Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / Spotlight Feature - Sophia Lucia

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Spotlight Feature - Sophia Lucia · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

0:54
SPEAKER_01: Hello, friends.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: I hope that everyone is having a wonderful start to your new year.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: I know that I am very happy to have 2020 behind us, and I'm very excited to see what the future holds for us all this year.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: So welcome to 2021, everyone.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: This week's episode is our third spotlight feature episode of season two, where we sit down with all different types of guests who are in the dance industry who we feel are making the impact in the competitive dance world.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: And today we have a very special guest that I'm sure so many of you know of.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: And I cannot wait to get to know her even more so soon.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: But before we jump into the episode, we always have some fun announcements to share with everyone out there.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: So first up is IDA's virtual competition.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: We just wrapped our current solo-only virtual competition, which was a huge success.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: We had so many dancers to participate all around the world.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: So thank you to everyone who entered.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: I hope that you enjoyed the experience.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: It was a fantastic talent.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Our judges really enjoyed uh the experience and to provide everyone with such a great uh feedback that hopefully will help you prep before the live competition season hits this year.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: So thank you to everyone who tuned in to the live chat dream that just happened.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to see any of uh the winners, go to our website now or our social media to view some of the footage.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: And we also have some more virtual competitions coming your way this uh winter and spring.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And we're even going to be including some group competitions in the mix.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: So head over to our website at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com slash virtual competition and check out all of the upcoming dates now.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: And we have some other exciting news that I'm super pumped about.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: We've been talking about this for a while, but we have officially launched a Facebook group for the podcast.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Woo! It's called Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast Community.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: And all of our podcast fans are welcome to join.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: It'll be a place for you to stay up to date with new releases.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna post fun questions in the group about the competitive dance world.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: You can connect with other fans from across the world and send over questions to us straight in the group.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: It'll just be a very interactive place to talk about dance.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: We're also gonna be sharing fun promos from our sponsors, as well as hosting the occasional QA with an IDA judge where one of the judges on the roster will take over the group for the day and answer all of your questions.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: We will be moderating who's allowed in the group.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna have to answer a handful of questions regarding the podcast, the dance industry before you're being approved, because we want everybody to feel safe and comfortable in our podcast group.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: So we hope this will be a really fun way to interact with our fans more directly and for you to connect with others in the competitive dance world all over the world.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: So head over to Facebook, search for our new group.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: It's called Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast Community.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: And we're also going to put a link in our show notes and we're excited for you to join us.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, please, please, please, please go check that out on Facebook.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: We're really excited about that new feature to add to the podcast world.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the Facebook group, y'all.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: And uh I wanna just give a shout out to all the dance parents and dancers out there who are listening because I'm sure that you all love buying new dancewear to rock in class or at conventions.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: And our episode sponsor, Purple Pixies, is the perfect brand to add to your dancewear collection.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: I just received my very first pair of Purple Pixies leggings and I absolutely love them.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: The quality of their products is so well made and it's so perfect to dance in.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: They have so much variety to offer from sports bras to booty shorts to leggings and leotards, right?
4:30
SPEAKER_01: With super fun colors and patterns that you can mix and match.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: I love my purple pixies dancewear, and I know you will too.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: So head over to purplepixies.net and use our exclusive promo code IDA15 in all caps or at checkout to receive 15% off your order.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: But thank you to all of our fabulous season two sponsors for supporting our podcast.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: All right, dance listeners, it's time to meet our spotlight featured guest.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure many of you are familiar with this young dance superstar, whether it's from her time on Dance Moms or Dancing with the Stars or being the lead in Hallmarks and Nutcracker Christmas.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you even own some of her dancewear or capezio turners.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: She is a gold medal winner from the Varna International Ballet Competition, and she still currently holds the world record for most consecutive pirouettes, which by the way, that's 55 pirouettes.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I am so excited to welcome Sophia Lucia to the podcast.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Hi guys, I'm so excited to be here.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Yay! We're so excited to have you and thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with us.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to hear all about your dance journey so far at such a young age at 18 already.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: You've done so much.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's been absolutely crazy.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: My childhood was wild, and I've done so much in the dance world, and I feel like I've kind of been through it all.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: So it's been really interesting to kind of look back and experience it all over again and talk about it and just kind of relive it.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's been great.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're really excited.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: So you want to jump on in, Leslie?
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, sometimes our questions like take a turn immediately.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: And I you mentioned something just now that made me have a question.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: So you said it's been interesting to like look back at your childhood.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: And what's crazy is that like you really can because you grew up in an era where like you're on YouTube, you're on television, you're on DVDs, you're on you're you're everywhere, like and you have the ability to look at that.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: Whereas Courtney and I have a VHS tape, maybe if we're looking maybe.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: What's a VHS tape?
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: Like what even what even is that?
6:47
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm just so curious, like, like what's the first thing that you saw on the internet of yourself?
6:52
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, wait, that's me.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh God.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I think the most traumatizing one, because I think in general, people will play things and I'll have to watch it at either like seminars or dance the QA's or or just videos in general, and I'm at like a performance or whatever, just to get the crowd like almost hype, I guess you could say.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: But the one video that I just cannot watch that makes me so scared the fact that it's me is my very first like scene that I have in the dance hall.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: That just makes me want to like go in a room and cry.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's when I'm like, oh gosh, that's me.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh no.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Um that's the only thing.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, like, if you're asking me like actual dancing-wise, maybe the inner record video, like leading up to it, not just even the official record video, but the video that went viral when I first did 40 pirouettes when I first broke the record for the very first time.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Or when I was like eight years old doing like 29 pirouettes, like that kind of stuff, like I don't remember it very well because I'm so young.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes when people will like send me out or tell me the story, I'm always like, like, that's so strange.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, right.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, who is that little girl?
8:05
SPEAKER_02: She's turning a lot.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's very, very weird.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's so funny.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: So let's back up a little bit.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: So you got you you were famous, but like what happens before you're famous?
8:18
SPEAKER_02: When did you put on a pair of ballet shoes or a pair of tap shoes?
8:21
SPEAKER_02: And you know, what was your early training like?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was crazy.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: I've always trained a lot from a very young age.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Both of my cousins uh cousins owned two different dance studios growing up.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, was born into a dance family.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So as soon as I was able to walk, it was like you're going to the studio.
8:39
unknown: Yeah.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think I had I had very weird drives, like, especially being a teacher now and teaching students from the ages four to seventeen, like my dedication and my drive and just me being so determined and like so focused at like three or four.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Like I did my first solo when I was three and a half.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: And I was like s I was like singing and tapping on stage, and you can see the video, and I there's I'm not looking at anyone, like I know the dance.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Like my my parent like my parents had said that I would be at the dance too from like three and a half or four for like four hours a day, which is absolutely nuts for someone that age.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: But I had begged my mom, like if my mom tried like taking out the dance too, I'd be like, no, it was ballet.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: So I think from a young age I always had loved it, and then I was like getting a lot better at it.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And by the time I was seven, I was dancing, I think 25 hours a week, and then as I got older, it grew to 50 hours a week.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: But from eight to seven, I was dancing a lot.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: So training training changed as in like what kind of classes I was taking or like how many competition groups I had to practice versus solos, like that definitely changed.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: As I got older, I did a lot more private than I did groups for classes when I got older.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: But hours have always been nuts.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: That's completely nuts.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that even as a professional dancer, we were ever working that yeah, that kind of schedule.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: I know, like even just you saying like at a point in time, you know, even later, you were training 50 hours a week.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's more than a full-time job.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my god.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: And you are you were a child.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: What?
