I have realized lately that I am somewhat a klutz. I trip and fall all the time when I just walk around and I always end up hurting myself. This time was somehow different than the others.

It was my first time to Chicago for an Irish dancing competition and I was excited.

“A whole new competition”, I thought. I grabbed my dance bag and left the hotel room with my mom. We walked through the hotel to the skyway. The skyway felt as if we were in a cattle chute with all the different twists and turns. When we finally got there, we walked over to my stage I pulled on my brown dress with blue and green accents. It was sparkling like diamonds in the sun as I tugged on the fabric.

“Good luck!” my mom shouted to me as I walked over to check in at the side of the stage. I was the first person to check in so I went and took a seat in the back row of chairs at the side of the stage. I looked down the row at all the girls checking in for my competition, I had seen most of them before but a few girls were new.

As the judge had us take our places on stage, another girl ran to check in. After she checked in she walked along the back of the stage and hopped on stage at the end of the line next to me.

“Sorry,” she exclaimed,” The check in lady told me to go here.” I had seen this girl dance before and she was really aggressive, she practically pushed another girl off the stage. We stood on stage and waited for our turn to dance. When it was finally our turn we stepped forward and took our places and started to count the music.

“Just be aggressive,” I told myself, “Don’t let her push you around.” As we began to dance she came right next to me and was following me up to the front of the stage. As I went into a big jump she bumped into me. The next thing I realized was that I was sitting on the stage in front of the judge who was trying to get the musicians to stop playing their instruments.

“Are you ok?” the judge asked worriedly.

“I’m fine,” I replied. I stood up and brushed off the back of my dress. The judge told me to start over and so I walked to the back of the stage and got ready to dance again. I started the dance again and finished without falling. I pointed and bowed and the judge smiled at me. It was the best dance I had ever done at a competition. I walked off the stage to where my mom was standing and she asked me if I was ok. About half an hour later some of the girls in my competition walked over to me.

“Congratulations!” they exclaimed.

“On what? What did I do?” I asked.

“You got first place, go take a look at the results.” I ran over to the results boards where hundreds of results were printed out on white sheets of paper and pinned to plywood boards. Under my dance it said my name and number. I jogged over to the results table excitedly where they handed me a giant shiny, gold trophy. I was jumping with joy as I ran to show my mom.

What I learned from this experience was that if you fall down just get up and keep going. It helped me learn that if you keep trying you can achieve anything.