My Story... Part 1

Part 1 of my story. My story is unfinished and I still have many many years of crazy and incredible experiences to come. But this is how it started...

I started ballet at the age of 3 and I loved it! I was known for it, at school, in my family and in the whole community. I was the ballerina. I was the youngest dancer in the Gold Coast dancers company, I danced for the Brisbane City Youth Ballet for 3 seasons and worked with some absolutely incredible coaches and teachers.

But... at 13 I was told I was too tall for ballet and would never make it in the industry. As you can imagine, I was devastated. It really knocked my confidence and I started to lose my love for dance.
Meanwhile my sister Ruby had been doing ballroom for 5 years prior to this so I had been around latin and ballroom studios in QLD for a while, although I always refused to get up and dance. Even at social dances and gala events, I sat there for hours watching but never once got up. So many people tried to get me to dance but I just wouldn’t budge. Until one day, this tall boy in the studio Ruby was dancing in had just split with his partner. It was at that moment that something told me I had to go for it. So I asked my mum one night if she could go to the studio owner and ask if I could have a tryout with his dancer. Mum was completely dumbfounded by this. It shocked everyone. The girl who all her life was going to be a ballerina wanted to try ballroom. After one group class and one private lesson to get some choreography down (very basic and not a lot of it) I tried out with this boy. He had a few other tryouts but ultimately decided to dance with me. After 4 weeks we won our first competition and then headed down to the Australian Championships after only 7 weeks of dancing.
We had so many successes and experiences together as a partnership. We travelled to Singapore, New Zealand and China for various championships. I had an amazing opportunity to help build a childrens dance academy. We created some amazing shows and I found a passion for teaching. I was able to teach classes of various styles including ballet, ballroom, latin, jazz and more. I watched these beautiful kids grow, I was able to partner them as they danced at their first dancesport competition and choreograph dances for them to perform at multiple big events and shows. I found this new love of teaching and had the opportunity to be a part of over 300 kids dancing journey’s.
In 2020, my dance partnership started to deteriorate. It was a time where we were both finishing school and he decided he wanted to do a law degree and continue studying whilst I wanted to take my dancing to the next level. Ultimately I decided it was time to break away as we didn’t have the same goals anymore. It was time for me to move on.