A Life Committed to Ballet

I was a ballet student for ten years. I took classes for eight and a half years in Malaysia and another one and a half years in Australia. I learnt my first plié at the age of 12. Going by the ballet standards I was a late starter. I felt very awkward in the beginning, but as time passed by I became good at it despite of the fact I am a special needs student.

I LOVE ballet A LOT! In fact I can go on and on and on about it forever.... I think it's quite safe to say my love for ballet is close to compulsion. It suits my personality well, being the quiet, and shy person I am. Ballet provided me with the opportunity to be able to express myself better. It functioned as an emotional outlet for me and did wonders to calm me down when I was experiencing a particularly lousy time.

I was trained on Royal Academy of Dance (RAD), UK ballet syllabus. However, I was unable to take its examination, as no teacher wanted to take me through the process. I was quite sure RAD would be able to cater to my special needs. This setback made me work so much harder than most students in my class, as they were younger than me and needed less effort to achieve what was required of them. What I had achieved was a surprise to many people. Despite my physical challenges, I have managed to find ways to cope in learning demanding dance steps and combinations. Not only that, I seemed to have an encyclopaedic capacity to remember the terms I have learned throughout the ten years as a ballet student.

This bode very well for me when I attended ballet performances when I was a university student in Perth, Australia. I was able to understand and appreciate better the abstract and beauty aspects of the ballet performances I had attended in Perth. Watching these performances motivated me to strive harder for excellence not only in my ballet classes, but also my academic pursuits and many other things in life which require a lot of effort and hard work.

Some of the habits of being a ballet student for ten years have spilled over to my daily routine, which many people might find them strange and quirky; from the way I carry out my daily routines to the way I behave, especially when I walk and stand. People who knew me all too well have understood and accepted me as who I am. I would say that ballet has inculcated mostly good habits in which complement my personality and character.

I would not have been who and where I am today if not for ballet. Ballet has taught me many positive values; some of which I held as part of my life's principles. It also helped me to be a more resilient person to overcame many challenges I face in life. Two of these challenges were to obtain my Master degree in English Language during the time I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and to learn to cope living with hydrcephalus for the rest of my life. The discipline I'd obtained as a ballet student showed me that I could use the unique strength of human spirit to overcome the tough challenges I face throughout my life.

Thus, this saying will apply to me very well, "You can take the dancer out of a dance but not the dance out of a dancer". I believe the quirky habits from being a ballet student would remain in me for the rest of my life. This would be one aspect of my personality I would not trade for anything in the world.

Paloma Herrera, Principal Dancer, American Ballet Theatre