Pointe Shoes - my first rite of passage...

There is a point in a dancer's life that graduates them to the next level. The level that separates you from the the 'baby dancers'....this happens in all genres of dance, but none so transforming as in ballet.

My first genre of dance was ballet. I've been in all different kinds of classes at various studios, yet ballet was my favorite above them. Like all other young ballerinas, I dreamed of dancing on my toes like the big girls. Pointe shoes as they are properly called are the magic pink satin shoes that makes a little girl a woman in ballet.

What are pointe shoes? They are a pink satin (sometimes other in other colors) slippers that have a hard "box" at the toe area allowing a dancer to stand and dance on her toes. This material of the 'box' are traditionally layers of glue and fabric hardened to a stiff, almost wood-like texture. Some modern shoes incorporate other materials such as fiberglass or plastic within the construction. Everything on the shoe is hand stiched and hand made. Lambswool, silicone or foam pads are the only protection inside the shoe with the dancer's foot.
To think something as torturous is so desired and appears seemlessly painless to dance on.

As an advanced dancer at the age of nine, I was always the youngest (and shortest) in class. One by one, I saw my classmates graduate into pre-pointe class and within a short time they had their first pair of pointe shoes. I was almost 10, I was jealous, I tried harder in class, I begged my teacher for them, I took more classes, I begged my mom to find another school to graduate me into pointe right away...to my dismay, none of the tactics worked. I didn't understand why a girl in class just two years older who only had ice skating experience got into pointe shoes in six months or the oldest, yet as skilled as I am get her pointe shoes in time for rehearsing for the recital.
If I knew then (better yet, understood) what I know now, it would save me a load of pain in my later years.

You see, there are more things than just knowing how to dance that graduates you into a dancer who can dance on pointe. First of all, no girl should have any business on pointe before the age of 12. Why? A young girl's body is still developing among a few things...she must possess coordination and stength in her muscles, core, back, and feet. She must be able hold the extra pressure without 'depending' on a barre or another person or akward positioning that would deem dangerous. Simply put, going on pointe early can cause serious damage to the feet, muscle, bone, or tendon development - cutting a potential career short or even worse, permanent injury for life.
In reality, there is no real age to determine a girl's readiness into pointe. A dancer may excel in skill, but she must meet the criteria milstones of development.

At the age of 10, I moved to a new state, new city. We found a school that offered ballet. After what the teacher saw in me, she immediately said I can be on pointe. I had no idea how to fit them, but I got them and had my ribbons sewn on right away! I balanced and practiced, I even slept with them on! I was in heaven! At the age of 10, I was living my dream! Most of all, I was a big girl - a WOMAN!

I danced on point the rest of my pre-teen and teen years compounding injuries I would not feel until later on. Whenever I got hurt, I ignored it like a 'true' dancer. I took all the classes I could, I danced till my feet bled - I am not kidding you on this, but it's a sick thing dancers brag about.
All this would have been avoided had my teacher been more responsible and waited a couple more years for my body to 'mature'.

Now fast forward 10 years after my first year on pointe...I had just recovered from a car accident, finished my therapy and realized how much damage there is to my knees and metatarsal on my feet from ballet. I was crushed. It was no wonder why dancing became more unbearable. It wasn't laziness. It wasn't the accident. It wasn't because I was more involved in another genre of dance, it was because I was put on pointe at a very young age.
Yes, I admit, 10 years old is too young to start on pointe. I would have 'become a woman' in dance eventually. I just foolishly rushed it at a young age.

...but ask any dancer, the feeling when you put on your first pointe shoes is a rush like no other.

[The photo above is a picture of me at age 11]

Journey of a studio owner....Finding home: calming the fears and fending off the jeers...

Who's to say everyone will transition smoothly into the new venture???
This is not a sit-com where people smile and are excited and everyone loves ya. This is reality.

Although we have it trained in us that you can't please people all the time, but to put out the fires....really? Yes. Really.

