My Dancing Life by Livier Hsu   

I'm Livier, a 14 year old girl and I love to dance. I started dancing when I was 3 years old. At the time my mom was a restaurant owner and one of her customers was a dancing studio owner and she convinced my mom to put me in her school. At first, dancing was just a game to play but now it becomes an interest and I really want to keep getting better at it.   

Some parts of dance are very difficult. I used to hate wearing ballet tights because it was so uncomfortable in the hot Taiwanese climate, but now I am okay with it. Also, we have to wear ballet shoes that make you stand on your toes and it really hurt, but now its okay. I'm used to it, and it looks so beautiful. Other challenges include learning do the splits, which was really difficult and painful. I had to practice every day and my teacher would help me by standing on my feet and pushing down so that I could get into a perfect line. It still hurts a little, but it’s okay.  

In 2007 and 2008 I competed in Taipei City, Taiwan National and Singapore International Competitions.  In all of these competitions I performed in the same style of Kung Fu, Martial Arts Dance. I practiced so much. Before that I just knew dancing as happy but tiring activity. While I was training, I realized that dance is so hard and that there is so much to learn. There are many thing we can do in the studio, but including that move into a dance is much more difficult because you have to listen to the music, have the strength, and fight your nerves. Nerves will usually make you fall and look strange. Practicing this was really hard for me.  

In 2006 I won the 4th place in the Taipei Modern Dance Competition. In 2007 I joined a competition in Taipei and won first place in Kung Fu, Marital Art Style of the Traditional Chinese Artistic Dance. I went on to the Taiwan National Competition and received high marks. In the summer of 2008, I also went to the Singapore Asia International Dancing Competition and I won the 2nd prize over the 14 participants in both the individual and team competitions. I went to the Poland's Artistic Celebration Day, and participated in a dance show, which was musical art performance. I also took part in a Street Dancing competition in the Taiwanese television and got the 1st prize.  

I think my dance has improved a lot with the time. It is hard, tiring, and painful, but I really like it because it is so fun meeting friends, traveling, getting into good shape, impressing people with my strength, and feeling proud when a crowd really likes my dance.  

Dancing has taught me that if you want to be successful, for example on a spin or a jump, you need to practice and practice and you can't be scared of falling down or getting hurt.