10:23
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: But you loved every minute of it, I'm assuming.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I did up into a point.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I think I hit a very big breaking point when I moved to Arizona and I was training in classical ballet uh 50 hours a week.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And it was a very toxic environment too, so I just don't think I was enjoying it very much.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was dancing, I was dancing seven days a week.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a day off.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think if I had a day off where I could just recharge, like didn't go to the dance studio, didn't do anything, just sat and like was a normal kid.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would have grown to not like it, but I think because it was like I was at like the peak of my career, you could say I danced career at like a very young age, and I was constantly achieving all these amazing things, but in the inside I just was not happy because of my training schedule.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: It was so rough.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: I got there every morning at 8 a.m.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: and I left at 10 p.m.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Like that was how it was.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And I I was lucky I had an hour and a half break versus an hour.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Like I really didn't have breaks, so I think that is where I got problematic.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And then I was just so tired of like being on the same schedule because I even I was eating the same things every single day, wearing the same things, things with the same people, like there was no change, so it felt like I didn't have freedom in the same classes and all that kind of stuff.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So I think for a while it was really fun and I loved it, and I loved having a challenge.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Like I was when I first went to a ballet at conservatory, I was like the worst one in classes and I love that.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I love it when I'm the worst one because I have something to like like look forward to and achieve, obviously.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: But I was taking levels four, five, and six.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: So I was doing triple the amount of work to catch up as everyone else.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: So I think I just that got very tired that got very tiring and very hard very quickly.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: It's only like so long you can keep up that kind of momentum.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, at that at that conservatory, were you I mean, did you do anything besides ballet?
12:10
SPEAKER_02: But what was there a character class?
12:12
SPEAKER_02: Was there a jazz class, like anything to break up that ballet or no?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: I took I think one contemporary class a week on Saturdays, because that's when they were offered.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And I had contemporary private twice a week for my solos that I was gonna have to do at like convention or performances, because when I got brought out to do galas or whatever, I I still wasn't like strong enough in the ballet world for them to bring me out to do a variation or anything like that.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: They always brought me out to do contemporary ballet.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So I I had privates, but it was I went from doing like 40 hours a week of just strictly contemporary with a few hours of ballet here and there and taps and jazz to doing all ballet and four hours of contemporary a week.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a big change.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So, and like I I'm a I'm a contemporary jazz tap dancer through thrill.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Like ballet wasn't, I didn't go to that conservatory to become a ballerina.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Somehow that got lost in my team's eyes, like along the way.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: That was never the goal.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: My plan was to go there to make my contemporary better, but it was never, it was never to become a ballerina, and so somehow that got lost.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And so then I was like, everyone had rebranded me as like Cephilia Chid's ballerina, and it was like, oh yeah, that wasn't the goal, but like, okay.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think my ballet teacher at the time had told my mom, like, I can make her the world's like best ballerina we've seen in a while.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: I will have every company to her in the next three years.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: You you bet on it.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, and I think my mom just loved the way that sounded.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: My mom was very involved in my training.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think my mom loved me as a ballet dancer for all weird reasons.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And it was everyone else's opinion mattered before mine at the time.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: So it was like dance teachers, convention leaders, my mom, like my family, whatever they wanted for my career was what was happening.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: It was never like, Sophia, what do you want?
14:00
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of just had to like stick with it and been like, yep, I guess I'm a ballerina now, but that was never the goal.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't regret it though, because I loved the T2s and I loved the Panades.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't I don't know if I loved the ballet industry, if that makes sense.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, it's a whole nother world.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just like dance competition world is a whole nother world than concert dance and ballet, like it's yeah, the whole thing.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Very different.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And you got a taste of that very early.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, the majority of of professional ballet dancers do train for that goal in like about, you know, even earlier than what when you started, like you said.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you were playing catch up once you got into the conservatory with the others who have been doing this from the beginning and don't know any different.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Whereas you had this whole other dance career, uh, you know, at such a young age in a whole different dance world, which was the competitive dance world, which, you know, ballet conservatory and competitive dance, you you don't really think those two things go together at all.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's two, it's very, very, very different.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: So I can understand the burnout that you felt and experienced absolutely.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the competition dance world is so completely different.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: The vibe is very different at competition for jazz, the contemporary all the versus ballet competition.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Like it's very different.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And I had major culture shock my first ballet competition, and I just remember being like got getting to go to a convention competition in February, and I was like, I had trained, it was I was there for eight months at this point, and I was just so excited to go to a convention competition that wasn't ballet.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And I remember like ha getting all the like nostalgia and just being like, oh, I miss like the vibe because everything is so much more chill and like laid back, and like it's just a lot more positive, I think.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, but I mean, I I did like every competition as a kid, so I've been I I feel like I'm very, very experienced in in how competitions work.
15:53
unknown: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to hear like you know, about about your comp life world, pre-conservatory world.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: So like going backwards to that time when you were training like crazy, you know, in the in the competitive dance world.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: So you grew up in California, is that correct?
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: San Diego, yes.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: So, and you were doing solo since you were three.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, crazy.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: I do love a good three-year-old solo, though.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: They're usually my favorite.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And I can only imagine what your three-year-old solo was because of the sense.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: But mine was good.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when when they're like standing there and their hands on their hips and all they're doing is a knee bounce.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm like, you know what?
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Good for you, Diamond.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: You did it.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: Good for you, three-year-old.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
16:38
SPEAKER_00: I was if you there's the videos are on YouTube.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: They're definitely terrifying to watch like now, but like so funny.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: You ever need a laugh?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Just go and watch those.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: I may have to check that out after.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: We'll link to it in the show notes for everyone who wants a cute little Sophia Luccia age three.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, what was your time like at with with the studios that you were a part of, you know, leading up to pre-dance mom's pre-Guinness World record holder?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, were you doing group routines?
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Were you how many competitions were you attending, a season?
17:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, what were your favorites?
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh, what kind of achievements did you get back then?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: And things like that.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is so interesting because I think a lot of people think that I got known in the dance world after doing dance moms, which is just really not true.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Because I already had made an a name for myself in the con in the competition world.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I was when I was I think I started doing well in competitions at age six.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Like that's when I started doing a lot better.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And I was undefeated from seven to ten.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: So that had already started circulating.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And when I was nine years old, I was going to so many competitions and I was always known for the girl that could turn.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So like that was, you know, that was your signature.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: But competitions were so interesting when I was yeah, I'm a signature for sure.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: But it was competitions were super interesting because I had so many solos.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Like I remember when I was younger, I would only do like three solos.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as I hit like seven, I had like eight solos that I would just alternate through competitions because my mom was like, You gotta be different, you can't compete the same comp same solo at every competition.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Like everyone's gonna know because at that point my solos yeah, because at that point my solos were already going on YouTube and people were watching them.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: I was gaining traction on YouTube and I uh was starting to go to c convention and starting to make my name in the convention world as as well as the competition world.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: I was in thirty-six groups one year.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, not thirty-six groups, I had thirty-six numbers total.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: So I had eight solos, I had like four duos and one trio, and then the rest were groups, like it was insane.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: So I always, always, always had a lot of numbers and a lot of things going on during competition.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Like my family was our obviously dance family, so very committed to it and was like, This is it, this is what you're gonna do.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna do something, you're gonna do it a hundred percent.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think I just got put in all the groups, like it didn't matter the age group.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I think I was put in a senior group by age eight, like it was wild.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I think my favorite competitions growing up were like car.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: They sponsored my Genesis Wild Record, and they have been such an amazing competition for me and just 'cause are the nicest people.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Hall of Fame was amazing, and so was Showstopper.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Like those are my three top competitions of all time.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think going to Showstoppers as a kid, and you know, it's the competition that anyway, like everyone knows it, so everyone's so excited for it.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: But going to that competition in specific made my dance career honestly.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Like those videos that of me competing at Showstoppers.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: So at Showstoppers they had a live stream and my videos would go straight on YouTube as soon as I was done performing at a young age.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: So when I was I oh I was winning at Showstoppers a lot.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I had one first there like three years in a row.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: So it was a very big deal and it was my favorite competition because it was a bazillion and that's all I cared about the podcast.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to go on the rightfully so, rightfully so.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but when I was, I think I was either eight or nine, I can't remember, I did my first contemporary solo and it kind of made a trademark for me in the dance world because I was known as a tap dancer before that.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Like all of my tap solos would always win.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Everything on YouTube that went viral of mine was tap.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: So this was the first time that I ever really did a a contemporary, like modern, very weird solo.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And that solo ended up going viral because there's a picture of me with my leg behind my head.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Because I had gone very I had worked on it, so I had pulled my leg behind my head and I ended up the solo, and you hear everyone in the background and the video goes.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: And I remember that video is what made me well known before I even did TV shows and all that kind of stuff.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: So I really owe it to dance competitions for giving me like a sense of like a plat it was almost like my platform that I used before Instagram and everything else came out.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Like dance competitions were how people got to know each other.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Like that's where the producers at Dance Mom Spot found me was at dance competitions, and we had turned down the show like five hundred times.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: Really?
