We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karla Maldonado. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karla below.
Karla, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
It’s a song from a Mexican band. It was more about the moment when I was listening to this song. I was going through a very rough time in my life, it was early morning, I was driving and this song came up, I saw the name of the song, the sunrise, the weather felt amazing. The song starts in a very soft way with a clear and strong clave sound. All of that together made me pay attention to the lyrics, it talks about a place where love, passion for music and dancing came together. The name of this place is Kumbala. My first thought was: “If I ever have my own dance studio, I would name it like that, Kumbala”.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been teaching people how to dance latin rhythms (salsa, bachata, cumbia, reggaeton) for 8 years now here in the Dallas area. Three years ago I decided to open up my own dance studio, Kumbala, where we offer daily group and private classes from beginner to advance. The feedback from our students has been consistent through the years, they say this is such the best place to learn in DFW with a great environment, amazing energy, and passionate teachers, among other comments.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Definitely the COVID global pandemic. For me as well as for the rest of the world it was a really hard time. I was confused, scared and completely unmotivated. A huge part of my business is social interaction. We teach social partner dancing, and get in touch with our creative side as we come up with dance patterns or routines. COVID took that away from me, I did not have the motivation, I felt trapped and frustrated. A lot of dancers around the world started doing live classes on social media, I could not put myself in front of a camera with my low energy and bad mental state. Some days I would literally throw my phone across the room because watching everyone else dance would make me feel helpless.
One day I woke up really fed up with the situation. I started doing research on how to properly offer an online dance class, what equipment I would need, the type of marketing, how to train myself, the structure of the class and more details. This gave me a very small but real light at the end of the tunnel, a tunnel that we didn’t know how long it would be.
Teaching those online classes, seeing familiar faces even if it was only online. Putting myself on a schedule, being productive and proactive helped changed my attitude and helped me learn to love what I love the most – teaching a dance class! The feedback from my students was absolutely amazing. I not only helped myself, but I was able to help them go through those very difficult times as well.
Any advice for managing a team?
Respect each other, learn to give proper and efficient feedback, take feedback without getting hurt or taking it too personal and appreciate the time and love the team puts into their work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kumbaladancestudio.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/kumbaladancestudio
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/kumbaladancestudio
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/karla-maldonado-04902121/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/dancekumbala
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCP5zbeXaXvoUiSU8V28WuQg
- Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/kumbala-dance-studio-farmers-branch
Image Credits
Joanna Serrano