Cairo, the 8th August, 2010

The dancer in me...

While reading Patrick Swayze's (actor da dancer, Hello! Dirty Dancing FOREVER!!!!!!)warm auto-biography, there was a sentence that caught my eye (and my heart!).
As he explained some harsh difficulties he had on his dancing career and how it took so much effort to be respected and acknowledged as a serious actor (the fact of him being so handsome may have contributed for that), he told the reader about his resilience and the strenght of NEVER GIVING UP on a goal/dream you cherish, then he referred:
I guess it was the dancer in me that didn't let me quit.

As I read this phrase, tears rolled down my face because I knew EXACTLY what he meant.
I quit classical ballet a long time ago (when I was 16 years old) but I started very early (at 5 years old I was already dancing/shooting on television!) and the memories of the hard discipline I was educated with never left me and, may I say, have shaped all I am, my ability to work hard without complaining and the willingness to go the extra mile just to reach perfection (or near from it!).
One of my earliest memories from Classical Ballet school is me doing dozens and dozens of plies (like a squat with both legs) on the bar and almost falling on my knees but not being allowed to stop until the teacher said so. I didn't dare cry because I knew that would siappoint the teacher (or worse!) so I had to continue and challenge what I thought I could and could not do.

I remember my weaknesses (I was just a 5 year old child!) were not taken in consideration and the discipline I was been raised into made me fall into silent periods of pain many, many times but no one seemed to care.
My feet bleed, my muscles were so exhausted and soar that I couln't feel them anymore but no one took a second to pat me on the shoulder so I had no other option than go on and work harder...

You can do it, no matter how tired you are or how difficult it seems. With faith, practice and talent, you can do it!

It is the dancer in me.
Yes, it is.

Pushing yourself beyond your limits and never spare your enbergy or cry over tired legs, exhausted mood, wasted body...the flame of this passion for BEAUTY aqnd ART never lets me down and I remember, again again, the phrase from Patrick Swayze's book: It is the dancer in me.

It is the dancer in me that doesn't let me quit when everybody else does.
It is the dancer in me that makes me love my body as the sacred temple it really is.
It is the dancer in me who gives me total awareness of how much pleasure, enlightenment and joy my material self can bring into my life.
It is the dancer in me who tells me to work harder without complaining, to study, to search, to be curious, to observe other artists and learn from them, to push mysefl and my boundaries further and further...no limits to growing...

It is the dancer in me who makes me love LIFE in all its shapes (check how the leaves of Autumn tress dance along with the wind...is that anything more gorgeous than that?!).

It is the dancer in me who allows me to take in all kinds of disappointments in life and never loose my FIRE and desire to make things right, better and better...