I started dancing when I was 10. My cousin asked me to go with her to a beginners dance class. At first I wasn't very keen to do dancing because at that time I was a competitive ice skater and that was more important to me. After couple lessons my dance teacher offered me a partner and I remember saying “I'm not going to stop my ice skating because of dancing”. However I stopped ice skating about 3 months later, and started really concentrating on my dancing. A couple years later I decided that I wanted to be a dance teacher and enrolled in a dance teacher’s school which specialises in training dancers to be teachers of Ballroom & Latin dancing. There I studied for 4 years and at that time I started dancing with Mikko, now my ex-dance partner, obviously. We became number 1 Amateur couple in Finland so therefore we represented Finland at the European, World and World Games. After 3 years we decided that it was time to move on so split. That was the time when I started to dance with Andrew.

The thing that attracts me to be a dancer is I love to perform in front of an audience, where I can be myself or a character of my choice and it keeps me fit.

After Andrew and I turned professional I realised that competing as a professional is much more about quality and personality of dancing. I feel that now I’m in the right place and it makes me stronger and more confident on the floor.

As a dance teacher, I am still constantly learning as much as possible about things that relate to dance training. For example, looking after one’s body and the mental training skills required to perform and compete in dance. However As a dance teacher the first and most important thing to me is that you have to have your soul in it. You need to love what you do, and that makes the teaching much more rewarding. In other words “you get

out what you put in”!

 

- Hanna Haarala