After much research based on price, location, accessibilty, average crime statisics, population demographics, number of similar businesses in the radius, average driving distance of our current students, safety, and other demographical related information, we decidded for the city of Moreno Valley.
Moreno Valley is a moderately sized bedroom community of Riverside County. It sits on the northwest corner of the county within an hour's drive to Los Angeles or Orange County. Sounds great? Well, the city has had it's share of stigma. After the major Air Force base closed, a mass exodus of military families left and were replaced with a diverse population. The city in the past has had it's share of problems, but what city doesn't?? What surprised us the most is the crime rate in Moreno Valley is much lower per capita than Riverside. Violent crime in Riverside was well above the state average, while in Moreno Valley it was well below. After we saw that, we investigated more because what we 'heard or seen on the media' did not add up to what we saw in the state's statistics and we found something quite interesting....some cities have a very good public relations department that can easily pursuade the media into thinking otherwise....but thankfully cannot pursuade state statistics. It's a dirty little secret that PR people know people don't like to do their own research...so...whatever they say, people listen.

When we announced we would move the studio to Moreno Valley, we were met with a level of disappointment and almost mob mentality fears.
Bottom line, every city has it's problems and every police or sheriff's department does their best to stop crime from their next victim.
I look at the facts such as the state's statistics from population demographics to crime statistics - this city is no more dangerous than the next...it's all about awareness and proactivitiy.

After standing on my soapbox and making everyone see the light, slowly people accepted that moving to that location may indeed be the 'hidden gem' we were looking for.

Win #1...for now....

Now that the shock of our location has been revealed, somehow attendance started to dwindle down. I somehow think everyone was expecting to move into the new location within weeks of our decision. Those weeks turned into more weeks, which turned into months...and finally some people flat out approached us and said, I won't attend anymore until we are in the new location. We figured the same for those who didn't contact us back. People were becoming impatient...with every glitch, delay, or red tape, we steadily saw a decline in attendance. This also meant a decline in income. It was better to stay low key with all the delays we were expereiencing than to bring a wave of students only to be dissapointed with their lack of understanding about our situation....remember it's about them and their needs, not us.

The Jeers...

There is an old adage about 'you can't please all the people all of the time...' I thought I had thick enough skin, but because of the 'sisterhood' of dance, I thought everyone would be suportive and those who weren't would just turn the other way. However, much to my surprise, to have negativity on our path was something a little bit unexpected. We're not talking complaints...we're talking not so nice stuff. In this industry, to endure all this, you need thick skin. Fighting back would mean we were down at their level and it could be turned around making us look like the bad guys in this mess. All we could do is just to tread on and do what we want to do.

Rumors are the worst. As stated above in both parts, the average person does not want to investigate things for themselves. They want to go to some source or person and just be told so. "If so and so says it, then it must be true...". By the time it gets to us, it's one hot mess that we need to backtrack and do some serious damage control. It's an exhausting process and most unessesary one to say the least.

It's a challenge to do this in a tactful dignified manner so it won't make us look like one of the 'crazies' out there - enough said.

Rumors will always happen, but as long as we remain open and don't hide anything, our students will know who is telling the truth. Wouldn't it be easier for everyone to just go straight to the source? Apparently not.
I still can't figure out what's so magical about believing a rumor or second hand tainted information? Some things I will never figure out.


Next blog: Finding Home: not one, but two, but three times!

Journey of a studio owner....Research 101 - take two...

