As you know by now, both through watching me dance and hearing my story, I have had tough critics my whole life. I've been fortunate, blessed really, to be pushed to be the best. My mom, Miss Doreen, always held me to a higher standard. Master teachers asked me to work harder than the others, put me on the spot, and I stepped up!

That's why I am my own toughest critic. The "feedback" from others is fine, but I steer the ship, I make the dances, I drive my own improvement. That's why I am a professional.

The years and hours I've spent in the studio are why I have succeeded. Living up to others' expectations have been secondary to my own desire to succeed as a competitive dancer, teacher, choreographer, and judge.

Some of the competitions today like to say that "you are only competing against yourself." While I don't think this is true at the actual competition, because we do like to win (and you know we can LOL!), this is true for me in the studio.

And that is why my students look up to me. Not only because I deliver the hard corrections when they need to hear them, but because I do the hard work too.

And I can stand hard corrections myself. I appreciate the time Miss Claudia took to come to our studio, and I hope she works as hard as we do to keep growing and learning about all kinds of dance. Dance is dance and we are all in this together! We will be happy to see her again in the future!