i love to DANCE

all the stuff i’m doing, did it on my own. of course along the way i had help. david king, kuya, aov for a month and a day, sniff kingz, last minute… that made me do diversity movement. when i did all city dance for 3 years then left… i learned how to freestyle. i learned foundation all on my own. i’m that kind of dancer who didn’t grow up in a studio, or in the streets, but its funny cause i’m the kind of dancer who wanted to go into that underground scene, but didn’t. i watched salah, bionic, poppin john, p lock, yoshie, kite, tatsuo, hiro, all them crazy cats. i learned how to which a way, stop and go, hit, scooby doo, sammy point, wave, tut, boogaloo, old man, scarecrow, strut, shamrock, all on my own without the training of another choreographer or some cool cat like a-one, haji, or lil b until i got to that aov training for a month. thing is, dancers are so fortunate to have youtube. i’m also, not just as a dancer, but as a person who’s poor, like no money. so i can’t really get out there, or else i’ll be stranded and/or be unable to maintain a balance in my life. so that’s why i have youtube as a big source to inspire me and teach me to dance. i sometimes hate it when i see someone wear a shirt that looks like YouTube but the “Tube” turns into “Bite” and the shirt says “YouBite” WTF? everyone’s a fricken biter then…. every popper is a biter off of boogaloo sam and the electric boogaloos. cause that stuff, they made it for the community. every locker is a biter off of Don Campbellock. so dont say biter, shoot… its funny cause no one says that no more. i dont hear no one say that. anyway, my biggest point i wanna bring up… NO SUCH THING AS BITERS. its called innovating. DANCERS ARE INNOVATORS OF THE ORIGINATORS. and YouTube is actually one of the best sources for a dancer if they dont have the time or the money to get training. watch some stuff, after that, TRAIN YOURSELF. its all a process. i went through it, look where i am now with it. teaching cottys, gonna get paid to teach from GVRD up at jesse bethel, recognized at fanimecon :P anyway… i’m not here to brag, nor am i saying that i’m dope at what i do… but whoever’s reading…. all i’m saying is GET ON YOUR GRIND. i’m still on my grind at this moment drilling stuff and doing what i need and want to get better as a dancer, and as a person. always go from style to style. chase the possibilities. 

know the roots. know the styles. know the foundation.

i really feel that creativity is lacking in the scene as well. everyone is so “lines lines lines.” lines are always good, but play with those lines and turn it into concepts, shapes, colors, and innovate from the styles. BE CREATIVE WHEN YOU DANCE, thats what i feel what lacks. just from my perspective, it’s always good to be clean with your lines, but also be creative. i feel like the dance scene lacks that sometimes from what i’ve seen in person and sometimes on YouTube. but anyway… stay on that grind.

PEACE 

dance has become something so different to me these past weeks, month. i know without a doubt, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO BOUNDARIES WHEN I WANT TO DANCE. when it’s dance, let me move my body. thats how much i want to do it. at this moment in time, i learned from two great teachers, Kelly McCann and Marci. coming from a hip hop background, i learned how to point my toes, plie, pirhouette, chase, leap, jazz square, jazz walk, and much more. i can’t really name all the other technical stuff, but i’ve become more aware of my body and where my weight is shifted through each transition of movement. i love what i’m learning and i’m already innovating some stuff already based from the dance classes. the stuff i learned from hip hop / urban dance, people are always innovating. i said to alyssa the other day “dancers are innovators from the originators” and its true cause kelly told me herself she uses moves from other ppl from other schools she went to. another important thing i learned ballet is the foundation of many dance styles. from what i’ve observed, ballet is a very traditional dance. i love ballet for what it is, but in my heart i will always stay true to hip hop / urban dance. thing is, modern dance and even hip hop isn’t traditional sometimes. what i mean is that its always changing and is being branched to new things. i believe all dancers should never set boundaries and just stay open to all the possibilities. even for me…. thing is, i’ve been knowing since day one, i’m not flexible even i can appear to be to some ppl. but that doesn’t mean i won’t try.

