Now like anything else you are only going to get better if you work on it. It is not going to be like you come to dance one day and can do 15 turns. It takes a lot of work, effort, dedication and time. I love going to dance every night but at times I just want to go home and sleep and relax. Dance is what makes me the happiest though and always will. The years that I have not had dance in my life, since for a year here and there I did not dance and during those times I can not tell you how incomplete my life felt. Those were the years of seventh and ninth grade due to a studio situation, I did not dance. Both of those years were absolutely horrible for multiple reasons. However I feel as though if dance was in my life those years, they could have maybe be better. Overall I love going to dance and during those years I had lost so much technique that I had to gain back the next year. It has been very challenging to catch up this year with all the other dancers. They improved so much while I was not there and I wanted to gain my technique back. This year I have been taking extra class to try and improve my technique more. I had been gaining my flexibility back by stretching in the summer. This work had kind of backfired since about three months ago I tore both my left and right hamstring muscles. I was so upset and mad. I wanted to improve but this injury got in the way. I realized I had to get help to heal them by getting physical therapy and resting it. During the begging of my muscle injury I did not know what to do. Later I realized this is not going to get in the way. I started working hard and other things such as ab strength, back flexibility and calf strengthening. I will never let anything get in the way of me working hard. This is not only in dance but in school as well. I really want to succeed and I believe anyone can as long as the work hard.

Picture from

https://www.hkdancemoms.com/stories/2018/8/16/how-to-deal-with-rejection-as-a-dancer

After quitting dance when I was three I kept dancing all around the house. My mom kept encouraging me to go to a dance class but I refused. I guess I was mainly nervous to go but my mom convinced me so I tried taking a class. Finally I am not sure how, but she found a studio for me to start dancing at and enrolled me in a tap and jazz class. Neither my mom or I knew what those styles of dance even were. After taking my first class I really liked it and started practicing the moves at home. I loved dance after that and for the next three years I continued to take a class once a week. At the age of nine though, I noticed everything became so easy and I was not getting challenged in just a recreational class anymore. That is also when I realized how happy it makes me. I wanted to progress at dance cause I thought I finally found the right activity for me. The year after my family and I decided to enroll me in a program called performing troupe. Performing troupe was where different teams based on ages and levels would perform at different events such as fairs and even retirement homes. This was a big step in my dance career since it went from once a week classes to three days a week and each day was about two hours. Now that was the year where I improved so much that year and that was when I really fell in love with dance. From that point on my dance journey begun I continued another year of performing troupe and then went on to competition team, where I made a high team. I also became the lead roll in the Nutcracker as “Clara” one year. Then a big problem happened at my studio so I choose to leave studios and going to a new studio. The next year when I was a freshman I chose to do cheer instead which was a big mistake but after quitting dance my heart was calling me to go back to dance so I did. I now go to dance everyday and it is truly the thing that makes me the most happiest person in the world. So yes, my whole entire dance story is very long and confusing but the point is that dance has always been there for me and once I found it I fell in love with it.

Why do I dance? I dance because there is nothing else that encourages me in the same way socially, physically and most of all emotionally. Whether I am happy or sad or mad it is almost as if I can dance all those emotions out. It’s like another world outside of school. The stupid high school drama I can leave behind. I’m not sure why but the other dancers at my studio and I just have such amazing bond us. I always look forward to seeing them every single day after school. Now I know I am not the best dancer in the world, nor will I ever be. You may think, so if you don’t believe you are ever going to be the best then why do you dance, but I try to dance better than myself and not better than anyone else. Those people who are better than me push me harder if their legs kick higher I want my legs to kick higher than that. I am a hard worker with the biggest passion for dance. It all just started with a ballet class when I was little. Uh but I hated it so I quit. Dance didn’t leave my body though it was still trapped inside of me. I danced all around the house and jumped around on my bed every night pretending that I was a star dancer and I had back up dancers around me. It was almost as if everytime a song came on the music traveled up my body and I just wanted to start jumping around. My mom always noticed this so she wanted to put me back into dance classes but I refused. Then I’m not exactly sure but one day I finally agreed to go to a dance class. I can not remember why I loved that dance class so much but I just remember an immediate connection to dance. It was in my life from then on. I learned that in order to succeed and get better you really have to work hard. Dance has taught me so much about myself and has taken me on a journey in life. I honestly do not know what I would do without dance in my life since it is one thing I have a huge passion for.