State Tax. I worked there for 10 years. I got sick. I had to quit my job.

Patch: How old were you when you started dancing?

Aranda: Three. I’ve been actually teaching for 35 years.

Patch: What originally got you interested in dance?

Aranda: When you are a child in Puerto Rico, you usually wear shorts at two or three years old, so every time they have a party you get all the neighborhood kids together, put boy and girl together. You put a nickel in the belly button, put them together, put a merengue and they start doing this (as he moves his hips) trying to keep the nickel between them. To keep the money, so the nickel doesn’t go to the floor. So you are going to have to move your hips obviously.

Patch: Have you received any training?

Aranda: I have never been trained in dancing. I don’t consider myself a dancing instructor, but I have been teaching for so long. I started teaching and I just thought it was a natural thing for me to do. I surrounded myself with a bunch of people who are real good. I wanted to create an environment that is very safe, a place to keep the kids off the streets and a place where adults can come for entertainment. 

Patch: What type of dancing is your specialty?

Aranda: I can go through the whole rhythm and roll. I have taught cha-cha, salsa, merengue, cumbia, bachata, charanga, pachanga, samba, mambo, macarena and conga. 

Patch: What dancers inspire you or are your role models?

Aranda: I listened to the old Puerto Rican, Cuban, Caribbean singers and bandleaders. I started with Desi Arnaz with the conga in Cuba. I got Tito Puente, the mambo king. I got Xavier Cugat. I listened to these people and they got me interested in the old, old dancing styles.

Salsa is a misnomer. There is no such thing as salsa. Salsa is a combination of everything else put together, and when you get to a level where you can actually do a lot of steps that’s the salsa.

Patch: What classes do you teach?

Aranda: You have to join me to see how fantastic it can really be. I get there at a quarter to six, and I start with a romantic, slow paced music. For about 15 to 20 minutes, people come in and join me. I create the environment, a relaxed this is for you, and then I start teaching the conga, which is the basic step for the cumbia. Then bachata and some cha-cha, some waltz, then a little bit of merengue and salsa. And then a bunch of people start walking in until 7 p.m. Then someone teaches until eight and we go until 10 o’clock.

Patch: What do you love about teaching?

Aranda: What I really love about teaching is to see the look on a student’s face when they master one step. When they have mastered one step that makes my day. When they say, ‘oh I can do this,’ it is just like a teacher in a regular school. When there student says ‘two times two is four,’ it’s that kind of thing.

Patch: Is there a certain age range you prefer to teach?

Aranda: It doesn’t matter. I will work with any age. My wife and I have a daycare and we sometimes have little kids and we will put salsa on and we dance with them, holding them in our laps. When the kids start to grow, you get to see (they continue dancing).

Patch: You are married and have two kids. Do they dance?

Aranda: They (my kids) dance better than I do. We are never together (dancing), but they do dance and they picked it up on their own. I didn’t have anything to do with it.

They just watch and watch and watch. They pick up the steps and follow it.

Patch: Do they ever come to your Wednesday night classes?

Aranda: (Laughing) No. No, I’m dad.

Patch: What kind of emotions do you feel when you dance?

Aranda: When you start to dance, you feel like you are in a world of your own. You are dancing with somebody, but you have your own space and your emotions. You have somebody that feels the same emotions you do. You feel that rhythm penetrate your whole body, and be able to dance without a care in the world. Just I’m here. I’m in a world of my own. If you enter my world, you will go ‘wow.’ It’s a romantic feeling. It’s a lot of emotions, all good.

Patch: What are some of your goals for dance?

Aranda: A studio eventually. I have always envisioned a studio.

Patch: What is your opinion of the dancing shows that have recently become popular, such as Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance?

Aranda: Dancing with the Stars has nothing to do with my natural dancers, nothing against them. They are excellent dancers. They are very well trained and it’s a way of life, but they do different stuff from mine. Dancing with the Stars is something to show the public how good you can get if you put the time in. For natural dancers it’s a social setting, where you go to enjoy yourself for a temporary period of time, after that you go back to your normal life.

You can go once a month or whenever you have time available in your life to dance. It’s not the same kind of training. It’s a place to go within your heart, apart from your everyday life and have lots of fun with other people.

I think that if you love dancing you have to start somewhere. You can start doing natural dancing like we do or you can start in a studio.