well… i really wanted to journal most about, i just find it surprising that there’s really no one else i can share my hip hop with in the community of NVC. it’s always been niko. whoever’s reading, i’m not saying i’m tired of niko or anything, but its just i wanna share it with someone similar to how i did with jason pham, austin, and some DM and Vision folk. i want to session, i want to talk about ppl who inspire me. niko will like forever be a good friend to me. i love you man <3 hahahaha. but forreal, niko be knowing the san diego community. and we know the same exact people who inspired us before we started to become good friends. shaun evaristo, lyle beniga, s**t kingz, keone madrid, mariel martin madrid, ellen kim, bam martin, chris martin, syrene bartolome, jerome esplana and the list goes on and on and we both knew all these dancers. i’d love to share my locking, popping, housing, waacking foundation with someone who i could help, and who could help me too with what i do. oh well… maybe i’m not destined to meet another hungry hip hop / urban dancer like niko at nvc…. i’m enjoying dance at nvc though. ppl are nice. ppl are amazingly good. ppl are open. unfortunate thing for me, calluses are getting painful. made new friends i guess… doubts are getting the best of me for some reason. friends, idk… the nvc showcase coming up pretty soon, these ppl who signed up for me, idk…. i miss DM sometimes… all the time… idk, i’m just getting withdrawals. i miss how DM be pickin up my pieces pretty good cause they so used to me. some ppl in nvc aren’t that clean with it right now no matter how much i go through it and how slow i go through it. but still, some ppl be killin it though. i’ll blog about my showcase another time.

so currently my life in general, i’m done schooling at high school and off to college at NVC. transition was weird. i had high hopes of getting into sonoma state university to start myself fresh by myself… but my advisor told me my application wasn’t paid for, and yet ms. diaz told me fee waiver would cover it, but it didnt. oh well…. no productive classes, funny cause i only have dance classes. dance styles, jazz, and ballet. that’s it. go to napa tuesdays thursdays w/ that same grind. gotta create a better atmosphere, cause in my head, i just feel like i’m not really going anywhere with my life just yet. i just gotta keep working and have patience with the right moment with the right people… a good friend of mine got into a car accident, visited him… i’ll be praying for him before i KO. swear… suck at social life… i can’t make friends and long convos for crap. whatever… i’ll figure out something. i always do in the end. 

you deserve a medal if you read my blog this far… ok… peace

dancing without a doubt has changed so much. while my brother was back from LA last week… words can’t explain how i felt from all the insight he gave me about life as a dancer in LA. LA your always on the grind. seeing dancers. dancers are coming out of nowhere and are really dope. hip hop choreography is just constantly changing. i remember back in the days of 2006, it was Lando Wilkins, Shaun Evaristo, Mariel Martin (Madrid), Lyle Beniga, and a couple of others. More and more people are coming up, its CRAZY! my kuya, telling me the lifestyles and perspectives of these inspirations… some of it, it’s hard to believe, but its reality you know? i guess what i’m really trying to say, dance has changed so much to the point where i feel like my movement needs to evolve now. i mean, i have been evolving since day one, but i want to get better in what i’m doing, and keep feeding myself more of it. having kuya help me with my house piece motivated me, its just up to me again to just hold it down for what i do in vallejo. my only best friends with dance right now: ms. kelly, marci, niko, the vision, and youtube… its all i got. i’m too poor to get out into a studio, plus, honestly, i dont think there’s anywhere dope to train out here in the bay area. thank you again kuya so much for all that you told me about and shared with me. glad you’re safe in LA too. i’ma hold it down. just gotta find myself some tracks and get on my grind.

PEACE

just finished a new dance for cousin and her cotillion! man, i can’t wait to show it! its been a while since i’ve posted something like this

