Hi, I’m Jasper and this is EVERYTHING about my dance journey!

I was born and raised in the Bay Area and have lived here my entire life. I was one of those little kids dancing everywhere before I even knew how to say the word. I eventually had a spike of interest in dance after I watched the 2004 film, You Got Served. All of it was exciting to watch. It focused on Hip-Hop with group choreography, freestyling—and the most inspiring style to me—Breakdancing. I was around ten when I saw the movie and didn’t have any environment to learn how to dance. My parents never really knew how passionate about dance I felt back then because I was still discovering it for myself, so I didn’t know about classes at a young age. In middle school I would always be a wallflower at school dances until a song I liked came on. Once one did, I would quickly try a couple Breakdance moves that I remembered seeing. At the time that was the extent of my dancing—but hey, I’m just proud I was dancing in public at 13 years old without any guidance. Dancing always felt natural & filled me with purpsose.

The moment I got into High School, one club instantly caught my attention on the list. The Hip-Hop Club. I joined immediately and dove into the culture of group studio dance sessions where you share passion, knowledge, and make new experiences training together. When I joined as a freshman, the juniors and seniors at the time were leading it and helping guide the younger students as they picked up different styles (mainly Breakdancing). Once the juniors and seniors left, there was no one assigned to follow up with running it, so the school was simply going to remove it from the list, but I volunteered to do so because I was so passionate about dance and sharing the experience and knowledge I gained up to that point. I was simultaneously juggling Football and running the club on top of my academics for 2 years, but it was well worth it for both experiences. By joining the club, I got to experience learning through guidance and constantly had a place to practice. It was also in High School that I got my first taste of performing and competing. Amongst local schools, we would ocassionally organize little competitions with no prize, just passion. At the time I hadn’t even realized how far our affinity for dance had taken us.

Once I got into College I knew the first thing I wanted to do was find a similar club. And sure enough, there was indeed a Hip-Hop Club, 4 Elements. Within this club I played a little more in the same style environment and got to dance several times on a stage that we had on campus. There were a couple more local, professionally organized competitions I participated in during that time. Although I never won those those specific tournaments, they were amazing, humbling experiences that taught me how to compete confidently in dance and how to fall into a state of full expression.

On August 19th in 2017 I got into a motorcylce accident on the freeway on my way to work. I rolled on the ground several times. The person who caused the accident simply continued through traffic. Several witnesses helped obtain the person’s license plate and all legal matters were sorted. But that’s not what concerned me. Unfortunately, I was not in full gear: I had my helmet, gloves, and a motorcycle jacket on. My legs and sneakers were exposed so when I fell going around 50mph I experienced decent abrasion. Luckily nothing was broken, but I had definitely torn ligaments and my ankles were swollen enough that I couldn’t walk without crutches. I had tickets to music shows that upcoming month so I spent those nights at venues with my crutches nodding my head but unable to dance like I always would. I instantly realized in that moment that dance was my life. And without dance, I did not feel alive. Eventually when my ankles started to heal, I started utilizing Shuffling as a form of PT on top of stretching, icing, heating, compressing, and massaging on a daily basis. I would need to take it very easy and was unable to actually put full energy into it, but the Runningman and T-steps are what essentially helped me recover my ankle strength and mobility.

A short while later, in November 2019, SFBADM was born. Because of COVID, all Bay Area events that we all thoroughly enjoyed were being cancelled and some cherished venues went out of business or had to implement new business strategies to continue operating. Amidst the beginning of the pandemic I started thinking, “maybe we can just have dance meetups outdoors so people can still replicate the same environment you’d experience in a dance circle at an event. That way people could also social distance if they preferred.” We started hosting weekly meetups with simple social media advertising, our phones for cameras, and a small JBL speaker for music. Looking back now, we have come a long way. As a community, over the years we’ve put in the effort to constantly improve our events. We now have live DJ setups/music, professional grade cameras, and a solid communication system. Since SFBADM began, we’ve met many faces, made many travel experiences, hosted different types of events (including meetups, tournaments, and collaborative community art projects). We’ve had many bonding experiences that make us the community we are today. We are not just a dance community—we’re a family.

In College, I was working in restaurants, tax offices, & recycling centers, but when I graduated, I specifically went into banking. This was my first real look at what corporate lifestyle looked and felt like. Financially comfortable, but not emotionally or spiritually rewarding. Being in the financial industry, work was always so serious and whenever something went wrong, the clientele felt within their rights to talk down to whomever was helping them at the time as if they were a malfunctioning tool rather a person. My entire being eventually fell into depression. It took me 4 years of working in a few different financial institutions to realize coroporate was not the path I wanted, but I didn’t know what else I would do at the time. Within those 4 years, all I could think about was “climbing the corporate ladder” and that if I didn’t do that I was a complete failure. Nobody in my environments at the time was encouraging anyone to pursue their dreams or careers. Everyone I knew consumed the mentality fabricated by the corporate lifestyle that we live to work a nine to five and there’s nothing more for us. My brain didn’t understand it at the time, but I had a feeling that wasn’t and shouldn’t be the case.

Now comes the best part… in 2021 a dance team, Shuffolution, was formed to perform for season 16 of America’s Got Talent. An AGT talent scout reached out to our dear friend Tori Nishino. She then reached out to Vanesa Seco, who was already a widely known professional Shuffler, to start creating a team of talented, passionate individuals to represent Shuffling on the big stage. Once we united, we became a little family of our own. At the time, I was still working my nine to five at a financial institution Monday through Friday. So every Friday night I would pack my things after work and drive a total of 14 hours to and from SoCal for dance rehearsal every weekend. This endeavour lasted around 4 months until we had our in-person audition for AGT. We didn’t get the golden buzzer—BUT WE MADE IT IN! I was so proud of us and all the work our newfound family had put in with just a few months. Importantly for my personal growth, this opportunity showed allowed me to prove to myself that I could pursue dance as a career.

Before those 4 months of training ended I had quit my job. There was a point I could not do the 7 day work week any more. I was falling asleep at work, I was never fully mentally present due to fatigue, my body never had a chance to rest, and I was always on the go—missing fun opportunities on occasion. All I knew was that I wanted to dance more and continue doing it professionally. Performance wasn’t necessarily on my mind because my passion always resided with instructing. I truly find peace and passion in sharing my dance knowledge and experience with others. It has always been the most healing and impactful thing in my life and to see it positively affect others in any way is always heartwarming.

I came up with my nickname, JasperDances, because alliterations are my favorite literary device and I wanted my nickname to define what I want my life to revolve around. As such, I wanted my business name to depict my intention when interacting with others. And my favorite form of interaction is through dance. Thus, JasperDancesWithYou had come to fruition.

As this is written, it is January 1st of 2025 I became an official business owner on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24th) but have officially published my first website ever today.

Thank you for reading all the way here! You now know my entire dance journey… so far!

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