Hi! My name is Polina, I am 11 years old and I'm a ballroom dancer. I love to dance and I think it's the greatest sport ever! I have been dancing for two years with my partner Nathan, who is 11 years old. We started in 2009 at Newcomer and Pre-Bronze level, but now we are in Championship level.

My favorite dance is the Foxtrot because I like its classy style. I also like Jive because it is very energetic and fun. Foxtrot as well as Waltz, Tango, Quickstep, and Viennese Waltz are Standard dances and Jive, along with Cha-Cha, Samba, Rumba, and Paso Doble are Latin dances. I think I like Standard more because it is slower and smoother than the fast and sharp Latin dances.

I like to compete with other couples and I like winning competitions too. Although sometimes I don't win I always try my best. My favorite competition was the USA Dance Nationals in Los Angles in April of 2010. I liked the competitors and judges there and our results were very good too.

Nathan and I take lessons at Oly's Dance Studio in Everett and Bellevue. We have great teachers: Elena, Ekaterina, Sergey and Olga. Our teachers are kind and they teach us well. During a lesson I am usually very quiet and focused, but sometimes I jump around a little bit.

My favorite part about dancing is performing in front of people and having fun. My least favorite part of dancing is making my hairstyle for a competition because it hurts to put in pins, but the outcome looks really good! I am so happy and excited that we have progressed so much in such little time and I hope that I will become even better than I am now over time.


Hi! Nathan here!

I’m eleven years old ballroom dancer. My partner Polina and I have been dancing together for two years now. We started competing at the Newcomer and Pre-Bronze Level and now we are in process of learning Open routines. We both love dancing. I love dancing because it’s very good exercise, and its fun. It is a challenging sport, which only makes it better. I especially like performing and competing.

Before I say anything else I want thank my great dance teachers for helping both Polina and I grow tremendously throughout our dancing past. Not only do I have great dance teachers, but they are outstanding dancers as well. They are all pros, and travel a lot for competitions. When I watch them dance, it makes me realize how much I have to learn. I also like traveling for lessons from famous world champions and other outstanding dancers like Jonathan Wilkins, Sammy Stopford, and Shirley Ballas. It is an amazing opportunity.

My favorite competition Polina and I have danced at was definitely the 2010 Blackpool Junior World Dance Festival in Blackpool, England. We were chosen to be one of the four couples on Team USA, and helped team USA do well. We also competed in categories other the ones in the team match and in my favorite dance, cha-cha-cha, got 14th place out of over 100 of the best couples all over the world. That means in one dance, we are 14th in the world! I also thought competing at the USA Dance Nationals was totally awesome because all of our dancing friends were there and we won.

My favorite dance is the cha-cha-cha because I like it’s fast, sharp, and interesting style. When I dance it I feel confident in myself because I enjoy not only finding out my competition results but also the movement itself. Cha-cha along with Rumba, Jive, Samba and Paso Doble are Latin dances. Waltz, Quickstep, Tango, Foxtrot, and the Viennese Waltz are the Standard Dances. I like the latin dances more because they are faster than the slow Standard dances.

My favorite part of dancing is the feeling I experience when I win competitions, because that feeling tells me that I worked hard, and I was rewarded for that by winning. It makes me feel accomplished. Another great part of dancing is making friends. Through dancing, Polina and I have made tons of new friends that we will be with for the majority of our lives. At Blackpool, I even made a friend from South Africa! My least favorite part of dancing is getting my number pinned on to my back before competitions. It sometimes hurts, but I stay quiet. This all brings me back to almost 8 years ago when I was three. I took dance lessons, but my mom had to pull me out because of my behavior. Now, after have accomplished so many dance-related things, I realize how much better I could have been if I did not quit. But I know that one day, Polina and I will be the world champions, and those three years won’t have counted.