Your Dance Instructor in OsakaFrom a first step in Colombia to a floor in Honmachi.

I spent my early life moving from place to place. At 18, I went to Colombia to study, and to look for a little adventure before adult life began.

There, I joined a three-day school seminar on a big ranch with other students. And in the evenings, of course, there was dancing.

I had never danced before, and I was terrified of joining in. I was also the only Japanese person there, and I felt I would stick out in all the wrong ways.

So I quickly asked a friend, Sebastian, to teach me a few simple steps. “Sure, it’s easy, just do this,” he said. He asked a girl nearby to dance, and what followed looked like pure magic. She smiled the whole time; she was clearly having so much fun.

As a young man, leading a partner to the music without any set choreography made no sense to me, and that is exactly what made me want to learn more.

I will never forget that feeling.

Back in Japan, a childhood friend told me about a job at a ballroom dance studio that would train me as an instructor and support me along the way. It sounded like a dream come true.

Little did I know, walking into that interview, that more than 15 years later I would still be teaching, still dancing, and still loving it.

Koji