so many things in my home has changed so much in over a couple years. my grandma passed away in 2009… my kuya moved to LA 2011. my grandpa has a girlfriend 2012. and now… today… Ira’s moving out… i’m no longer a high school student, and i’m doing whatever i can to face the world. sigh… but Ira… i can’t believe it. Ira was one of the coolest step dads i had ever had. for one thing, he wasn’t filipino, but he was jewish :) i remember the first time when he came over to my house just to teach me and my kuya some piano lessons. we saw him at the academy of music. man… i remember those times so much. i remember him saying that he loved my mom and he said that to my lola and lolo. when months came by, i got a kind of roxas haircut, and my mom told me that ira was going to stay with us. i dont remmeber what year that was, but i remember i was about to be in middle school which is like 2005 or 2006 ish. from then on, i remember going to SF often cause Ira plays piano at Saint Paul Shipwreck in SF. Ira had a huge variety of music. thats what i call good taste in music. people who say they don’t like country… shoot. country is actually pretty relaxing. i can picture a lot of things when i listen to it. i heard tribal music, opera, country, r&b, soul, jazz, swing, hip hop, underground hip hop, house, everything besides techno, dubstep, and electro. ira wasn’t really high tech. very old fashioned. he was a vegetarian. had awesome dreadlocks. some missing teeth. somewhat disfigured feet. but he was so amazing! he didn’t use computers, laptops, touch screen cell phones, none of that high tech stuff. he didn’t even drink water from the fridge, he drank it from the kitchen sink! i remember going to his friend Bob’s house and boy, Ira is a true musician. He can play piano so well! i never heard anyone of freestyle on a piano like ira before. out of all the people i’ve seen and heard play piano, Ira is just too good. i don’t think anyone can amaze me more than he can. i remember seeing his family from New York City and we ate at an asian restaurant in SF and i met my ex sister in law, Sophie, and my ex niece, Ever. i miss them a lot. i remember camping with Ira, Jose, Justine, and my family. i remember biking with him, swimming with him at the cunningham pool and at another public pool with justin and jheilbert. i remember kuya going in the sauna with ira. i remember talking with ira about so many different things when he drove his new truck. that new tundra, man there’s so many memories in there. i remember when tanya would come over to my house, ira would take her home with me, and me and tanya would play our little games on the way to her house. i remember learning how to skip rocks from one of his friends that came from NYC. i remember seeing so many things with Ira. i remember he would come to support me and my kuya when we had marching or concert band events going on. we prayed together. i’ll never EVER forget the Jewish prayer he prayed with us before meals, when we prayed rosaries, the novena. just everything. i remember how he would always do silly things with our parrot Harry. SO MUCH MEMORIES. he would give him anything to eat. i really think that harry loves Ira the most. since Ira’s leaving today… idk whats gonna happen with Harry. i guess, its my turn to take care of Harry. but the thing i didn’t want to remember was when he started changing. when my grandma passed away. things started falling apart. everything was normal in my sophomore year in high school. its just, my mom and ira argued more than usual. my little brother justin started getting an attitude, and it seemed like there was an endless feud between ira and justin. they always shouted at each other. idk what was going on in my family. i was just getting scared. i remember we were going to LA one time, my lolo and ira would argue about something silly like tire pressure and the interior of the car. they would start yelling back at each other, and my lolo even started getting physical. that scared me so much… i didn’t know what to think or what to do, or what to say… i just sat there in shock. no one was hurt, but things really felt like everything was falling apart. junior year was almost the same as my sophomore year, its just that i could drive tanya home on my own now, and that DM came that year. senior year came, but that’s when things really started looking really different. kuya moved…. and things changed a lot more. i remember in late 2011, or early this year, my mom told me that they’re not together anymore, and ira’s living at my house as a boarder. i couldn’t really believe what i heard. i didn’t want to take it in. idk what happened in between those lines and why ira’s leaving. i really think there’s a couple possible things. i think it was because of the relationship he had with justin, they were just always so angry with each other all the time. tough love. but eventually, ira started being very nice to him. it could’ve been the relationship with my mom, they fought a lot too. ira would cuss at my mom, call her a motherfucking bitch. and i was scared of that so much. i juts remember hearing stuff like that. it could’ve been my lolo, and the feuds they had. one last incident between these two was when my house started having wild stray cats stay in my back yard. ira kept them and fed them. but my lolo wanted to kick them out cause their poo smelled really bad. ira can be strong-headed sometimes with some of the things he wants. my lolo hit him again too. i was just scared… its weird cause, i remember the only feud i had with ira was when we were building a new storage, and ira didn’t want me walking all up in his work area…  ira started changing, thats for sure. and i remember starting this year, ira and my mom wouldn’t sleep together anymore… i really don’t know what happened… i also think it’s because ira stopped spending time with myself and my kuya. i don’t know what happened to that honestly. me and my kuya were always so busy with dance. ira still played music in the house though, but it was louder than usual. and one thing i really don’t want to remember, he started to smoke… i couldn’t believe it. i didn’t know what was happening to my family anymore. but from the retreat #invitation2012 i had a refresher of what i want to do with my part in this family and as a person. Maybe God has something for me in store in the future. but i just hope wherever ira goes, he won’t forget what we shared. I’m really going to miss Ira after all that we’ve experienced together. i didn’t name everything, but its just hard taking everything in. so much is happening in this house… pray for me whoever read this blog up to this point… i’ll be praying for you too. especially for all the families who have been struggling similar with my struggles. i pray for your paths to be straight, and hope that things will be ok. this is all with love, i miss you Ira, and I know i won’t be able to have someone like you in this family ever again… 

