About Me

(A long read, but hopefully helps to explain where I've come from, and to set the context for some of my musings.)


Although a late starter at 9 years old, my first love was and still is - dance. While my schoolmates were collecting posters of then-hearthrobs like Rob Lowe and John Taylor, and getting very interested in fashion and labels, I was looking forward to my next ballet class and watching every ballet video I could get my hands on. Needless to say, I certainly was not hip, fashionable or boy-savvy in my teenage years but I was focused and knew where I was happiest.
Hailing from Malaysia, a country which had no professional dance company in those days, nor the opportunity to enrol in dance as a full-time course, ballet as a pursuit faded into the background when academic opportunities overseas presented themselves. As a 15 year-old away from home, studying overseas and without parental support to get me easily to dance classes, I kept up with two ballet classes a week, but slowly its dominance in my life slipped away.

While I was living life up and loving all the wondrous opportunities that life threw at a teenager - and then a university student - away from home, I remember also looking back with a tinge of regret that my dance-mates at home were just getting into dance groups and performing in local shows, something I missed out on along the way. Through all those years, I have always remembered how much I love to dance, but I believe I also sub-consciously suppressed the passion I had for dancing.
Fast forward to the year I turned 30 – after a few great years in a very rewarding and enriching but demanding management consulting career (where I learnt a lot, made life-long friends and experienced great travels), I took a break and went in search of greater meaning to life. I started ballet classes again, and with the help of a ballet teacher I have always admired, I obtained the RAD Intermediate certificate after more than 6 months of intensive classes. While it was hugely satisfying to be back in my ballet shoes and leotards, and in pursuit of technical excellence again, I somehow convinced myself after the exam that there was little more I would gain out of continuing ballet. A professional dance career was of course no longer something to work towards, and I felt that “ballet was just too technical for a recreational dancer to simply experience the sheer pleasure of dance” or so I thought; in hindsight, I believe that in pursuing certification, classes were rigid as there was a syllabus to perfect, and there was no opportunity to just dance and express myself, and I didn’t find the joy or passion I thought would be there.
Circumstances brought me to Sydney in my 30’s. I have been attending Contemporary and Lyrical open classes once or twice a week – and have re-discovered the joy of dancing again. We are so privileged to have access to open classes by high-calibred teachers around Sydney. Attacking the different combinations and doing the short routines at the end of every class is a whole load of fun. One just can’t help but grin from ear to ear in “performing” those short, brilliantly choreographed pieces every class – and gaining great satisfaction from nailing the routines.  
But in all these years leading up to this point (of starting my 52-week journey), I cannot deny missing two things that I treasured most as a young dancer - the thrill of performing, and the great satisfaction of achievement.  I remember thriving immensely on visibly seeing, feeling and enjoying the improvements as a dancer, and thriving on being pushed and guided by teachers who demanded our very best -something that has not happened in the Lyrical and Contemporary dance classes I've been attending. You get there, dance, then leave. Along the way, I have made some great friendships, but I have never felt that the teachers cared whether any of us were improving as dancers or not; perhaps that's the result of big class sizes or the mindset towards adult dancers - that we are there for recreation, not improvement.

Often times, I’ve found myself wondering – is it just me or do most adult dancers feel this same way? After all, I’m certain that there are millions of dancers everywhere, who have spent years perfecting technique within the walls of dance studios around the world, and who, for whatever reason never became professional dancers. But for whom, the joy of dance and expression of emotion through movement is no less real and powerful than the professionals who do it for a living. How do these adult dancers like myself inspire themselves? What do they work towards and how do they know they’re improving? Do they miss the drive to achieve defined levels of achievement, or is the joy of dancing enough to keep them coming back to classes every week? Do some still wish for the opportunities to perform? Does it make a difference to their experience if they are corrected and pushed to their individual limits, or is it just enough to be able to dance?

In my recent return back into ballet classes and finding the love and passion for it all over again, some of the answers to my questions are emerging. My answers, at least. Not everybody needs the same motivators, or do it for the same reasons, but I have now discovered that for me, the sense of achievement is a big part of the fun; and in ballet with it technical preciseness, achievement may be more elusive, but it is more defined. I have just discovered that I had been mistaken to believe that I could no longer get anything out of ballet – that there was no longer something meaningful to pursue. I am now starting to appreciate that the “bigger picture” goals we have as adults are different from those we had as young dancers, but having some sort of goal, no matter how humble, is necessary, besides a teacher/coach committed to helping you achieve that goal. This has hit me with such a blinding flash in these recent weeks, and hence the inspiration for my 52-week challenge. I realise now that the dreams may have faded but the passion is still fiercely alive.

It is very early days yet, and I’m sure there’ll be lots I’ll learn along the way, lots I’ll discover and lots to share. I know not what lies ahead, but one thing is for sure, the part of me I’d suppressed for so many years has come alive again, and it’s as euphoric and nostalgic as rediscovering your first love all over again.

Click here to email me if you have any questions at all!