Dance Student Spotlight: Rachel

My name is Rachel, 13, and I live in Singapore. I dance at Yan Ballet Academy.

@rachelsimrae

Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.

I started dancing at the age of five. My mom put me into ballet as I was super energetic. Once I started dance classes, I immediately fell in love with dancing! I loved all the challenges and beautiful movements in ballet and expressing my thoughts and emotions through movements.

At the age of 11, I began to dance competitively. I began to train formally at Yan Ballet Academy. Although I’ve only been training for about a year and a half, thanks to my amazing teachers at this school, I have participated in many competitions and have had great results! I can't wait to see what is the next chapter of my dance story, and I will continue to work hard to be the best I can be!🙃

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?

I would say it hasn’t been easy. Dancing requires a lot of time, dedication, and perseverance. For example, dancing requires long hours of continuous hard work, which could result in not being able to go to dinner with your family, or even to an outing with friends. And from all the long hours of dancing, you can get blisters or other injuries which are not fun to have...but you still need to persevere through it all to achieve your goals!

What personal limitations if any did you go through in your young career?

I would say one limitation was my younger self. I always told myself that I would never be good enough or never be able to dance as well as some of the other dancers in my studio or online. So, as a result, I had no courage or faith in myself. Thankfully my amazing teachers helped me with it, and helped me to be more confident in my dancing😀.

How do you conquer negative talk?

I usually look at the feedback and try to find any constructive feedback to improve, but if there isn’t any, I will just ignore it😁.

What is your favorite quote?

"You don’t have to be great to start, but you need to start to be great." - Zig Ziglar

So, what’s next? Any big plans?

I hope to compete in more competitions!