fuel.

It never ceases to amaze me what it's like to be on the other side of the curtain.

I've spent most of my childhood (and parts of young adulthood) training and performing in as many styles of dance as possible.

After my injury a few years ago and being unable to take classes with the same free abandon as before, my perspective changed.

I turned to teaching. I had learned, seen and thought so much about dance and choreography, that it felt like the most natural step.

It wasn't all rainbows. There were actually a lot of butterflies. That's what three to five year-olds want to dance as in recreation centre classes.

This grew to teaching contemporary classes to the dance students at my old high school, many who have no dance experience. There were tough days, where it felt like you were speaking in a different language to a group of people.

However, there is choreography for everybody...a difficult but true mantra from an old director that I've adopted for myself. We are all equal, just stronger in different ways.

Substituting adult classes and teaching masterclasses to more trained students led to an amazing break, teaching as a faculty member at an intensive this past summer. After being a dancer at the same intensive a few years ago, and countless ones before this, I was over the moon.

This summer also gave me the opportunity to teach an open dance session for the City of Kelowna once a week throughout July and August. We averaged 150-300 people dancing at every class, something we didn't expect, but thrived working with.

This is turned into putting together a piece for a dance team to compete in Vancouver and in Kelowna this upcoming year, as well as choreographing about half a dozen solos and duets for my trained dancers to compete across BC and in Calgary in 2012.

Needless to say, things have changed a lot since I was sitting with a pack of ice on my knee, not able to walk.

It's been a long, hard journey. There were tears and a lot of doors got shut in my face. For every 'yes' there were about three 'no''s or no responses. But the creative aspect is relaxing. You approach every job with a positive attitude, because you never know what's coming around the corner.

The next time I hear someone say that dance teachers have it easy (and I was guilty of that at a young age) do a Thumper moment. "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all". There's a lot of teachers and choreographers who have jumped over huge hurdles to make their visions seen and push boundaries.

It frustrates me when people have all the tools physically and mentally to do work, create and contribute to society, but choose to be lazy and whine. This isn't helping your case. The amount of people who are unable to even have a the opportunity would die to trade places.

Dancers make their work look easy,

because that's what we've been trained

to do onstage. You learn how

to mask the pain.

We need these creative minds to fuel arts education and keep this fire alive. The work may be harder and easier depending on what it is, but it's your lust for life that makes what you do, whatever it is, matter.

Thank you to my beautiful dancers that I have had the privilege of working with this week. I finally understand why choreographers say that they were "so inspired by their cast" - it really is true. Movement flows out when you have the right mix of people, music and ideas.

I'm in awe of what can be made using the simplest of tools. Keep pushing, learning and searching dancers, you've fuelled the fire in me to continue what you've created.