Check out a photo of Patrick Moriarity dancing, and you'd never guess he's the guy who used to stand in the corner and refuse to dance.

The photos show a confident man with the posture and attitude of a poised, professional salsa dancer. They don't show the guy who was too scared to even try to move on a dance floor.

Moriarity can laugh now, a little, about that guy, remembering the one time he did try to dance - in the safety of his own bedroom, with the door closed.

"I just felt really stupid," he says now, with a bit of a chuckle. "I truly was horrified to dance."

He was a teenager then. Flash forward to age 36, and Moriarity is running his own salsa dance company, Dance Vancouver, and getting ready to take to the stage at the Vancouver International Salsafestival this week.

Moriarity, who lived and taught in Burnaby for six years, will be one of the instructors for a full-day introductory salsa bootcamp being held Saturday. He'll also take to the stage on Friday night with partner Scarlet Sanchez-Fuentes, alongside their mentors, John Navarez and Liz Rojas of Salsamania in San Francisco.

It's a big leap from where Moriarity used to be - and even more of a leap when you consider that he didn't even take up dancing till age 27. Though he'd always had a hidden hankering to learn to dance, he didn't do anything about it until a painful breakup made him take stock of his life. His mother told him he should take the time to pursue things he was passionate about.

"At that time, I wasn't really passionate about anything," Moriarity says.

That fact struck him as so sad that he realized it was time to tackle that "things I've always wanted to try" list.

He had a brief fling with mountain biking - which ended when a fall convinced him he could seriously hurt himself - and then moved on to dancing.

He hasn't looked back.

Moriarity was drawn to salsa because it came wrapped up in a social package, with organized dance events at clubs around Vancouver.

At first, he pursued salsa as just a social and recreational outing. But, he notes, he gradually got drawn further into the world and realized that it was, indeed, something he was truly passionate about.

"There's something a little bit deeper, at least for me, when it comes to dancing," he says.

By 2006, he was so immersed in salsa dancing that he was running his own company, Dance Vancouver, which offers salsa lessons at various clubs and venues around Vancouver.

These days, he laughs, it's gotten so busy that he and Sanchez-Fuentes are going to have to figure out how to duplicate themselves to get everything done.

But he's excited to be part of Salsafestival this weekend. Teaching the beginner bootcamp, in particular, appeals to him because it gives him a chance to share his message about salsa: "It's something everybody and anybody can do, and everybody and anybody is welcome."

If he can, he says, anyone can.

"I'm just a totally regular guy," he says. "I had zero, zero, zero training. I came into this with no background and a lot of fear."

For a full schedule of classes offered by Dance Vancouver, check out the website at www.dancevancouver.ca.

Salsafestival is on March 3 to 6 at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver. See www.salsafestival.ca.