sorry, this is one of my long blog posts. well, it’s summer time, nothing really to do. so if anything, you could read about my long year and struggles with Diversity Movement this year. i talk a little about my senior year, but it wasn’t that special as a student, but amazing as a leader. 

the beginning of this year, i had no expectations whatsoever of what was bound to happen for me. i could really care less about being a senior, i didn’t really like my class of 2012. idk, i just don’t like high school seniors because majority of some people were obnoxious and disrespectful to underclassmen in my opinion and based on what i saw. the only things i liked about being a senior was Mr. Henley’s class with all the insight of the government and what they’re hiding, how the media affects the mainstream, and a clearer view of democrats and republicans. i’m glad i finished the HenDawg express. it was an amazing ride. Mr. Woolard was a good teacher as well because he was so intellectually smart :P Mr. Champeau was good cause i learned a lot about acting, the origins of Broadway, and his exercises were fun, just didn’t like it when he was gone for periods of time. my other two classes, i was a TA, and a peer tutor for Algebra 1. being a peer tutor was awesome, but freshman don’t seem to pick up the concepts fast. helping them was fun, it was just hard jumping from person to person. Grad Nite was alright, but of course FanimeCon was better with the cyphers no lie. 

now for diversity movement, i didn’t know what was to come. all i knew for myself was that i really just wanted more experience to teach more improved dances to whoever showed up to take my free classes. it started off slow when the year began, we had to wait a couple weeks to use the classroom. at the time, i started teaching my latest piece that i struggled with at the start of summer, That Thing by Lauryn Hill. i had dancers come from last year, and dancers who i wanted to come. Austin Gutierrez, EJAY Pagaduan, and Jason Pham, i was glad they came. next week when i taught the dance again, new people came, Desiree Purisima, Alyssa Pascual, Ashley Pascua. in my head i was like, “hm, i’m not sure if they’re gonna be good dancers, but idc, were not the best team. the main purpose is to bring a better understanding of dance for whoever came to take my class.” after that day, Alyssa was fricken raw, i just completely underestimated her! next week more people came John Alfelor, Jaimee Roque, Kharra Bachoco, Marvin Culannay, and some other dude (but he didn’t stay). that’s when i taught “I Used to Love H.E.R” by Murs & 9th Wonder, and boy that was a struggle, i taught this dance for many weeks. in the middle of those weeks, we went to Brianna Grey’s house, and thats when i met RJ Guba, Jordan Urbano, and Rayanah Lizardo. i shared the reality of what happened to hip hop, and i felt that it inspired them. i really didn’t expect for Diversity Movement to keep getting more and more people. it was overwhelming! but it was hard training people who just started dancing and teaching intermediate/advanced dances. if the new people kept struggling, they might quit. so i made a more simple piece “Floetic” by Floetry. that week, Rancheska Macam and her friend Ashley Conanan joined the batch of dancers. and at the right time. DM reached a number of 28 people! that was crazy!!! it took me a couple weeks teaching. all of it put together, we were ready for the first rally. however, during the whole process of everything, Diversity Movement for some reason felt different. the leaders and myself didn’t know what it was. but our performance, Dedication to Hip Hop, was a great way to start the year. playing ground sky was awesome. we did the performance again at AC American Canyon High School. but after that performance, things started to look down. the next couple weeks, i wanted to start a new project, Dedication to my Kuya, and just teach all of his dances that i collabed with him. we started having vent sessions. but during those weeks, i felt disrespected by DM a lot. during the classes, people wouldn’t stop talking, being so loud, and before classes, they didnt seem as excited to dance. thats when things were getting really different. i started to question, is it some of the new people? myself? or the fact that we don’t have Ms. Dilley anymore? one day, i was completely mad at DM for being so tired of the disrespect. Froilan came in an hour later after i was talking, and he was the only one who stepped and said something. it was emotional surprisingly, but it made sense. in the first year for DM, we were all family, no real cliques, just everyone close together. no one feeling like an outsider. but froi felt like that. during weekends, i would hang out with some of DM and not everyone. and when we were at AC, i guess Froi got tired of me doing my own dances that i always saw from YouTube. he told me that everyone in this team has potential, and i failed to recognize that. but idk, i basically wanted to get better at that point. i disagree, yet agree with some of those statements he made because i know i acknowledged a couple of people, but not everyone. you know? some other people stepped to say something too, Des Payumo, Ashley Nagal, Niko Haber. they had their say. after that day, i took everything in, and i made things better. we even had a picnic at blue rock springs the following weekend. 