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Um but they that's how they found dancers were at dance competitions.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
21:05
SPEAKER_01: I really love hearing that story.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: And I and I just feel like I have to kind of like reflect back and compare it to like my time as a comp kid, which is so different because we didn't have like like Leslie said at the very beginning of this episode, all of our footage is on VHS.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And like we don't even I don't even I think like my best friend actually got all of our recital videos converted from VHS to DVD and flash drive recently because we wanted to still have that footage or but it's not accessible anymore.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Whereas like our you like you said, our dance competitions at the time that you were growing up in them in like the 2010, 11, 12, that was when the internet was so different, or it's you know, it's booming.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: There's live streams now.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Competitions post videos of the winners.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Like like you said, it was The perfect platform for you to gain momentum and traction on YouTube, which was also kind of new, it was like booming back then.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, so like that is it's it's so it's so different.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: That is not how and you didn't have to do anything.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Like it's got to be fair.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: Like it's got to be fair, and you were videoed.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, and there's also like the should they have done this factor of it.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: It's like, you know, their their business is like, well, here's all these videos, and you didn't, you know, bunch of choice.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, fine.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: So interesting.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: No, for sure.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: I I I even think now though it's harder, it's harder to use the ends competitions of like quote unquote content.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Like they truly gave me like video, like I mean the competitions would videotape the solos and put them on live streams, and that's that's that was it.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what that was the content that had gone out.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Like whatever I did that day was what I got, you know?
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And now it's so different because you it's m a lot harder.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: There's live streams, but people steal the live streams and they post them as their thing.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: So now it's not my content, it's not my dance, it's not I don't own it.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: So there's a it's very different now.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: It was a lot easier in 2010 through 2014, but then Instagram really changed in the whole world of dance and how people were gonna get known, everything like that.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: So it definitely changed a bunch, but I honestly prefer the way it was in 2010 to to 2014.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: I feel like especially now with like TikTok being a thing and everything, like you can create your own dance content and people can see it like globally, but they don't know what's like real dance.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many dancers now that are quote unquote well known who are not trained.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's like it's much the competition's much broader now versus like if you went to competition, you got your videotape, you put it on YouTube and you did well.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: That that's that.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a lot more simple.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's such a good point, and so true.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: And I I'm interested to go into what you kind of briefly mentioned.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people are are curious about your time with dance moms.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm so, so, so happy that you kind of laid it out for the world on the podcast and let everyone know hey, I was something before dance mom's gone.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm just so happy because, like you said, I think a lot there are a lot of people that associate you and dance moms, and that was your breakthrough.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And you're kind of like, no, not really.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I I was doing a lot of great things prior to, and dance moms came to me.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: So you pretty much kind of hinted at that because of your success on YouTube with a lot of your winning videos from dance competitions, that's how Dance Moms scouted you for the show.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't, when they had come to me, they had offered my family a reality show called My Crazy Dance Family.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: They wanted that the dance mom was originally supposed to be about my family.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: No way.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and so we had said no.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: We were like, because my cousins, my cousins at the time who owned the two different dance studios, they didn't really like get along because their competitions were or their studios were comp like competitors, you know?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: They're yeah.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: So dance moms had come to me, they had understood our family drama, and my mom was like, I have to be on camera.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And it and someone's like, No, I just like I had already made a name for myself a little bit in the convention and competition world, and I really wanted to be quote unquote taken seriously as a dancer.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And everyone, every mentor that I had that was very well known, like Mark Mismer, um, Trek Swallow, like you name it, they told us no.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: They were like, That's going to like she's she's young, she's nine years old, she's almost like she can be an amazing real dancer who works in the industry.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we had said no, dance months have come on.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: They called my mom once a week for two years.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: Your poor mother.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: My poor mom.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: She was like, you know what, you're about to break the guinness of record.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, this might be good press.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just do one episode.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And my mom really had that idea.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: I did not want to do the show.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: I was so against it.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like, please no, please know they're gonna make me look bad.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: We did the show.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: My mom was so uncomfortable with beyond a camera.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, my if my mom was crazy, she was crazy behind the camera.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's that's that's her thing.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: She never wanted anyone to like it.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: She just felt like it was like an invasion of privacy.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Like they would keep their mics on when they had to go to the bathroom.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: My mom was like, I don't even like want to go to the bathroom because I have a mic on.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, what if they like we had no privacy?
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And so my mom just my mom kind of knew that was what it was gonna be like.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think at the time my mom had sat me down after we did one episode because they made us look fine because my mom didn't get involved in anything.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: My mom was like, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna speak, like, I'm not gonna do anything.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is my daughter, this is her talent, either showcase or don't, like that's how it is.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: And I my mom had my mom had pulled me aside, she was like, Is this what you want?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Like this this will change your life, but it it's just gonna be an interesting life.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you want?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, and do you want to work in the industry or do you want to be on television as a TV star?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I want to work, like I I want to do dance jobs, I don't want to be on a reality TV show and not be me.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't want to be associated with all the drama.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Like little 10-year-old me like being so adult-like, and I listened to like all my dance teachers who told me not to do it.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: So my mom ended up pulling me out.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: We never signed any contracts.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: I was literally on dance alone for two episodes.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I think it's so interesting because people always think that that had made my career.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure even Abby thinks that I like I should open her my career.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: We can talk about that in a minute.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Um Okay, great.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: I just like but dance mom definitely helped me a broader audience that was not dancers.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Like I before that I had dancer, dancer followers, dancer, whatever you want to say, subscribers, but I don't I don't really know.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And Dance Mom helped me get a broader view of people who weren't trained as dancers, who didn't dance, like that.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: That's where that had come in.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's why, because that whole side of dance dance mom's audience who aren't dancers, who are just they don't, they don't dance, they don't know really anything about it, had started following me.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And from there that launched a whole new like world with Instagram that had just launched when I went on dance mom.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: But I was only on dance moms for two episodes.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you really look at that, like I feel like it's very strange.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: My dance time on dance moms was very short.
28:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't necessarily I didn't really necessarily yeah, I didn't really love it.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I could have done it for more than a few episodes.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: It was it was crazy.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: Do you keep in touch with any of those girls still?
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm I mean, I'm very close with Mia and I talk to Maddie and Mackenzie all the time.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: I'd known I've known Kalani even before she went on the show.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: So I've known her for a while.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And Bran had one best dancer with me the same year, and so we had tour to break the floor before she even went on dance bombs.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: The only person I I I had not to keep contact with is uh Abby.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's fair.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: I can only imagine how that experience was.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And what season were you on?
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know offhand.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Season three.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: I would not know the episodes, but yeah.
29:09
unknown: Yeah.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: I judged dance mom season two and three, but did not judge you.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: I would have remembered that for sure.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was, I mean, on on my end as a judge, I I mean it's n nowhere near the same as what you dancers had to experience at all and the drama involved.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that that's so interesting.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't realize you only did two episodes because, like you said, I mean, so many people associate your name with dance moms and it almost like you were a cast member and you were like, No, I just did two episodes, that's it.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: I was a guest artist.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you were a guest.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm very thankful for the experience.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, I I don't regret doing it at all, but I think I left at the right time.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want people to think that like I I don't like it when people associate associate me with dance moms.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a job that I did and like it's it was a dance job out of the many dance moms that I had, and then that's that, you know.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: So I don't mind, but I I think recently too, it's been very interesting because I've heard from a bunch of people just weird comments about me being like known from dance moms, and I I I always want to like kind of defend myself in the aspect of like I trained very hard to be where I was and where I am.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think when people think that like I just got it from a TV show, that is very different, you know.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: But I don't mind.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's important that you say that because I think that that is that's probably the case for a lot of the dancers that were a part of that show at at a point in time.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it is important to hear that from from the dancer themselves.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: You you've really worked hard.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: They scouted you for the show.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:46
SPEAKER_01: So, like they wouldn't have scouted you if you weren't spectacular and there was something special about you, and that's why they wanted to have you on.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious to hear now after.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: So did did your life change after Dance Moms as far as your your career at such a young age?
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, for sure it did.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: I the first three scenes of the dance moms, it wasn't cool if you were on it to the dance world.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: And then after season four hit, everyone started to like like dance people who had told me not to do it were obsessed with the show and obsessed with being friends with everyone on the show and working with the people on the show.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: So it was very strange because I got such backlash from my mentors who I looked up to for years doing it, and then a year later they were like besties with the people who they told me not to work with.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: So it was very interesting.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Dance moms changed, yeah.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: I said answer all my dance career changed tremendously in the fact of right after I was on Dance Moms, I broke Against the Record.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: So the momentum that that had from Dance Moms, I was on when I broke a Guinness Word Record, then I was on Dance with the Stars and I was doing all this, it just created this huge momentum of me wanting to work and do all these things.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: I was on Disney Channel, doing Kirby Buckets, I was doing guest starlings here and there.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, so I think when I did that show, it gave because people knew who I was when I walked into a room, whether you were a dancer or not then, it gave me the confidence to kind of flourish and do everything that I was meant to do.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good way of putting it.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Because before that I was working background on X Factor and Shake It Up and all that kind of stuff.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: On I was always doing background stuff, but I was never doing guest star roles or anything like that.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And so after I was on Dance Moms and Books Akip Record, I was on talk shows, I was on all these kind of things.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: So I think it definitely opened up like a a door that I was always meant to go down.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: It just made me go down that path very quickly.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Like I had everything happened in like a span of the year that we had hoped it was gonna happen for in four.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: So the momentum after Dance Moms, I think that's what changed.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: So you dance mom's then world record?
33:42
SPEAKER_02: Is that the order?
33:43
SPEAKER_00: So I broke the I broke the record multiple times.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I broke it on YouTube when I was like nine years old.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: But Guinness, like when you have to bring out Guinness World Records, there it's very expensive.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: It's like twenty thousand dollars.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: It's it's an insane amount.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And my parents were like, We we love you, but we're not gonna pay for that.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And so my managers at the time Yeah, my wow, very strange, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so my parents really wanted it to happen though.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: They they knew it was like my like it was my goal.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Like that was the only goal I had.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like what competition I wanted to win or whatever.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I want to break, I wanna be in the book of Guinness Records.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And so Kids Artistic Review, also known as car, they had opened up their minds and wanted to sponsor me.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: And I had already won, I won won their nationals the year before.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: So they had sponsored the Guinness Record, and at the time I had a closing line, so California Kisses also stepped in and they sponsored it and they made Guinness Record like me to break the Guinness Records happen because it wouldn't have happened without them.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: You have to contact Ginn Guinness Records and they have to send someone from London from their headquarters to come and they have to win.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: And normally you only have one chance to break the Guinness Record, but because of my age, they allowed me to have three.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And you nailed it on the third?
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I no, technically I have three records because I broke it all the time.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I broke it each, but they counted they counted the highest number.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so Guinness of Record was a huge deal because at the time social it was it was way harder to break Guinness of the Record because social media wasn't as big as it is now.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: So someone had to come in from London and do that, and then from there I broke into the world record on the Rookie Lake show.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: So it was all everything that I did was about Guinness of Record for the next year and a half.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Dancing with the Stars had featured me on episodes as a spotlight dancer of the season.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: So I had an entire episode dedicated to me and to the world record, and then from there I worked as a background dancer on dancing with the stars for the rest of the season.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So that Guinness of Record really launched so many things.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: It went dance mom's, and then I think like two months later I broke the Guinness of the Record because Dance Moms premiered.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
35:51
SPEAKER_00: No, dance moms premiered, I think, in like October-ish.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: I could be very wrong.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: October, November, and I broke it in March.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: There was that whole time period where I was still working and I was traveling, was going to Australia.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Like I was in Australia like the week before I broke the Guinness of the Record.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: I was traveling a lot as a dancer.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: So between Dance Mom and Guinness of the Record, a lot had happened because my life kind of had changed overnight with how many jobs and offers I was getting as to work as a professional dancer.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: And then from there, kind of everything had gone on.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: So what is it what does the training look like to break a record?
36:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, are you just like doing a whole bunch of pirouette training?
36:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just walk me through what that even looks like.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Like so, yeah, this is where I love telling us because people are always so shocked because it's not what they think at all.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: We never had the intention of being like a giveaway record holder.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Like that was never why we practiced that many turns to begin with.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: My tap teacher, Michelle, who is I work with her now, so it's very strange full circle.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: She was teaching me my tap solo that year, and we had tap tied at three times a week.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: And she really wanted me to be able to do like five pirouettes of my tap shoes.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So she was like, if you can do this is when I was eight years old, she's like, if you can do 10 in practice, you can do five on stage.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And then I was nailing 10 and rehearsal.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: She was like, All right, fine, you can do 10 on stage, or if you can do 10 on stage, 20 in practice.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it kind of the number would just rise.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And then she was just blown away at the age of eight.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: I was doing 19 turns.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Like it was wild.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: That's how the cancer record had come about because I had I think there's a video of me doing 28 turns at the age of eight.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: She was like, that is when she looked it up.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: So she was like, wait, I think there's a cancer record for this.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's look this up.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And she was the one, like, she was like, You're gonna break the world record, you're gonna do it.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I was so young I couldn't comprehend it.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, All right, cool.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: Let's do it.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And then we had just always practiced the turns.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so when I was practicing for the Guinness of the Record, it was in the middle of my tap privates.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: We would spend like I think closer to like a month before like the Guinness Record happened, I was only doing like pirouettes in my tap shoes, like in all of my technique privates.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: It was like, you gotta practice for the Guinness of Records.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: But before that, it was just like it was just the thing to do for my tap soloist for call.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Like even in my jazz privates, we they would be like, put your tap shoe on and let's go turn.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Like it was almost like a fun thing to do just to keep everything going.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: But it was never like it was never me being like, What's the Guinness of the record?
