Terror-stricken and shaking with that awful butterflies fluttering in stomach feeling, I was questioning myself as to how I got myself in such a predicament. It was my first week in Brazil traveling with God's Image, a singing and dancing ministry that I had been a part of for three years; at the time, I remember thinking I should have never joined the organization, at least to save myself the humiliation. I was backstage at my first official concert overseas and was trying very hard to mask my nerves of having to improvise on stage and create dance movements on the fly, colloquially known as "freestyle." Dance had always been a passion of mine and I liked to freestyle and I did it often but I never had in front of people, let alone in front of a couple thousand.
After what felt like an eternity, I found myself standing on the platform, the limelight lit on me, with screaming cheers and buoyant cries from the audience, and the bass of the music pounding on all cylinders. The crowd was into it and they were enjoying the atmosphere; but to me, everything felt eerily ominous, the bass of the music reminded me of my own pounding heart and the encouraging cries from the crowd felt like jeers of ridicule directed at me. But nevertheless, using every inch of my poise and self-discipline I began moving to the beat and I closed my eyes to try to envision myself at home. Soon enough the melody and cadence began to flow through me and the music started to manifest itself within, every intricate downbeat/upbeat of taking physical form. It was surreal and the best way to describe it was that it felt like an out-of-body experience. Sure enough I finished my freestyle and the roars of the audience filled the concert hall, drowning all my doubts and fears of performing.
This experience means alot to me because it got me over my stage fright and revealed to me that to improve in certain aspects in life boldness is required. If I had chickened out or panicked and ran from the situation I might have never gotten another opportunity to showcase my passion. In turn, I would have closed many doors in becoming a more competent dancer. To this day I still use my experience in Brazil to remind myself that risks have to be taken to get the most out of life.
Help would be much appreciated :)~
This is awesome, I'm actually from Brazil and I loved hearing your experience there.
Your essay got me curious about what dancing ministry you were involved with, were you down there with YWAM?
You have good diction and I feel you can take advantage of that in your writing and being careful not to clutter your words, just say what you have to say.
Example: Your last paragraph, you don't need to mention that the experience meant alot to you, you can jump right into the action saying something like, "Getting over my stage fright revealed to me that in order to improve certain aspects in life, boldness is required."
Hope this helped a little.
PS: Read the essay I just wrote! It's called, "Let's go to America!" and tell me what you think (:
