Ugly Ducklings Turn into Beautiful Swans

I have noticed an interesting phenomena...Ugly Ducklings really do turn into beautiful swans!!!

I was trying to figure out where to begin in digging back into this when I received an IM from my friend telling me that her Gorgeous Daughter just got into a summer program with a scholarship!!!!  Her daughter has been working at this a long time and has not had an easy road!  She is a beautiful girl, but nothing has been a cake walk for her.  She is 19 now and never got into the "premier programs",  she is a "flawed dancer" but, she LOVES it!  So, she has worked her fanny off and each year she has grown exponentially and she is surpassing her peers and I know she is going to make it in some way!  Realistically she will never be "Balanchine's Muse" but she will dance professionally for some company and I can't wait to see her take the stage.  She inspires me!

A dancer with heart is what moves me!  I don't honestly know much about dance.  I love the arts, but I find I am so often "wrong" about what is good or bad.  I honestly love football because I can tell who the winner is, it's objective.  But, for me, a dancer is one that moves me.  I can't count if somebody has done 4 pirouettes or 5 or even more, but I can tell if they aren't in time with the music.  I have enough of an eye for dance to tell who moves me and often I am astonished to find out that he or she is not the one that is the favorite.

We have had an "ugly duckling" at our studio.  I LOVE HER!  She is a delight.  When I first met her, she was this tiny, awkward, little thing and I thought she was the age of my youngest child only to find out that she was the age of my son who is 5 years her senior.  But, even then, she found a special place inside of my heart.  I have watched her get shoved aside for years, and wait for her peers to get cast in roles that she was just too little to have.  Then two years ago, a wonderful thing happened, she started to grow...not a lot, but enough to catch up to her smaller peers.  But, that spunk that she had always had, that drive that had come from chasing the pack because she was so little, it was still there and....

This girl is in demand!  I have watched A-List companies start to fight for her (no fooling, I actually witnessed a little pouting fight between three top name school's AD's).  She is getting scholarships to some of the biggest school's in the world and she still has that killer personality when she goes on stage!  I was talking to my daughter last night about who she thought the funnest dancer to watch was and she said this girl's name!

But, interestingly enough, at our studio, I still think she is seen as a bit of an Ugly Duckling. She has been at our studio for so long and the AD's have had their beautiful swan (who is technically beautiful) that they don't see what has happened to our little Ugly Duckling.  It saddens me to see her still fight for her crumbs.

So, I have been encouraging her mom to get her out there and let her be seen, sometimes I take her with my own ugly rooster; and the companies love her!  I can't tell too much more about it without giving her away.  But, it is a wonderful feeling to see this young woman coming into her own!

The Ugly Duckling will always have a special place in my heart..I love to cheer for them, and I am ecstatic when they succeed.