When I was little I used to go to dance classes. They were called majorettes. I’d go with my mum sometimes when the mums got to join in. I was very quiet and shy at this point in my life and I preferred to keep to myself or people who knew me best. At this point, because I kept to myself so much, I didn’t think that I was very good at making friends. But I enjoyed going to majorettes so much because I thought it was so much fun. This was where I found my love for dancing.
My big sister went to ballet classes but I wasn’t old enough so we would go into her room and she would teach me ballet. She’d get quite bossy because the older sister but we got on really well and I really enjoyed dancing so I didn’t mind. I liked it because my sister was a great dancer so I’d learn from her and it was something that we both loved, so we could do it together.
A few years on my friend Hannah was telling me all about this street dance class at the recreation centre that she went to. She would show me the dances. Hannah was a pretty confident dancer for an eight year old and I thought she danced so well. Hannah would tell me all about the new friends shed made from dancing and how much fun they had. It all sounded so amazing to me so I knew I had to join and so I went along the following week. At first I was nervous because I didn’t know if I would know many people there, I was scared because Hannah had made all of these new friends there and all I had was her. I went along and really enjoyed it! I thought it was so much fun and I saw it as a way to let out your emotions though dancing, for example when I heard a really upbeat song, you felt like you wanted to jump around but if you heard quite an emotional sort of song you’d dance quite gracefully. The most challenging part was when the teacher would split us up into groups. They would tell us to make up part of the dance and show the others. I thought this was hard because I was still quite a shy person, I’d feel embarrassed to dance in front of the others. But I soon became a lot more confident because I got to know everyone there and we all became good friends. I also became more confident by dancing in front of the others every week. I would go home and make up my own dance routines then id show everybody at dancing. This was how my confidence began to grow through something that I loved to do.
A few weeks later a new girl and her friend joined street dancing. Their names were Jordan and Danii. Danii was so nice and friendly; I really admired her for her true love of dancing. You could tell by the way she danced how confident she was and how much fun she was having. It’s the same now when you watch her dance she’s so confident, it’s something you envy because she’s amazing at it! I’m glad we were both so into our dancing because Danii is still one of my best friends. We still love to dance, either having a laugh or actually making up routines, we still do it.
Through the time of going to this street dance class we were practicing for the High school dance show which we would be taking part in. I didn’t realise until the show how many people there would be in the audience and this made me begin to get quite nervous. I was thinking about “what if I mess up?” When we went on the stage for our dress rehearsal