38:18
SPEAKER_00: It was like my tap teacher being like, This is this is sick.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: I think you can do this.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: Like let's make it like let's figure out what the record is.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I really owe it to all to my shelf.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: I was spending like a total of I think the month prior to the Guinness the Record, I was spending like 10 hours a week just on PROS just to make sure that I was breaking it every time.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Because there was never a time that I did not not break it.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Like that month was breaking the record every single time.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: And that was the goal.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: That was the goal, because like, you know, I had a lot of pressure to make sure that I broke the record that day.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: I had 500 people waiting in the other room at the Indigo Dance Center at the time.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: I had my brother working a live stream which had 300,000 people on it.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Like there was just so many people like wa you're A waiting to see me, like I in my mind, I was like, everyone's waiting to see me fail.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: That's like the pressure.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, oh my gosh, I can't imagine.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Like to break the record, too, it was very different from what I had practiced.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: And I was a person that would just be flustered if like something was off.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: And I had to like really commit to it because I had someone like literally like this.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: Like I I like right below my feet with a camera because they had to put the turns in slow motion to re-count it to make sure they counted it correctly.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And they have the guess the record glide clicks every single time.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: If you ever watched the video, you could hear it.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Like you could so you could hear it every time.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And it was so annoying to me because I was always in dead silence.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: I could hear it.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: There was a camera out of my foot, there was a camera at the side, like I couldn't focus.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: So that would throw me off so much.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: You get your clicker out of here, sir.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the the Guinness Record guy was the Guinness Record Guy was so nice to me because he let me have practice time with him before he was actually gonna count it, because I was like, Can I just hear the clicker?
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Because I just need to practice with it, because it's gonna mess with my head.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: So the official video that you see at car, like on car on car TV and in my YouTube channel as well, I actually did 56 pirouettes.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: But because of the rules of Guinness Wood Record, it was counted as 55.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: What do they like not count the first one or something?
40:21
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: So they're very strict about rules.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: So when I was first breaking the Guinness Wood record, I was changing my position.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: So I was going from pose to coupe to arms up, like that I was given ice skater turn.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: That's not allowed.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: You have to you can't change your position.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: You have to hold one position to the page.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: So just paste constantly.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Just paste constantly.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: And so if my passe came disconnected, turns didn't count.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, see, now listen, everybody on the podcast, disconnect your passe.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: We say it every week.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: Sophia Lucia does it too or doesn't count.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: Don't disconnect your pose.
40:57
SPEAKER_03: It's always a tangible moment.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: But I'm just thinking, like, how do they know what a connected passe is?
41:03
SPEAKER_01: Like that guy's probably not a dancer.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, and there's no one else that holds the record.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: The person before me who held the record, she only did paste, and I didn't really realize that.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's very tough.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: I love that story.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've ever met anyone that's broken a record before.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: So go you.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: And yes, shout out.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: I love that you've been shot not your tap teacher.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, absolutely.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: That's just so cool.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: No, she like I I honestly really owe it to all my teachers because she just like Michelle in specific, she's the reason why I broke it.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: And then my dance teachers, Miss Tiffany, Tiffany King, and Rachel Sebastian.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Rachel Sebastian was my head technique teacher at the time.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And Rachel and Tiffany are like my second moms.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Like we traveled together.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: They basically raised me as a person, like not just a dancer, but like I was a person.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: And I trained them still.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: So like everyone was there in the room with me too.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: I had Rachel, Tiffany, Michelle.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: I had like 500 other people in the room.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: It was wild.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really it's not just me.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I had to do the turns, but there's so many other people that it took to make that happen, make that 10-year-old dream happen.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Like it's I'm forever thankful.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: So totally.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, all right.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: So dance moms happened.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Guinness Book of World Records happened.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Lots of more opportunities started flooding your way.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: You were 10.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm sure so many, like you said, talk shows and TV appearances and guest star roles and so many things that you've been always hoping and wanting to achieve and have now are are now at you know the front of your career.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: Were you at that time, you know, from age 10 till however, but pre-conservatory, were you still competing?
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Were you still with your studio, or did you have to kind of put that on the back burner because there were so many other opportunities coming your way?
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: I my mom was dedicated to competitions and there was no way I was getting out of them.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: There I definitely did a lot.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: I definitely did a lot less of competitions after my game of the record because of my anxiety that I had after it now.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Because like as soon as I went to competitions, it was like, oh, you're Sophia Lucia.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: So like either A, you were looking to beat either A, you were looking to beat me, or B, the competitions, even if I was the best dancer, whatever you want to say, competitions would do like I've gotten perfect scores of competitions before and placed force because they said that I needed to be humbled.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: They were like, she wins all the time, so like let's give it to someone else.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: So competitions either A were looking to do something.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Because I at that point, this is kind of where it gets sticky.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: It's just like I would go to competitions.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: I I was always a nervous wreck because if I didn't win, it wasn't I didn't personally care.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Like I I think dance competitions are very subjective, and whatever is best that day to the judges, that's what's best.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: But at that point it became political.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: It didn't become about who was the best dancers, it became about who like can we do something to throw everyone's initial Reactions off.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Like that, that's what it came about at the end of the day.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I got more well known, and it put a lot of pressure on me, almost in a really bad way, because my mom was very, very, very, very strict on me.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: My mom felt pressure of the world as well.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And like there was blogs and like like one blog about if I didn't win at a competition, people would be like, Well, if Safe was she really worth everything that she has gotten, she didn't win at this one.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: So, like, it was just like there was so many other things now going into it.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: That competition wasn't competition anymore.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: It was stress.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Like it it was it became unenjoyable.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, I had become worldly known.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: So like I couldn't get from dressing rooms to the competition stage without a bunch of people rushing in.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: I was at Showstoppers in 2013 that was right after all this had happened.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: And I had to go on 20 numbers late, which is not like you normally're disqualified, because I couldn't get from the dressing room to the stage because no one would like everyone was asking for pictures.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: All two other rooms had stopped to come and watch me dance.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was on a small stage.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: So they like literally no one was showing up for their group dances in the other two rooms because they all wanted to come watch me.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: There was the room was completely full.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at my mom and 10-year-old me literally was like, they're waiting to see me fail.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: So competitions just became horrible after that.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Like I really didn't enjoy competitions after that because if I didn't do perfect, like if I didn't nail everything, it was on Instagram, it was like everyone was talking about it.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Like I was the talk of the town in competition world, which I was so flattered to be, but at the same time, I was just a kid.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't know how to handle it because I had a lot of pressure for my mom to be perfect.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: My mom is a perfectionist, my mom expects the best from me.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: She was very hard on me, very hard.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I had her yapping in my ear.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: I have my dance teachers trying to calm me down.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: I have the weight of the world being like, Let's please Sophia fail.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Like that's how it felt.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: So competition became very difficult for me because there was no space to myself.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: And and so when I was 11 years old, I had competed only at convention, besides I think, Hall of Fame.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: That year, I only competed at convention because I was trying to win Best Dancer at the Dance Awards.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: I won Best Dancer at the Dance Awards and I traveled to Break the Floor for the whole next year.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: I didn't compete when I was 12 because I was traveling every single weekend with Break the Floor as an assistant.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: And so that was interesting because I was performing solos every weekend, and that was honestly a new level of a whole new level of pressure that I had never felt before.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Because Break the Floor is such a huge name and is one of the best, best pe like that production company in general is just one of the best.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: And I love Gil, who owns it, and I look up to all the teachers who are on staff, but they they were very tough on me, as in what they me like what they expected from me.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: And so I was working to the bone at that point.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: I was training every single day of the week, then traveling, and then assisting Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: And I would I would just be assisting Mia Michaels also like all day on Sunday, which is the most tiring classes, and you have to give it girls, Mia Michael.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And she never let any dance awards assistant assist her until me, really.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: So it was a huge deal that she allowed me to assist her in her mini junior teen and senior class class, because that was never known.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to have oh, I always had her on Sunday, and I had to comp I had to perform my solo right after.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: I was just exhausted.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Like you're dancing on concrete.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, before like on Saturday, I was assisting Teddy, I was assisting Nick, I was like, there's like Travis, Stacey, Jason, you might like they all expected me to be on my game.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: So by the time I went to go perform my solo, which everyone had their video cameras up in the audience, and it was on a live stream and fan pages and all this kind of stuff would be tuning in to watch my live stream every single weekend.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: I was just exhausted and I couldn't push through.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: So my solos had really changed that year because I was like, no more turns, I can't do it.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, we need to make these solos a lot easier because I can't.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: Like my body can't handle it.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: I had shin splints, I had like major anxiety, I had all these things that had never had to deal with before.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: So that whole year was just like I was on cloud nine because I had finally won dance awards and I was able to assist all these people who do all the amazing jobs in the industry, but I had never felt so tired and so burnt out.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: So after that, I was like, I need a break.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: And Mia Michael kind of took me under her wing that whole year because she was working on jump at the time.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: I had the opportunity to perform with the ballet company in Poland, and they all trained at the ballet conservatory conservatory that I ended up moving to the next year.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: I moved and I moved myself to Arizona, and I didn't really know if I wanted to move, and I didn't know if I wanted to be all in ballet, and Mia Michael had sat me down at San Sorpalooza.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: We had lunch together, and she sat there and she was like, You're going to Arizona.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Why?
48:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to like I was like, I can't assist you, like I won't be able to go to New York, I won't be able to train with you like this, like it's very serious.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, You need ballet and you're going.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Okay, your Michael says I'm going to a ballet conservatory.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: That's that's just I guess you do what my Michael says, right?
48:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: And my mom was like, because my mom had wanted me to go, but she was like, Sophia needs to hear it from another person.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: So she had let all the break the floor people come to me and was like, What do you want to do?
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is what is your goal for the next year?
49:13
SPEAKER_00: And I I honestly didn't have one.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I was really confused on where I was gonna go because competition dance just didn't seem like the right fit anymore because I had already done it.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Like I had already won all the competitions that I wanted to do, and I felt like I was working in the industry, so I was almost unfair to other people who wanted to compete because I was quote unquote a professional dancer already.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: It just didn't feel like the right fit.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: So then I went to ballet school and I ended up doing ballet competitions and everything, and I ended up achieving everything that I wanted to do in the ballet world and when I thought it was gonna take me from 13 to 18 to do.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: I got all like by the end of by the end of that year that I lived there, I went to Varna IBC, which is the oldest, most prestigious ballet competition in the world.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was the youngest competitor they've ever had.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: I was there as a non-competing partner because I was too young, but you still get judged.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're a non-competing partner, you still get judged.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: My dance partner and I were there and we were like the first USA couple to win in a while.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Like it's like the Olympics of dance.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: And I had only trained in ballet, I think, for 10 months.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: I I only trained in like on point for 10 months at a time, and here I am doing Swan Lake and like all these potadas and like ridiculously hard things.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: And after Varna, I had all of my dream companies offer me to come and be a part of their their studio like their studio companies, which is just wild.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I was so excited that I was so disappointed because I was like, I'm only 13.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Like I had just moved states when I was not about ready to move countries without even like I thought I was gonna stay here for another four years and like have some stability.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Have some stability at the time I had just like started dating someone, I had never dated anyone in my life.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: It was like a very like first crush type of thing.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: It was like my so I just wanted like I just wanted time to be normal.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, I feel like now that I have achieved this, I can kind of chill for a minute, do some things that are normal, have a little bit more of a normal life, infuse with dance, have more balance and keep it up.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: But then that didn't happen.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: So after I went to Varna, I had directly booked a movie, which was amazing.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: It was like I had never even dreamed about that because I had never acted, really, truly, like I had never had acting experience.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: And I booked like the lead in a Hallmark movie.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, Oh, this is the break I wanted, guys.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, no dance for me for a while.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: And I perfect, and I hadn't I d I had never had so much fun in my entire life.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Like the movie that I did for Hallmark is Ballet and Thieves, it's the next after Christmas.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: So I do dance in the movie, but I was I think we shot the dance scenes in one week and then everything else is just normal.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: So I lived in Toronto for two months.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: Just like chilling, like having the time of my life and having an experience that I never had before.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: And so it kind of opened my eyes to things that I had never experienced, and I was like, Oh, like my whole identity is dance and dance competitions.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to like kind of sit back and figure out what I wanted to do after I got home.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to be in Arizona anymore.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be home with my family.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: Like I really had missed that, and I had begged my mama very, very abruptly after I came back from Toronto.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, All right, dance competitions, here we go.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Like I was about to like go back into the dance competition world.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: That was that's what my mom wanted for me.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: How old were you at this time?
52:24
SPEAKER_00: 14.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: So when so Dennis Workers when I was 10, 11 years old is when I won Break the Floor, toured Break the Floor when I was 12, moved to Arizona when I was 12, moved home from Arizona when I was 14.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: That's true for the timeline.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm following you're you're a great storyteller.
52:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking, I'm with you.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: I've got I've got where we are.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, perfect.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Yay.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I talk a lot and I'll be able to do that.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: No, we love it.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: Word is a bad thing.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: So when I got home from I had like just quit a ballet school, I was like, no ballet.
52:56
SPEAKER_00: I I had a lot of really scary things and grown-up things happen to me that you think only happen in the movies of about ballet, but had happened to me.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: And I came home very uh very, very, very unhealthy mentally and physically.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted like my mom put me back into a ballet school that was an hour and a half away from the house.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: So we have a drive to there.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I drive to Orange County from San Diego every single day, and I was having the same I was on the same schedule as I was when I was 10 and 11.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: And I just couldn't do it.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: My mom was like, You're gonna do it, you're gonna push through this year, and when you're 15, you can have a break.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: My mom signed me up for all of these competitions.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: We're talking like car, showstoppers, star power, star back, like all these amazing competitions that have been so kind to me since I was a young age.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: Jump Nouveau, 24 seven, like she was like, You're gonna win best answer again.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is my mom.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, all right, I trust you, whatever, I don't really want to do this.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: And all all the competitions within months emailed her and had said, like, hi Jackie and Sophia, we love you, we hope you guys are good.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, we cannot have Sophia compete.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: We can have her perform as a guest at our competitions, but we cannot have her compete.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: It is unfair for other people competing, and um people are pulling out of our competitions because they do not want to compete against your daughter.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Your daughter is your daughter is a professional dancer, she shouldn't be allowed to compete.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: So either A, you guys can still pay and be a judication only or be a guest star and come before.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, which of course they wanted the guest star, you know.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so competitions had contacted my mom and basically were like, she's she's too professional to compete.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh I understand.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, I was so happy for a lot of a lot of different reasons.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: I it made me feel so sad that people like I I've I had seen it at competitions before, but I always just didn't I never thought that highly of myself, so I just didn't think it was me.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was something else.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: Because girls who would go on before me or after me was like literally making like making themselves sick or like have a freak out before they went on after me or before.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: Like they would always always the two before, like one after me or on.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: And I never had flattered myself that much, like, oh it's me, guys.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's me.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Like I never thought about that.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't I don't think that I I grew up in a very, very, very humbling household where if nothing was perfect, like it wasn't good.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know I was a good dancer until I was like 16 and I had to quit dance for a year and I had gone back and watched everything.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, I was like, Oh, okay.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: I can I can I can kinda understand now, but like before I just didn't know.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: So I just felt really sad and I felt really bad that I had made other kids feel like they couldn't have a shot at competing or whatever the competitions had said, it like honestly made me very sad because I never wanted to take away someone else's uh competition experience because I'm sure it was a lot happier than mine.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: And I just always felt really bad about that.