during the whole process of dedication to hip hop, i also had another opportunity to teach dance other than DM. and it was the NBAA North Bay Athletic Association, and i taught hip hop. i carried on the torch for my kuya. but it died down after a while because only Dale would show up to class. that died down too for me as well :( i taught every monday night, but thats over.

after that crazy week. we had another opportunity coming up for us, the parol festival.  at this point, i lost a lot of dancers… even some from the first year of DM. Rancheska Macam, Desiree Purisima, Ashley Conanan, Kharra Bachoco, Daryl Masajo, Jordan Jarmin, Briana Omori, Amber Carter, Marvin Culannay and even my more experienced dancers… Austin Gutierrez, Jek Montehermoso, and Jason Pham… i couldn’t believe it. i lost at least 12 dancers from the 27 i had. DM dropped to at least 15 to 16 people. i had so much expectations from the big group, but i understand that life happens, and that people come and they go. but it didn’t matter if i lost a big quantity, i looked for quality. so i made a dance that my kuya and S**t kingz inspired me to do. UPULAR by DJ POGO, one of my most favorite dances i’ve made this school year. thankfully, this dance made majority of people stay. i was hoping i wouldn’t lose more numbers. class was still a little disrespectful, but it didn’t matter. Niko learned the dance too! during the time, we learned how to do the Tinikling, a Filipino folk dance. it was weird, Ejay Pagaduan was there, but he didn’t learn Upular, to me that hurt a little, but its ok, i understand. we finally performed at Parol Festival. it was fun! but we had to wait a long time for Upular. people were hating on us! but whatever! no one at Bethel could really dance hip hop anyway! we did that same show again at Brianna Grey’s Christmas lighting! man… that was one of the funnest days DM ever had. hot chocolate, Christmas Tree Lighting, Despicable Me, jumpers, cookies, the only thing that was bad was that it was cold. funny thing was, we did Dedication to Hip Hop again too as an encore! 

winter break came, and DM took a break… not me. if any of you remember reading some of my stuff, during winter break, i would post stuff saying “yes! 13 eight counts done! 12 eight counts done! 21 eight counts done!” i made three dances over the break for the upcoming show that DM did and HiDep did… BLACK HISTORY MONTH. during break, i struggled with one piece, “Holdin’ U Down” by Jazmine Sullivan. i went to Niko’s house for some help, cause i couldn’t really think of anything for the next transitions from move to move. niko didn’t give me any moves, but seeing him helped motivated me to finish the piece. and i did :) before break was over, i remember during one of our good vent sessions Grey talked about how at times she felt suicidal, and Jaimee talked about how she really misses her mom since she passed away. so one day during break i was watching Moto Oguri of S**t Kingz and he danced to an artist i’ve never heard before, LEDISI. and the song was super chill “Simple.” so i looked up some of Ledisi’s songs, and i eventually found “Alright.” Two days before break was over, i really wanted to touch up on this song because i couldn’t stop thinking of what Grey said and what Jaimee had said. so i did it. i finished a good amount of it. when break was over, i taught the three dances “Constant Surprises” by Little Dragon “Holdin’ U Down” and “Alright.” and everyone loved it. Froi helped me with the first part of staging Constant surprises. the funny thing is, Constant surprises, i didn’t know it was by Little Dragon. i took Mariel Martin and Tracy Seiler’s class with Niko, Tanya, and Maria!!! and Tracy’s song choice was a little dragon song! coincidence! :P anyway… the theme for Black History Month this year, it goes with the song titles and about life itself. life gives us Constant Surprises that can Hold you down… but it takes time for to realize that things in the end will be Alright. BHM was different this year only because the directors. Mr. Punjabi was a douche bag. i swear… i was trying to be very professional with everything, but he was just being disrespectful. but whatever, we killed the show anyway. i thought it was funny when we didn’t show up on friday night. performed it like 4 times, that was a good amount. 

