I'd feel a little bit dead inside, if I didn't have dancing. It's such a way of expression and exercise and life and love. You laugh, when you're being corny and dorky-dancing. It's everything.
I don't exercise. I just walk my dogs and run up and down the stairs every day because I've got a big house so you have to do that constantly. That's my exercise. Oh and dancing, I like dancing.
Dancing is the best exercise. Not only is it great cardio, but it works everything, strengthening your whole body.
We were doing the same thing. We will never have "a" Chicano English or Spanish because of regional differences. But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish. What we do have to do is fight for the right to use those two languages in the way that it serves us. Nuevo-mexicanos have done it very well for hundreds of years, inventing words where they don't have them. I think the future of our language is where we claim our bilingualism for its utility.
I've dedicated my life to competitive dancing, so I'd like to pass that on to others. You can't be half-hearted about competitive dancing, you have to be prepared to give your whole life over to it.
Spanish is a poetic language, in particular the Spanish of Mexico which has a wonderful animistic attitude you might not see in the Spanish of the peninsula. I think it has to do with the indigenous way of looking at nature.
I don't speak Spanish. I've done Spanish 1 and 2 classes. My grandma asked me when I was young if I wanted to learn Spanish, and I guess I was young. I should have, because it would have helped me a lot.
I'm very, very Spanish. I have fat cheeks on both ends. I'm sitting on my Spanish part. And it's my heart, the way I am, the way I speak. It has nothing to do with the way I look.
I like to use exercise classes as a way of understanding what people are doing. I'm promiscuous in terms of exercise. You see what people are wearing. You see what people are responding to. You see what the music is they're listening to. An exercise class is social anthropology: what clothes people are wearing, what are the new sneakers.
I was out dancing with one actress or another. And that got press. Even when it didn't, the whole town knew I was a dancing fool, and since I couldn't very well dance with a man, they saw me dancing with a lady, and they assumed the rest.
The sound of the rain needs no translation. In music one doesn't make the end of the composition the point of the composition... Same way in dancing, you don't aim at one particular spot in the room... The whole point of dancing is the dance.
You have to be aware. Like, I'm not going to do any downhill skiing. It looks like a whole lot of fun, but I'm not going to risk breaking a leg. I want to be dancing the way I'm dancing now for 30 more years.
Me whole life, me whole childhood, me whole growing up, the competitions I went for and the weekends doing the dancing and all the shows, was to be a singer.
We all need to stomp out balkanization. No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.
There's no better exercise than dancing. 'Dancing with the Stars' is amazing. I used to take it for granted, but the three months you spend on the show, with that grueling regimen, you just shed weight. You can eat anything you want and it doesn't stick.
Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.