55:52
SPEAKER_00: And I I understood, like I understood where the competitions were coming from.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: And of course my mom was like, that doesn't make any sense.
55:58
SPEAKER_00: And I could sit back.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I just yeah, like I just I just finished being a lead in the homework movie.
56:04
SPEAKER_00: Like I just I achieved everything that I've wanted in four years.
56:09
unknown: Right.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: Every there was not one dance job that I had sat there and was like, Mom, dad, dance teachers, like, this is my goal.
56:15
SPEAKER_00: I want to book this job because I had done everything and everything that I wanted to at least.
56:20
SPEAKER_00: And so, and I'm a very goal-oriented person, and so I was sitting there almost 15 being like, like, I don't know how to move forward.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: Like I I don't like competition dance, that's obviously not an option anymore, which I understand.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be a ballerina, I don't want to be in the ballet industry.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: I saw a lot of dark things while I was in it, and I don't ever want to go back.
56:40
SPEAKER_00: I was still recovering from a lot of the things I had to go through.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I just don't know if I at that point I was like dancers, and this is this is I applaud dancers who can do this, and I did it, and I just am not this kind of person, and I never ever want to sound like I'm ungrateful or whatever.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: But I at that point my mom had asked me, like, do you want to be the star or do you want to be dancing behind the star?
57:03
SPEAKER_00: And this is after I had just did my acting job and I think I had a taste of what it felt like to be a lead.
57:09
SPEAKER_03: Right.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: I had said, I want to be the star, like I want to be an actress, I want to do acting and dance.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do the things I've already done.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Okay.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that is where it got interesting because I had been a background dancer my entire life and I know how hard they work, I know how many hours they have to work.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: And even from a young age, I know the pay of those dancers.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know what I mean?
57:28
SPEAKER_00: So I like it, there's so many things that go into it.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: But I was left at 15 with just being very unsure of like how to move forward in my dance career because I already reached this top because every year it was like you did this, so now you have to do this.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: What's the next one up?
57:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I reached this level where I was like, I just I just don't know.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: Like I I I was I was heartbroken because I had love the craft for so long that I was so tired and I was really unsure of how to move forward.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: So I took a break for a year.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: Good for you.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: I was a normal kid for a year and now I'm teaching.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: So it's very different.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: What was your favorite part of being a normal, a normal teenager?
58:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, this is gonna sound this is gonna sound this is gonna sound so weird and I understand, but I'm a total nerd.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: I love school.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: I I had never been able to I was homeschooled my entire life and my parents had put me in a private school, private high school, and I went there for years and I just arrived.
58:23
SPEAKER_00: I was like, if I didn't have a 4.0, I was mad.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: So I had to cry in the fact that I was gonna get straight A's and then I graduated high school as a junior and I've been in college ever since.
58:33
SPEAKER_00: So I went to college when I was 16.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was curious when you kept when you said something like, you know, when we were trying to schedule this and you were like, Oh, I have uh finals next week and my professor and things like that.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm in college, Lingo, and if being college, like because I knew you were 18, so you could definitely well be in college, but you went to college you graduated early and you went you started college at age 16.
58:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been in college for two I've been in college for almost two years.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm almost done with my associate's degree to transfer.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually transferring as a double major for dance and psychology, so it's very exciting.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: So I'm still keeping dance in my life.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome! Yeah, so I'm I'm keep still keeping dance in my life as a very prominent factor because it's just a part of me that I never will ever want to lose and dance competitions for how many years you always end up going to college for dance if you would love it, you know.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: So I had always wanted to and I love school, so I was like, let's double major, let's do dance and let's do psychs.
59:28
SPEAKER_00: Like those these are my favorite two things combined.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: Right now, as of right now, I'm just a psych major because I'm not a community college since I went to like college when I was 16, but I'm transferring to university in about six months.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh UCLA is my number one, Chapman University is my number two, and Juilliard or NYU is my number three.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: My boyfriend goes to U University of San Diego, so I've been looking at that school as well.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they have a strong dance program yet, but I'm looking into that.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, UCLA for sure and NYU and obviously Juilliard, some good picks there and also great just liberal arts education.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I just wanted a school that can offer me all the things that like you I know UCLA's dance department is very different from I think what people initially like expect.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: And college dance teams in general and dance programs are so interesting.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm learning so much because I feel like I I should know a lot more because of like how much I've done in the dance world, but like it it works so differently.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm having to like kind of retrain myself for what dance call like colleges want for dance.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: It's very different.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'm learning kind of how to navigate that from being a competition dancer to from being a ballerina to then being an actress.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many things that I'm kind of having to retrain myself for to understand how it works.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's awesome though, and it's really cool that's just a different phase of my life.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, and your I mean, your background is so multifaceted, and that that is what college dance programs want is somebody who is versatile and has, you know, lots of different lived experiences, especially since you're you know helping to double major in psychology.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, you've you've been through the psychological ringer, you know, in your in your short 18 years on this earth.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: So I think you're probably pretty well poised to do anything, you know, you know, with with those two things.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, guys.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're welcome.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: And I know that you said that like you're teaching now too.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: Is that is that true?
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: It is true.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: I this over the past, I think when I was when I turned 17 and I was starting to train like fully in dance again, like I went back on a dan a huge dance schedule and I was dancing more than I have in a while, and I just had found like a a new love for it and a new passion that I had lost for a while.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_00: I had parents always being like, Can you teach my daughter private?
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: So I think teach class is a little box.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, Well, I don't know if I'm gonna be good at it, but like sure.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: So I had started teaching my cousins, my little cousins, and I loved it.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: And from there I started teaching other kids, and I now have a full-time job at a dance studio and I'm rebuilding their lyrical and chess program right now.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_01: So cool.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: Better do it.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you go, girl, that's awesome.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean I love that.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: That's so great.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's awesome too because we were in person for a while, but because of COVID, we had just gone by we just went back to virtual.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: So pretty much anyone can come take my class, which is awesome.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: All right, y'all, did you hear that listener?
1:02:20
SPEAKER_01: Come take a class on virtual Zoom classes.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_01: And as you just listened for the past hours, it's absolutely spectacular.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really excited for your tweeting attorney.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to say that you found a pattern for that.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you've thoroughly built your road and oh my goodness.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_01: And so different ways than an avenues that even with your opting credits and kind of getting a little taste of the credits and then reality television and ballet company and I mean truly you you have such a well-versed resume to help you launch into your adult career.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of curious to hear, I know you're in school, I know you're transferring, and you're gonna finish school.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: What are your goals post-college?
