Fresno eye surgeon shows it's never too late to learn to dance

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- It's never too late to learn to dance. That's the motto of one Fresno eye surgeon who took up ballroom dancing just a few years ago and is now competing on the national stage.

By day, Dr. Vivian Kim is a retina specialist. She treats adults and children with vitreol and retina diseases or injuries at Eye-Q Vision Care in Northeast Fresno.

By night, Dr. Kim can be found at the dance studio, whirling and twirling across the floor.

Dr. Kim says her love of dance began as a teenager doing disco in her parent's basement. It wasn't until her 40s she took the next step. A friend took her to a salsa club and she was frustrated she didn't know the dance. It was just the motivation she needed to get started.

"I said to him, 'Henry, you have to find me an instructor here in Fresno.' And so he told me about an instructor at a studio in Fresno and when I immediately started lessons with him I told him, 'I want to compete,'" Dr. Kim said.

That instructor was Marcelo Molina -- the current U.S. Argentine tango champion who teaches at Diana's Studio of Dance in Downtown Fresno. In order to compete, Dr. Kim had to learn several ballroom dances and had to hire additional instructors. Radomir Pashov teaches her in Phoenix and she has yet another instructor in L.A. After her first competition, she quickly learned there's much more to ballroom than just the dance.

Dr. Kim said, "I didn't know anything about ballroom, and the whole thing about the competing world is it's about the makeup, and the look, and the dresses, the beautiful dresses, and the long nails, and the eyelashes, and I looked at my instructor and said, 'I have to do all that?'"

Dr. Kim has since added dozens of dresses and shoes to her wardrobe, although she skips the long nails and false eyelashes.

In the process of practicing and competing, the doctor/dancer has discovered there are added benefits to getting your feet moving.

"I hate going to the gym," she said. "Running bores me so much. If I had to run at the gym on a treadmill, I'd probably never do it. So there's the cardio, and it's the memory. Like they say, If you're not using your mind, you're losing it, right? As we all get older?"

Dr. Kim practices nearly every day, several hours a day. She says she competes five or six times a year. It's about all she has time for, unless of course, she were to quit her day job.