At the age of 2 I went to my first dance class. I started my dance career at a studio in St. Louis Park called On Your Toes. At first I was only in recreational classes then when I turned 6 I started doing competitive dance.

Being on a competition team meant more hours dancing and competing against other teams at other studios. Later we moved to a better studio called Victoria Dance Productions.

In seventh and eighth grade, most of my teammates were trying out for their schools’ dance teams. But, because I go to Park, I did not get that chance.

Something my studio preaches is how our dance schedule gives us room to have a balanced life so we can be involved in more things than just studio dance. I do believe they do a good job

with giving us that opportunity to do more.

In high school I joined golf, had a nanny job after school, helped at the studio as an assistant teacher to stay busy. But I just felt I was missing a lot of sporting events that I really wanted to go to, especially hockey and volleyball games.

Last year as a junior and this year as a senior — my last year I can do studio dance — I was not quite sure how much I actually wanted to continue dancing. I truly still do love dance, but I have already done it for so many years. Since I do not have dance team training and was never exposed to the real high school or college dance team world, there is nothing keeping me in dance past this final year.

Dance has given me many cool opportunities, like traveling to new places in the U.S., getting to be a role model and teacher for the younger kids at the studio, earning the “Dancer of the Year” award, being a golf captain, meeting some lifelong friends. In the end, I am glad I am doing dance this year since I do enjoy it and worked things out so I am able to do more of what I enjoy outside of dance as well.