This is the YEAR where forgotten and broken dreams are being restored!
I believe that is such a prophetic word for this year
Let me tell an amazing testimony…..
I used to dance. My mother was an amazing tap dancer if war hadn’t broken out she would have gone professional. My sister was a ballet teacher but 2 ops on her ankles stopped her. My nephew was a Principal dancer for The Australian Ballet Company.
I loved ballet since I can ever remember, I didn’t walk I flitted. I didn’t like pop music I listened to Classical. I pleaded with my dad to learn, the answer was always NO! No one makes money from dancing. I was rubbish at school, always dreaming of dancing. Then finally my dad relented when I was in Grade 3 and said if I get in the top 6 of my science exam I can start ballet. I was 30th in a class of 32 this was impossible. So I asked a girlfriend to come and stay a weekend at my house and we studied science the WHOLE weekend. I was 6th in my exam, first and ONLY time. My ballet began
I adored it. I moved to Hazel Meldrum’s school and practiced every day. The only RAD exam my dad allowed me to sit was Elementary but I would attend Saturday class and then in the changing room I would leave the door open during every class and follow every class on Saturdays and then copy the Solo Seal class. I was at 16 soon asked to sit my Solo Seal, that was young!
Ballet back then was for nerds, and you were bullied badly, but it never stopped me. I had a dream and a goal; the Australian Ballet Company, Sadlers Wells and Covent Garden. Posters all over my wall and the dream was in me every day.
One day when I was 16 Miss Hazel came to me and said Miss Ferguson you have won the scholarship for the 6 weeks holidays for full time at Sculley Boravansky’s in Sydney. I didn’t know I’d even gone for the scholarship. I still remember the excitement, THE best school in Australia. Mum and dad said I could go and every day I caught a bus into the city and danced. My teacher was Dame Nellie Potts, the RAD examiner and part of the Australian Ballet Corp admissions. I adored it. On the last day we were doing Grande Jete’s, it was a small class of only 8 of us. Miss Potts screamed at me, ‘Miss Ferguson do it again’. On the 10th time I lost count and was almost in tears but one thing Ballet teaches; is discipline and determination.
After the class Miss Potts called me to her office and said in few words. Miss Ferguson I want to offer you a full scholarship and an automatic entrance into the Australian Ballet Company. I flew home and couldn’t wait to tell mum and dad. My dad said ‘absolutely NO, you are too young to be travelling into the city after school, NO.’
I put my pointes away that day. They still had bloodstains from where we soaked our feet in metho and danced till we bled but my dream was shattered. I never danced again.
I was asked out by a super nerdy medical student to see Swan Lake with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Sydney before they retired! I saw Sir Robert Helpman in his last dance in Cinderella. My dream of Covent Garden was reached when I saw a Ballet there. I even met Li Cunxin from Mao’s Last dancer at a conference in Melbourne.
But my dream to dance had died. I thought about going back but kids, soccer, basketball, music lessons and you as mum are always last. Then I got sick and my metabolism messed up so much that when the ‘M’ word came I went from a size 10 to … lets say ‘bigger’. Roger would always take me to Bloc in the Valley and try his hardest to get me to buy some shoes…….. but my dream was dead
Yesterday I was talking to a young dancer who loved Ballet and yet had never been to one, so I said would you like this ‘nerd’ to take you…… oh yeah! So looking on the website last night and my eyes fell onto my boots. On January 12th they are having a boot camp for over 55’s and the person doing it is the Principal Dancer. It is designed for those who love ballet but don’t have the flexibility now but want the exercise.
Its in the Qld Ballet Studios, and then a lesson once a week……… its so cheap!! I couldn’t wait to tell Roger he was sooooo excited for me and so encouraging
So my dream lost over 40 years ago has sprung to life……. In January I will be at the Queensland Ballet Company School and at Boot Camp!!
My God is so, so great He never forgets a dream, and no matter how long or how broken God WILL mend it and He WILL somehow bring it to pass………. Need to go out and BUY my shoes!
Dust Off The Shattered Dreams
If He Did It For Me He Will Do It For You!!!!
Happy New Year
2015
Amanda
P: 1300 136 643 | M: +61 0417 795 256
E: amanda@wellsministries.com.au | W: www.wellministries.com.au
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