1:03:08
SPEAKER_00: Post-college.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, my main goal, and it's it's a pipe dream that I know that, but I'm hoping that I can achieve it.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: I would love to be on like the main on a Netflix series or anything like a television series that incorporates dance somehow.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: I love acting.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: I I love it so much, but I love it just as much as I love dance, and so I I would love for the two to be combined.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: And so that's my goal out of college, and I have I have this like eight-year plan.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_00: So I because I so because I went to college at 16, I can have my master's in site by the time I'm 22.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: So I'm giving myself about four years to achieve four uh three to four years anything that I want with acting from like twenty-two to like twenty-six.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_00: And if that doesn't go my way, which I'm very confident that it will, I'm a person that if I set my mind to something, I make it happen.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_00: It has to be an i it's gotta be a when, not an if.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the mentality I'm going into it with.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: But say it doesn't kind of a weird thing in the universe.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: I am planning on going back to school and finishing whatever degree I need to open up my own practice to be a sports psychologist.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, like hopefully specializing in dancers.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: And I I mean I I saw a sports psychologist for years growing up, so I would love to help moms and daughters and dads, whoever families and and especially dancers who need it and need kind of the guidance.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of sports psychologists can understand and do as much research as they can to help you, but I've been through it.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: Like I've trained like an Olympic athlete, so I feel like that will make me very different if that's the the path I choose to go.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: But sports psychology is very interesting to me.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping to make that a reality as well by the time I'm 30, and then we can get married.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: I can get married and then I can have kids later, but but career career career has to come first.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_01: I cannot believe that I just listened to another plan.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_01: And I really do believe that it's a lot of stuff after Fire Life stories.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't make it, guess what?
1:06:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to school and I'm gonna do this.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_01: And you're looking at the long-term or like your long-term life, which I don't think any 18-year-old ever thinks about, you know.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: Because at 18, it's such there's so many big life decisions to make.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: At 18, which the prime primary one is where am I going to college is what the the main question in most 18-year-olds' lives is.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_01: And yours was that at 16, and you're already ahead of the game.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_01: So now you're already planning the rest of your future.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_01: And I love that these these goals that you have set for yourself.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_01: And I totally agree.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: I think that you're gonna be absolutely successful in your acting career mixed with dance.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: So that's the beautiful thing about this crazy industry that we're in, is that you can really incorporate all of your skills and talents.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: The more versatile you are in different ways, the more you'll work.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be a dancer who acts or an actress who dances, you can totally, yeah.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so funny that you mentioned that I plan because it's my entire life I couldn't plan anything.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: So I think as soon as I was like, let's sit down, let's let's regather everything that we want, let's put everything together.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm planning this because I'm a huge planner.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: I really believe in a stronger astrology sometimes, but I am a Virgo to a T and I just was like, We're planning.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_00: This is how it's gonna go, this is my time frame.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think it it has helped me be clear because I'm a I like I said earlier when we were talking about my team up clear and stuff, I'm a very goal-oriented person.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a I was someone when I was younger, would get very tired of things early.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_00: Like if I did a solo like perfect on stage, like exactly how I wanted it, I was like, that solo is done.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: No, like that that's how I was.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: So once I achieve something once, I don't really want to do it again.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_00: So I that's kind of why this this this goal is that your plan is very interesting.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: Cause it's like I can't, I can only plan so far to happen.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_00: But I really appreciate your kind words and I appreciate you guys letting me come on here and spell my entire life story.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, it was it was so interesting.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: And I I just think that you're, you know, when you were talking about doing sports psychology, yes, please, 100,000 percent.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_02: You know how important that is to athletes and artists, and there's not enough of them out there, you know, there's not enough therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists who understand what we go through, and especially people such as yourself, high achieving at an early age, perfectionist tendencies, like we all have those as dancers, I think.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_02: But you know, the the psychology of it and the access to help, I think is detrimental to some people, and they don't even realize that that's even a profession you could go into or a service you could seek out.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really admirable and and you know, you do have such a good kind of grasp on why it's necessary and why you want to pursue that.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's so exciting.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even if even if asking does go my way, I know that I'm going to finish whatever degree I need and education I need to be become one, just because I feel like say I do get say I do reach that goal of being a master of mixing dance and whatever, I will have an extreme big an extreme platform that I've never been exposed to before.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: So I might as well spread my voice and my knowledge for good.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think having a psychology background, I've had background and I've had a lot more understanding of why things happened and how I'm feeling.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: Like I honestly wish it would sound this sound very dumb, but I I I wish that I have a more of a psych understanding background because I think I would have handled a lot of situations very differently.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_00: Because if I w if I knew what I what I went through in Arizona or competitions now, I would have been able to understand the trauma that my brain is going through and and kind of understand the behavior patterns and why I do this and why I feel this a lot more and it would have been very helpful and it would have been very helpful for my mom to understand where I'm coming from and why I was acting the way I was and why I was feeling the way I was too.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_00: I think it would have been helpful for my mom, it'd be helpful for me.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_00: So if I can help and prevent, you know, things being a very, very, very deep and and traumatic for a child who's 10 and probably whatever in our family, like I would absolutely love it and it would be amazing.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important that dancers do take care of themselves and mentally, like physically too.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_00: They don't take very good care of themselves.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: They always have been working so hard, they never recover, whatever.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_00: But like mentally as well, like mental check, like understanding what you need, what you what your body needs.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_00: Like I never listened to my body because I never had a chance to because my team is always off on the go.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think if parents also understood this too I don't know, every parent is like how my mom was.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_00: But I think if parents understood actually what's going on when the dance like in the dance studio, because like oh my mom did this really dropped me off and then she would understand that I had to do my work, but the psychological trauma and everything that I had to go through between dance teachers and being in the dance studio for 10 hours, 12 hours a day, like there's a lot of things that I think parents can understand surface levels, but will never fully be able to understand and fully do it themselves.
1:10:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I think if someone with a psychology background used their voice to kind of stand up and like be like, hey, like this is this is what I went through, this is what I know, this is what I can help you with, I think it would be fantastic, and I think it's something that the dance will kind of need.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully when I have all of my education and fully can comprehend and give people knowledgeable advice, I can be that person for the dance world and the dance community and for like the 10-year-olds that are gonna be on the rise.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_00: Like I would love, I would have loved to have a person like that for me.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping to do that that way for a lot of people.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_01: We would like to send a huge thank you to Sophia Lutia for taking time to chat with us today on the pod.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to stay up to date with Sophia, you can follow her on Instagram at underscore Sophia Lutia.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a guest in mind that you would like to hear on one of our upcoming spotlight interview episodes?
1:11:48
SPEAKER_01: We would love to know who you'd like to see featured that you can email at the podcast at impactdancemedors.com to let us know your favorite and most inspiring dancers, teachers, and choreographers who are making an impact in the competitive dance world.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: If you haven't subscribed to Making the Impact, be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Twitter, Spotify, and Amazon Podcasts to stay up to date with our weekly episodes throughout the dance season.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_02: We release a new episode every Thursday.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_01: We just got our latest virtual solo competition.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_01: And if you missed out, don't worry.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_01: We have more solo and group events coming your way so soon.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_01: Our next IBA virtual competition event will have registration open starting on February 15th, 2021, with our top 20 challenge live streams scheduled for Sunday, March 28th.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: Mark your calendars and head to our website now to learn more about our virtual competition events at ImpactDance Educators.com slash virtual competition.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_02: Season two of Making the Impact is full of new hot topics, listener questions, and interviews with the pros.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_02: Coming up in the next few weeks, topics include non performance career options for dancers, presentations of the competitive stage, and judging preferences.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_01: We hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep dancing.