By now, we know we want a studio. We want it to be nice, we want it to be pretty, we want it to be GRAND! So much fills our minds with music, mirrors, and pretty wall coverings envision our minds. Oh! as we think of the joys and hours of dance we will fill up in our new studio home! Our minds race with excitement and then we thought, what else do we need aside from finding a location? Oh yes, research the area, market, yada yada yada.
Getting a business loan?? "Piece of cake" I thought. "I can do this for sure", as I confidently thought. You see, I had worked for a major retailer that specialized in precise customer service - I was a manager there and I am used to superior customer service, making my sales goals, making business plans, and putting on events on a regular basis. I also worked as a marketing specialist for a radio station and knew what it took to market to a tough audience and to tie in other marketing venues together. My business partner has experience running her father's church business and keeping it afloat, my mentor is just a uber genius that she can whip up a solid business plan for all of us to follow. With our experience, we should have no problem getting capital.
Imagine the shock we came across when we were systematically turned down for loans and such to open a business. It's like all that knowledge & experience made me feel like I was back in little league again. I felt like I knew nothing and certainly, I was feeling quite small and insignificant. One small detail I forgot to realize was the fact when I worked in these other industries, I was backed by a powerful corporation who had the money to make things work and go through. Yes, unfortunately money does make the world go around...and especially if you are a large big box type of business. My business partner and I do not have much by way of liquid assets nor do we have much capital. Since this is a new business with no other experience in the past of a similar business put us at a high risk. Banks are simply not doling out money loans like they used to. Five years ago the story may have been different, but today, you pretty much need the up front capital or assets to prove you need a loan - but doesn't that sound like an oxymoron to you?
You can thank the economy for that...and people wonder why small businesses cannot get off the ground.
We were lucky to get some donations...some freely, some with a repayment, and our continued support of current students taking classes and feeding the studio kitty. Unfortunately some loans had to be reimbursed quickly and some did not fall through. Nonetheless, we had to get really creative in this process and continue to donate our salary to make this happen.
Next, we need to file for another business license and permits because we plan on selling things at the studio in the future. Reseller's permits easy. Business license filing, not so much more time, money, and delays...I am filling out forms to my eyeballs :0 This process proves to be the least painful of what we are going through, but we just didn't notice until later...
The last thing on the "adjusted" agenda is to find a location again. We already did our extensive search and research in our town with some futile results. This meant we had to go out of the area. It really seemed scary to think of another area because of what we 'hear' of that happens in other communities. Crime statistics are very important because our student's safety is important. As we searched and searched, we were shocked on the statistics....the one city people "warn" about as being high crime is actually considerably lower in crime than the town we live in. The area where we are renting has a violent crime rate four times higher than the area we were considering. Aside from the crime statistics, we also looked at population demographics, commuter vs. domestic traffic, age, education, police to resident ratio, and more. Seems that some cities have a better pubic relations campaign than others. Shame on them for making other communities look so bad.
Our decision has been made. We will search for our studio in Moreno Valley CA.

...next blog, Finding home in Moreno Valley....

Journey of a studio owner....location location location!

I know this blog of my journey in opening my studio is late, but I have been very busy with it - and with good cause. Here is what I have been up to in the past year with this project...piece by piece...

Late last year, my mentor, a fellow dancer and I talked about our dream to own a studio. We all agreed it was the route we should seriously pursue. The studio where we were renting from was in an unknown state and we were not sure if we would be there in a few months or so... Our own group of dancers, students, and performers were growing so fast and that we were running out of room to hold classes was proof enough of our expansion needs. We NEED a new studio!

In January, we seriously put this thought on the road and take off with it. It was going to happen. The place where we were renting was still in uncertainty and we had to do what we had to do to protect our business.
First things first, file for official business, get a bank acccount (actually several), make a business pan, do ALOT of research, outline what we need to do for our classes and....we need a location.
It only looked easy as we saw many gorgeous buildings and potential locations. Then it hit us...the price - seems that these gorgeous buildings also had a steep price...even in this economy. Prices ranged from $1.59/sf to $3.95/sf - we were looking for something much lower per square foot. Looking for a lower priced place was another challenge - industrial areas offer plenty of room, low overhead, and fairly easy access. This too, also had it's limitation; the city's zoning where we were located prohibited a dance studio to use a comercial zoned area. We needed to look for a mixed use building that would comply with the city use zoning. Just as we found something that was mixed use, low overhead, and easy access, issues with each of our locaion searches had their own set of problems such as lack of parking, extra utilites charges, and lease issues that would leave us at the mercy of the landlord. Because most of the buildings in our area are older, we encountered our share of rickety buildings, sloping floors, lack of handicapped access, the strong smell of mold & unmentionables, odd floor plans, and really weird retrofitting. Dozens and dozens of locations and leasing agents later, we needed to look beyond our city since they are not mixed use friendly. This meant our search and research will need to start all over again.

