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Karen Cheng, poster girl for “Practice something for 100 days!”
There is a great video going around about a young woman who learned to dance (really well) in just a year. There is also a website encouraging people to accomplish any dream by focusing on it for 100 days. If you go there, you’ll see lots of people taking a video of their progress on a daily basis for a host of different endeavors.
Karen Cheng had always wanted to learn the challenging robot like moves of hip hop. Following the hundred day plan, she made so much progress that she kept going after her 100 days. Although nobody ever really masters dance, in that we can always get better, it took Karen a year to reach a place of ease in this remarkable dance form.
Because people think she must have been dancing for years to be that good, she made this video to show her progress over a year and yep! It went viral! How did she do it? Well, she started with a dream, something she was personally motivated to do. She committed to it, both in the study (classes, and private lessons) and in the practice.
She found teachers whose dancing she admired and hired them to work with her. Then she did the work. She put in the time and practiced.
She embodies two things I’ve been telling my students for years. It’s not natural talent that makes an exceptional dancer. It’s love. If you love it, you’ll do it until you get it and anyone can get it eventually if they are committed enough.
And the second thing? Take private lessons first. Learn to do it right at the beginning and you’ll save a lot of time not having to unlearn what you thought you learned from your group class teachers.
Karen’s journey is truly inspirational. I hope it inspires a lot of future dancers who thought they could never learn to dance to give it shot after all! If you haven’t seen it yet, see for yourself why it went viral!
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by LaurieAnn Lepoff
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