#tapspiration

Throughout my life I have been a part of many different activities from President of Student Council to playing defense on my High School field hockey team. While these activities had an impact on my life, teaching me how to lead a team and making me realize the power of perseverance, nothing has quite had an an impact on me like tap dancing. 

Like many young girls and boys I started tapping at the age of 6. I wore the cute outfits and flapped my feet around like a penguin. My family took embarrassing yet adorable pictures of me being the only one on stage who was doing a different move than everyone else. 

In the sixth grade is when I really started getting serious about tap dancing. Although I was too young, I auditioned to be in the Pre-Professional Program at the American Tap Dance Foundation in NYC for the summer. For the audition I had to send in a video of myself doing various tapping combinations along with a one minute clip of choreography. At the end of the audition tape I put a bloopers section. It included me falling on my butt time and time again and me telling my mother that I wanted her to film my combinations just one more time about twenty times. Some people told me this was probably a bad idea, but I went with it anyways. I made it into the program. At the end of the amazing experience the director of the company came up to me and told me that when she saw my audition video she didn't think I was technically ready to be a part of the program, but because of my bloopers section she let me in. She said that she knew that since I could laugh at my mistakes I would make it in this program. You need to be able to laugh at your mistakes and not get discouraged. 

During a separate dance program I had a dance teacher tell me, "Celeen you are trying your hardest, but your hardest isn't good enough". This statement could be looked at in many different ways. It could be very insulting or encouraging. My hardest wasn't good enough at the time, but working my hardest eventually made me good enough. I am not flawless, but then again who is? So what if my good wasn't good enough? That day I learned that giving up when someone tells you that you are not good enough is not the answer. Sure in the class I may have fallen at least 50 times and was usually a count behind everyone, but I was there. Being there is the important thing you can do in life. Simply being there puts you ahead of the millions of people who are not there. Getting your face seen means so much more than you know. 

I make mistakes every day, and sometimes I make mistakes that should make me very discouraged. The other day I was speaking with a friend about how I was taking an Economics class that was above my level. I was walking to the class when I said to her, "My best may not be good enough for this exam, but by taking this class I will be better off in the future". I attribute my perseverance and go for it attitude to tap dancing. There is never a reason you should hold yourself back. If you are the best in the class that means you aren't challenging yourself enough. 

The thousands of tap classes I have taken in my life have not only taught me how to dance, but have also taught me how to be a fighter, how to be independent, and how to end up on top even if when I start I am at the bottom. Dancing is so much more than pretty outfits and being able to do cool turns. It has taught me to practice each and very day to be the person who I want to become.