It's no wonder why there is a high rate of small business failure in our city.

Blog Hiatus=Room to Grow + Procrastination

It's no secret I tend to procrastinate in certain areas....blogging is one of them. I'm old school and like that personal contact more than the electronic thing. I also have that Face-thingy that keeps me in touch with long distance friends, family, and dancers all around the world.
Someting had to be compromised. This was one of them. Hopefully, I can blog at least once a month - ha ha....we'll see how this goes.

OK, round two...

What has Etoile been up to in the past two years???

Aside from classes, performing, and dancing, I have been rigorously trained under Aziza Sa'id to improve my dance, develop and apply my previous dancing skills both on the floor and behind the scenes. This process she projected will take a few years to fine tune, but I had all the necessary skills and leadership to be successful. With three of my closest dance friends for the past four years we intently listened. We were the grasshoppers of the master - just like that show Kung-Fu.

Late last year, all of us decided to branch out and be on our own - by way of OWNING our OWN studio. It would be three of us heading this business. Talk about being breathless...the ride of being an owner is much more thrilling than a roller coaster ride. You feel every emotion - thrill, elation, fear, anxiety, joy, nausea, all wrapped up with a scream. I cannot begin to tell you the challenges we encountered building this business up. Aside from our dance skills, I had strong marketing skills , sales skills, business skills, my business partner had mad technical skills, admistrative skills, and Aziza of course was the uber master of skill that were not covered between the both of us....seems like a piece-of-cake? Uh, no.

Things like Zoning, location, accessability, permits, contracts, etc. I'm just pulling out the main subjects....getting into details will be as long as our 32 page contract. Get the picture? The business is till in the final stages. More on that later.

Jumping to spring of this year, our world was jolted harshly when an unexpected emergency happened and Aziza had to move away. Now she was miles and miles away, giving us direction remotely. Now not only did we have first line of defense with the entire business by ourselves, but we also took over all the troupes and classes. I felt like I was diffusing a bomb and having the expert give it to me via a staticy radio two miles away that I could barely hear. Aziza's responsibilities are huge. She too has a job out there. We forget she too has a life to maintain, not ours. She cannot live our lives for us, and she has to live hers. Communication between a two hour time zone isn't easy....and she's a busy woman. We take it as it comes. Period.
Things were rough. People compared us to her, people dropped out because they had no faith, people left because they listened to rumors. I heard the good things and the not so good things. This saddened me.

I felt like I was pushed out of the nest too early - I didn't need this....feeling almost discouraged with what I saw and heard.

Just....

Then....

As I started to question myself....

It. Hit. Me.

We had been trained all along. We already HAD the info and knowledge all along. We had been trained effectively. It was there all along and we are already doing it. What happens happens. What choices am I to make today that will affect my tomorrow? I asked myself, does the forest only contain 100 trees? NO! There are more...and new ones grow every day. I needed not to stand in the compost, but to plant the new seeds to make it grow to it's full potential....
So, it's time to get off my duff and recollect to become the new Phoenix.
What we have now is the dawn of a new era. Composed from the old...and reborn anew. The forest will be green again. I shall conntinue to dance.

Lesson learned again. Listen to your dreams and aspirations, don't listen to or let others discourage or put down what you aspire to do....

Just as I tell my students, I will never allow anyone to quesion or discourage what you love to do.