Chelsea’s Dance Story

Chelsea’s Dance Story

I have always been just off the splits and just ‘that much’ lower in grand battemandes and developes, I also lacked in quality and had a few ‘chicken wings’ and arched terribly. The best teacher that I went to in my area didn’t have the most productive students, so instead of focusing on technique and core stability etc, she taught us to, for example: jump long-not high, big- not neat!!! She also in a way led me to starve myself to get that ballet ‘perfect body’ which lead to anorexia- which luckily my mum noticed and got professional help and I’m on my way to a healthier life. (A thing you guys at The Ballet Blog educate us about and give helpful tips. Thank you so much. I think you almost saved my life-literally!)

One of my mum’s friends came to watch one of my shows and noticed that I had extra spark and lots of perseverance. He then took me under his wing and had a class once a week where I just did exam work and only focused on my technique and making my work presentable for exams. My dancing went a level higher! I began getting gold with distinctions for awards and I even achieved 92% for my intermediate ballet exam! I was sooo happy!

One day he came to class with the link to The Ballet Blog website. He told me to go onto it and read all the incredible things that I would have never known about getting into the front splits. I mean, really, who thought lying on your back and breathing would create muscles to reward you with flexibility?! Very soon after that the ‘Front Splits Fast Manual’ was being shipped all the way to South Africa and I immediately began working on it. About a year later my family moved to Durban and I had to transfer teachers. The teacher that I moved to is globally known and has girls dancing principle roles at the Royal Ballet! Now the pressure was on me to get my ballet up to her standard! But with the help of my mum’s friend, The Ballet Blog and your frequent emails and articles, I have worked my way up there and I would like to say a big thanks to Lisa and her whole team.