the weird thing that happened for this year, talent show started a month early. in DM, before we start practice at 4 o clock, there’s an hour in between from 3 to 4 where we do our homework and do whatever’s productive in that time period. last year, i remember DM would always just go straight to the room, READY TO DANCE. and plus, we would be dancing even before practice actually started. some of us actually did homework, Grey even did Niko’s homework. but this year… :/ it was quiet, and not everyone would be in the room right after school ://///// so it wasn’t as exciting… i would though. tanya would. daryl would. sigh…. jeez… its whatever. it was crunch time for DM for the talent show. during Black History Month, i watched The Muppets Movie! with my family! and i showed tanya Beaker. we watched him together! it was so funny! we made a simple beginning for the talent show when we found Habanera by Beaker. it was awesome! during the time i wanted to do a dedication for my kuya, i brought back Showgirl by Bluey Robinson, and Free by Lisa Shaw! those were two dances i collabed with my kuya. and i decided to put in Upular! Desiree Payumo suggested to put in our traditional DM K-pop closing piece with “I Am the Best” by 2NE1. so altogether, the show was just VERY VERY FUN! we didn’t compete this year in the talent show, and most of the dances were grounded with less transitions and movement due to the little time we had. we finished it all in 3 days!!! on YouTube, we got 4k views. i was so amazed! that was the most views we have ever gotten on YouTube… EVER!!! sadly Alyssa Pascual and Brianna Grey couldn’t do it… i wish they did. but still it was one of the best shows ever. only 11 of us did it, but still one of our best shows to date. surprisingly someone from who i underestimated got so much better from day one. JORDAN URBANO. 

after a while, we got more opportunities to perform for the school and outside of school! we performed at the Open House where we did Black History Month again. we performed at the English Learner’s Awards Ceremony where we did Talent Show again. we also did talent show another time at Hogan Middle School, i forgot what the event was called though :P and we did talent show the very last time at Saint Joseph’s Church in support of Ashley Nagal! all of it was fun, but i burned my knee on the rug for doing a jazz split. 

