This makes dancing in pointe shoes a bit more challenging. Additionally, Fry’s high pain tolerance
once drove her to dance on a sprained ankle for multiple weeks, in all dance classes, including
pointe, and was eventually compelled to see a doctor by her teachers. She had to miss six weeks
of dance afterwards.
However, when asked of her greatest challenge in dance so far, Fry did not speak
about challenges from injuries. Rather, she spoke about learning to compete not with
other dancers, but with herself. Fry considers herself a very competitive person, and
this serves her well in high stakes competitions. But if her competitiveness leads
her to focus solely on other’s strengths and weaknesses, then she has forgotten
that her own path to success in dancing might lead to an entirely different
place than the person she is comparing herself to.
Fry says that dancing has been rewarding for her due to its ability to “turn incorporeal ideas or emotions into a physical manifestation.” Basically, dancing is an outlet for expressing thoughts. To Fry, dancing is not quite a
sport or art form; saying, “dancers are athletes, but dancing is not a sport.” Sports
tend to have clear winners in competitions, whereas the outcomes of dance competitions rely entirely on the subjective opinion of the judges.
In the future, Fry will keep on dancing and simultaneously navigate towards a career in science or math.