Personal Essay Example about My Dance Career

Dance has impacted my life in so many different ways and even more than I could possibly write in words. Growing up in Caledonia, Michigan my dance career started when I was at the age of 5, dance was a hobby to me and much less than would I realize that dance would become simply more than that. As taking dance classes were dreadful to my younger self and causing my parents to push me through the doors in order to just get me in the classrooms while listening to my teacher repeat plie and stretch over and over again. Due to my opinion on dance in my younger years my parents decided to put me in gymnastics, and continuing their dance hopes went onto my little sister. From then on my parents would drive me to gymnastics and my sister to dance. Gymnastics was a passion of mine for a solid 8 years, until I finally got to a point where my physical and mental strength just wouldn’t take the pain anymore. Here I was as a little 6th grader thinking that the amount I was pushing myself was normal; 4 days a week, 4 hours each non-stop practicing and conditioning in unhealthy ways that wasn’t good for my body and in that case my parents always taught me that quitting something in the middle is never the answer so I waited till the end of the season and in 2016 I decided to end that chapter of my life and reopen doors that were previously closed in the past. 

My three younger sisters were all dancing at this point and doing it competitively so I thought why not try it. I started off at the beginning of the season with auditions and summer classes. Auditions were hard and I remember I was mortified by the fact that I haven’t danced in years and I had no friends. But, my experience like that lit a fire underneath me; I started at level one in jazz and ballet but moved into level two jazz within the year and only competed at two competitions with just a quad dancing at a very low level. The following year I skipped level two and three ballet straight into level four ballet with my sister and got my pointe shoes that year which is a very long and hard process to achieve but I did it surpassing the goals for myself and the goals my teachers had for me. Every year from then up until 2020 I was growing and achieving levels slowly, starting to gain a reputation at the dance studio. When Covid-19 hit we all know that the studios shut down and the dance competition season was never the same since then. Zoom classes were forced upon us and the light at the end of the tunnel was basically invisible at that point and my motivation became smaller along with my self-esteem levels and my self-confidence.

Bringing about the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, masks were required and school was basically virtual with occasional in person school. Dance and the studio was my one escape from all the craziness and finding out I was gonna be limited to that was absolutely heartbreaking to hear. In October was when our dance studio does the annual Nutcracker ballet performance every year and the future was unsure but, the auditions were held in-studio and we all were wearing masks as if it were something normal. Results came out and luckily I was surrounded in class with all of my friends and they announced that I myself would be Adult Clara. The Lead! Finally achieving this moment has shown me that not only am I good enough but, I was being recognized for the amount of hard work and dedication that I put into the dance studio through teaching little kids classes to being a mentor and role model for the younger dancers that look up to me. Today my future aspirations with dance include joining the Michigan State Dance Team in order to achieve my goal of getting a Veterinary Science degree and being able to dance. Thanks to my parents' undying love for me and the push to teach me to never give up my dance career would have ended a lot sooner. I would never have imagined that dance would teach me so much self respect, self control, and maturity.