We all have our own unique talents and skills. For some, those talents turn into hobbies or even careers. For Madame Suzelle Poole, it became her entire life.
Blessed with incredible dancing ability and a love of ballet, she started to dance at the age of seven and is still doing it, more than seven decades later.
Many people rightly assume that ballet dancers don’t usually tend to have such long careers. On average, they have to give up performing by the age of 30.
So, when Madame Poole started off in her younger years, she assumed she’d probably be finished with ballet by the time she was in her 20s, but things didn’t quite pan out that way. She just keep going and going.
Madame Poole says she amazes herself with the fact that she’s still dancing in her elderly years and jokes that many people find her a little “unusual”.
Originally from London in England, Madame Poole says she “loved it from the start” when she started to learn ballet.
Seeing how interested she was, her parents decided to take her to see a performance of Margot Fonteyn, an iconic ballet dancer of the time who worked her way up to become the prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet, an esteemed honor for any ballet dancer. As soon as Madame Poole saw the way Margot moved, she knew she’d found her calling and wanted to pursue the life of a ballerina.
She spent much of her early career performing in her homeland of Great Britain and overseas in Canada, but she later went to places like Germany and South Africa as well, performing all over the globe and eventually heading to Texas with her husband.
There, she worked with the Houston Ballet for some time before her husband passed away and she took up a teaching role with the Royale Ballet Dance Academy, where she discovered a whole new passion: teaching.
She says she loves children and greatly enjoys teaching them ballet, saying that it helps them develop an impressive physical skill but also assists in their social development as well, teaching them to respect one another.
Her students have called her “inspiring”, and she’s setting a wonderful example for all of them. In her words:
Life is too short not to do what you want to do.
While some people in their elderly years can struggle with any kind of physical activity, Madame Poole proves that age really is just a number. Despite the fact that she’s approaching the age of 80 now, she’s still as graceful and elegant as ever. And most importantly, she’s still doing what she loves, every single day.
She’s showing that anything can be possible through hard work, dedication, and above all else, passion. If we can find something we’re truly passionate about in our lives and pursue it, there really are no limits to what we can accomplish, as this incredible elderly dancer proves.
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