4 wall - 32 counts - intermediate

“My name is Ruben Luna and I am fromCalifornia, USA. I was fortunate enoughto grow up in Southern California wherethe weather is probably 70-75 degreesall year round. So as a child as you canimagine we took advantage of beingoutdoors a lot and as a youth I was ableto play lots of sports, I tried them all.“When I was at college I took my firstmodern dance class. That was myfirst exposure to dance and little did Iknow I would still be dancing now. Afterleaving school I moved to New York fora period of time, I travelled a lot, I gotto see most of the east coast, drovethrough Canada and I found my wayhome about eight years later. I startedworking in marketing and advertising.This is when I met my wife, Susanna, of17 years.Ruben’s love of Line dancing beganseveral years ago thanks to his wife.“If it wasn’t for Susanna I would not bedancing today. She had a couple offriends who were dancing in their garagewith a private instructor, there were twocouples and they kept boasting howmuch fun they were having, dancing,socialising, enjoying the music,exercising. So of course she got allmotivated and she wanted to go, sheasked me and I said ‘NO WAY’. I thinkbecause of my preconceived notion ofLine dance and country, although I dolike country music I couldn’t listen tocountry with every song.“She kept asking me for about threeweeks but I still wouldn’t go until I finallysaid, ‘Okay I will go just one time and ifI don’t like it please don’t ask me again,I will show my support to you by goingthis once.’ The first dance we learntwas Black Velvet, I picked it up quiteeasy and the instructor was pleasedwith me, the next challenging dancewas Crabbucket by Gerard Murphy andI couldn’t believe I got it. I loved themusic and I thought it was the coolestdance ever and most of all, this is FUN.Of course I couldn’t tell my wife that.On the way home she asked me whatI thought and I said, ‘yeh it was okay’.”Well it only took that one time to getRuben hooked. He went from notwanting to dance to dancing four tofive times a week. “What I love aboutLine dancing, well there are a coupleof things really. The fact that you areable to travel, meet up with people thathave similar likes, dance addicts youcould call them, the fact that you candance and talk about dance. The socialand creative aspect of it, those are thethings I enjoy about Line dancing.“About a year after I started dancing Idiscovered there were competitions notonly for dancing but for choreographingas well which I thought was interesting.My instructors at the time were Dougand Jackie Miranda and I asked themif they thought I would be capable tochoreograph a dance, they said yes,we’ll help you and support you, so Idecided to give it a go.“I still have ambitions that I would loveto achieve. I would love to travel to moreparts of the world that I have not yetvisited, I’ve never been to Australia, Asiaand if Line dancing can take me there Ithink that would be great. I think I wouldlike to try, one day in the future, to holdan event. As a business owner I see allthe hard work that goes in to it and seeall the folks who make it a successfulevent. I would like to do it one time justto show to myself that I can do it and doit right, I think that would be one thingthat I would still like to do.“To sum up Line dance I think I wouldhave to say, freedom of expressionthrough body movement and music. Ona lighter note, I guess I would say, a badday of Line dance sure beats a goodday at the office any day.”Watch out for Ruben’s full videointerview out soon in onLinedancerWeekly.www.linedancermagazine.com May 2013 • 21