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Wendy's Bio
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Dance: During her youth, Wendy studied ballet, jazz, and modern as a requirement of her gymnastics coach. Years later, she taught the same dance skills to her own gymnastics students. Additionally, she taught aerobics and produced cheerleading choreographies. In 1992, she trained aerobics instructors in Costa Rica. In adulthood, Wendy's involvement in traditional dance has been shadowed by her success as a professional Latin dancer (since 1998). For several years, she owned a successful local dance company in affluent Orange County, California called OCsalsa. Through OCsalsa, she performed and taught workshops with her former dance partner, Raul, in venues across California. The dance duo had a large regular following in terms of regular students who attended their classes at studios and nightclubs. Wendy and her partner performed Latin dances at sell-out shows every Friday night for three years at Habana, OC's top gourmet Cuban restaurant. Additionally, they taught thousands of people (70% of whom were non-Latino) to dance Latin social dances like salsa, merengue, and cha cha. Through her company, OCsalsa, Wendy had the opportunity to perform and teach at many cultural festivals, corporate events, weddings, political party events, charity events, schools, etc. Wendy's strength's as a dance teacher are patience, her ability to breakdown the steps and communicate them effectively, sensitivity, empathy, and a fun, positive attitude. |
Cheer: Wendy first began cheerleading in elementary school and later was a Varsity cheerleader in both high school and college. On all of her cheerleading squads, Wendy was the #1 female tumbler and was the designated flyer for any pyramid, stunt, or basket toss requiring flipping or twisting. Wendy's high school and college squads were coed. After college, she coached cheerleading at public and private schools, in addition to directing an all-star cheer program at the YMCA Teen Center in La Jolla, California. At one school, she started all-inclusive JV and Varsity cheer programs from scratch and had over 50 girls from varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds trained and competing in just the first year. Her most improved cheerleading trainee was a young lady (Marie) with Down's syndrome who was wheelchair bound! Wendy and her partner Andy are both AACCA safety-certified and have up-to-date training from NFHS in teaching motions, jumps, and tumbling, as well as partner stunt progressions. They are both members of the Texas Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (TACCA) and are Red Cross certified in First Aid and Adult, Child, and Infant CPR. |
Tumbling/Gymnastics: Wendy participated in gymnastics and ballet from age 4 through 14, and then began coaching at age 14, being assigned the pre-team as her first group. In gymnastics, she excelled at floor exercise and vaulting, the two "power" events. Although she competed in all required events for years, Wendy's passion was always for tumbling and trampoline and she longed for a power tumbling class, like the classes A.I.M. is offering. She also spent one year studying rhythmic gymnastics, an endeavor which required her to intensify the dance training she had been undergoing for years as a requirement of her gymnastics program. At age 22, Wendy had the fascinating opportunity to be the assistant coach for the Costa Rican Women's National Gymnastics Team, working alongside several distinguished Russian and Japanese coaches. While there, she had the joyful opportunity to revisit power tumbling and cheer stunting along with the other coaches after the teams went home each night. As co-director of A.I.M., Wendy teaches tumbling and trampoline - her passions - to prospective and current cheerleaders, as well as board sports participants who need to learn to flip and twist. Teaching: While coaching cheerleading, Wendy worked for five years in California public schools as a bilingual teacher's assistant, a bilingual elementary teacher, a Spanish teacher, and an English as a Second Language teacher. While teaching, she attended intensive night classes in the Bilingual, Cross-Cultural, Language-Acquisition (BCLAD) teaching credential program at a local university. Through these classes, she learned many teaching techniques which are transferable across all disciplines, including positive communication, learning modalities, cultural sensitivity, strategies for integrating Latino children and families into mainstream opportunities, lesson plan development, learning disorders, curriculum development, etc. With this diverse background, Wendy is poised to provide top-notch dance, power tumbling, and cheerleading instruction for the clients of A.I.M.
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