Not many people know but I've strived since a little girl to perform, I love everything to do with performing. I used to sing a lot at home (yep proper mic and all), in primary school in front of the class, I've performed at Croydon Fairfield halls, I took part in every school play possible (I even got lead role as Sita in a play about Rama and Sita), had a keen interest in dancing (I took dance and singing classes for a while), my life ambition as a child was to be a singer, I went to choir club after school and trained with the vocal coach of Girls Aloud as a teenager, I did cheerleading at university, I did street dancing classes, I bought the pussycat doll dance DVD's, I will use any excuse to sing karaoke and my guilty pleasure is using the karaoke app on my ipad (shhhh...). Don't even get me started on musical instruments, as a kid I wanted to learn violin and flute. I can play recorder (does that even count?) I taught myself to play some piano, some guitar, some bass and a very minute bit of drums. What can I say, I've done everything!!!
I was a very energetic happy confident child, I wanted to participate in many extra curricular activities such as gymnastics, ballet etc. (to think where I could be now if I had got given those opportunities). *sigh* But some things have changed...
Along with growing up, my dreams were left in my childhood, my confidence peeked and dropped a lot through life and I became a realist, I've got no ambition to be a singer anymore (I said I enjoyed it, I never said I could sing), however being this creative person that I am, It wasn't long before I had to find new ways to express myself (tattoos, piercings, my apparel are great but I felt like something was missing). Pole dancing, burlesque dancing, street dancing, I've dabbled in it all, but never stuck at any of them. I still kept searching for that thing I am missing, that flare of passion that makes me want to get up everyday.
A couple of years ago, I heard of a fire troupe called "the fuel girls", at that time I was also dabbling in alternative modelling and had a keen interest in admiring and idolising suicide girls and FRONT magazine models. They were what got me into researching and looking into fire performing and such. I looked into classes they were so expensive I could never afford them, so i looked into alternatives, I came across poi!
Last summer I started up poi, I bought my first pair which had LED's in, I watched Youtube videos taught myself stuff, then I bought a poi book that teaches you different techniques of poi spinning. I worked on this for a while and then I went to Thailand. I took my poi with me but never had the time anymore to practice, then I found out one of my friends I trained with in Thailand also was a poi spinner, this got me passionate we performed a routine for the talent show, (she even taught me a new move) but I still felt such a novice, I admired how good she was and me being a very impatient person got bored of trying to learn new moves I couldn't master.
As time went on my interest in poi dwindled, then one day I picked them back up because travelling to Koh Samui seeing fire performers got me inspired again! I practiced now and again not as often as the beginning but stepping back and leaving them for a while and coming back to it had somehow made something click, because the one move I had been trying to master for so long just happened, I dunno how but my muscle memory changed and It worked!!
The lightbulb moment.
At present, I've taken a break from poi again, I just feel like I need to step back again because I'm progressively getting frustrated with not being able to do new moves. But then something amazing happened and I had an epiphany, just like I had this great life changing moment, when realising all along my life calling was teaching and everything in my life had pointed to becoming a teacher.It suddenly dawned on me what other new skills I could try and teach myself, it hit me as a kid how good I had gotten with a hula hoop, I used to hoop on my legs, waist, neck, arms, I could toss and catch etc. It never really occurred to me that hooping (dancing and hula hooping) could be something I would love, whats awesome about hooping is, I could integrate all the things I loved into one thing, performing, dancing and fitness!! Theres even some hoop moves that replicate poi (weaves etc.)
So here I am, trawling the internet on every video and website on hooping. I just ordered my first weighted travel hoop, dying in anticipation for it to arrive! This is going to be the beginning of a new beautiful journey!!!
One day I would like to proudly perform at this standard!
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