The Dance Awards

After winning the gold medal at YAGP in 2017, I remember looking at my mom and asking, "What's next?" I've always been someone who moves forward quickly. I don't sit on accomplishments for long — I look for the next challenge. She asked me what I wanted, and I told her, "I think I want to go for Best Dancer again."

I had won Mini Best Dancer in 2015, and going into that season, I hadn't planned on competing again. But after YAGP, something shifted. I felt more focused, more driven, and more clear about what I wanted to prove to myself. The reality was, I hadn't even qualified. In order to compete at The Dance Awards, you have to attend a regional. So I went to Jump LA just in order to qualify. There's a common belief that you need to be everywhere — every convention, every weekend — in order to have a real shot at nationals. That wasn't my experience. I went to one regional, just enough to get in.

At the time, my training was primarily ballet, and my studio didn't participate in competitions like The Dance Awards. So going into nationals, I didn't have a team behind me. It was just me and my mom — no studio group, no built-in support system, no one managing the process for me. I had to trust what we had built. I reached out to Kurtis Sprung, who I trusted. At the time, he was performing with Cirque du Soleil, and since nationals were in Las Vegas, he came to the convention center, ran my solo with me, and helped put it on stage. I owe a lot to him for that moment. But outside of that, the process was just me and my mom.

That independence carried into everything. I wasn't training in every genre the way many of the other competitors were. I didn't have the same exposure or volume of convention classes. What I did have was a strong technical foundation, and I relied on that. No matter what style was thrown at me during the competition, I focused on applying my technique — control, placement, and quality of movement. Instead of trying to match everyone else, I stayed grounded in what I knew. And it worked. That year, I won Junior Best Dancer. Not because I did everything, but because I trusted my training and allowed it to carry me across every situation I was put in. I also want to give credit where it's due. One of the strongest values my ballet studio instilled in me was the importance of staying focused on my technique. That foundation stayed with me, and it's a big part of what allowed me to adapt and succeed in different environments.

That experience reinforced something I've carried with me ever since: there is no single path to success in dance. You don't have to follow what everyone else is doing, and you don't need to be everywhere at once to be competitive. What matters is the strength of your foundation and your ability to rely on it when it counts. This is a big part of why The Pointe of You exists. So many dancers feel like they need to do more — more classes, more conventions, more everything — in order to succeed. But what actually creates results is strong, intentional training and the confidence to trust it. My goal is to help dancers build that kind of foundation, so they're not dependent on external systems or constant validation, but instead can walk into any room, any style, any environment, and know they have something solid to rely on.

Because at the end of the day, it's not about doing more. It's about building something strong enough to carry you through anything.