after all these fun performances and ups and downs of DM. it was time for the last show for me to choreograph and put together. spring break came, and i made two dances. my first dance, i made another piece to Ledisi to her song “You and Me” and this song was mainly about each other in DM. despite some bad times we had, we still had some crazy experiences individually and together. it was all the best thing to experience no lie. and the song really just reflected how it’s all about us no matter what time we went through. the next dance i choreographed was with my kuya. he came back from LA to get a new phone for the weekend, while he was here, we choreographed to Jeff Bernat’s “Just Vibe.” really chill piece. i didn’t really focus on a message, but more of a feeling and groove. and i love the turn out. the next piece i wanted to bring was Sarari by Ame. this piece overall is a housing piece, and i made this with my kuya back in late January for my little brother’s, Justin’s, talent show in Saint Basil’s. Sarari, i recycled a couple moves from that dance into upular, constant surprises, and alright, so that dance is like a summary of what we did this year. i started teaching the dances when spring break was over. Jek came back!! however, there was a time when we needed to start practice, but Daryl and some of the folks in the room would always play Yu-Gi-Oh before practice would start. there was one day, we waited for them to stop, but they didn’t stop like a half hour later. that was one of the things that honestly ticked me off this whole year. sorry Daryl if you’re reading this, but grow up man come on… i thought you were better than that. because of that incident, i made the rule to ban yu gi oh from the room because it was one of the biggest distractions and made the room really roudy and loud. they played yu gi oh ever since the start of the year from Dedication to hip hop to this point on. i’m actually really happy i made that rule. everyone else agreed upon it, so why not? daryl, i’m not sorry actually. i know i got some beef, especially hearing from Marvin and some folks. but i did what i had to do to finish the show. because of that rule, i lost Marvin and Daryl cause they said they were gonna come back. anyway… while i taught, everybody wanted to do something from Avatar the Legend of Korra. so i found a random dubstep house feel that started with “BE THE LEAF!” and i choreographed it! it was fun! i even did my first flip in a DM showcase with John Alfelor! Jordan Urbano, Ejay, and, Tanya unfortunately was doing cyber high. but eventually completed it and still made time for practice and being in the show. Desiree Purisima on the other hand, said she was gonna come back, but missed an important mandatory practice date. Austin and Jason, i thought were gonna come back as well, but didn’t, i understand though, they both have jobs and in Chapkis Dance. Jordan Jarmin came back, but he couldn’t make every mandatory practice :( but it’s alright. next thing that came up for this show was Desiree Payumo’s idea of a Kpop mixed with both 2NE1’s I Am the Best and Big Bang’s Fantastic Baby. that took a while, but we pulled through it! i know we always end with Kpop, but i wanted something different since it was my last show. tanya and i had some crazy drama in between us, i’m not gonna go into detail with it, but things were crazy. but i wanted to show the school that a couple really does have love. all the I Love Yous really meant something between me and tanya. so i made Just Vibe the last dance, and the first time Diversity Movement doing a couple piece. all the time and practices were all a blur to me, but i know in the end, everything was an awesome turn out. performance day finally came. we performed for both rallys again like Dedication to hip hop. and as usual, the 2nd one turned out to be the better performance. and overall, it was just amazing. haters hated, teachers loved it, my close friends liked it. i’m just gonna miss a lot of people that came through this year. it was all an amazing experience from start to finish. we did this show again at Pista Sa Nayon, and it was fun! i slipped on my butt doing the front flip though. it’s all coming to a close in my high school life, but pursuing my higher education, i’m not gonna expect anything crazy, but myself knowing that i need to work hard entering this world of work and whatever possibilities may be.

thank you to whoever read my blog at this point. but i wanna say a little something more to the people who stayed with me the whole way through… 

Tanya, Jordan, Jaimee, John, Ashley P, Ashley N, Alyssa, Des, Grey, Froi,
I just wanna thank you guys so much for staying strong and dancing with me and altogether. You know? It was a good year overall, and everything we accomplished, bring it the next year wherever you guys will be. Don’t forget all that I’ve taught you, and remember to innovate in order to create. Stay INSPIRED. Let your inspiration be your motivation to become better dancers and better people.

Thank you… Love, Your Leader, Joey Dominguez

now as for the people who missed out and left…
YA’LL MISSED OUT!!! I’m not gonna lie, I remember hearing Froi and Ashley, they said “DM is the life of Bethel!” forreal though. what you see when we perform isn’t the full effect of everything. all the hard work that we put onto that stage is all the real foundation that people should experience. come out for DM next year! you can make it a fun experience if you really work hard and make it fun.

to Ms. Brown and to everyone who’s reading
i had an opportunity this year to get paid for all the hours i worked with these kids. imagine this… 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. 10 hours a week. 40 hours a month. i could’ve got paid minimum wage for all those hours… almost $80 a month? never got it… but it doesnt matter. i was in high school. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY, IT’S ABOUT DANCE…. but still, a little money could’ve helped. idk what it was, the budget cuts, district getting laid off, idk idc…. i just love doing what i do. the thing i truly believe that felt different about this year…. Ms. Dilley and Ms. Diaz from the after school program left…. honestly being in the career center everyday after school was different without them. i felt that if they stayed this year, i would’ve got paid, learn more about subsidies and scholarships… but it doesn’t matter. my hopes were high and i had a lot of expectations for this year. i remember telling Jordan Urbano, all my expectations turned out to be different. 

Morale of the story…

don’t expect too much. 

next blog i’ll write about my first time teaching an actual workshop and Patrick Cruz’s workshop at Chapkis Dance. i could’ve taught better imo. but an amazing experience. and honestly… MY FIRST TIME GETTING PAID… EVER. thanks Josh. thank you everyone. i’m off to go for the world. thanks Mr.Valenzuela for letting us use the room a second year. all of this was truly a blessing. Thank you God for all Your blessings.