Danc­ing is some­thing that al­most every­one loves; whether they like watch­ing it or ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing, it is some­thing en­thralling that has many ben­e­fits.While some of us get our dance fix by watch­ing pop­u­lar TV shows, Paige Jones gets her dai­ly fix at the Lin­da Pol­lard Lake Danse As­sem­ble; her dance school of which she has been a mem­ber for 14 years. The 18-year-old has an undy­ing love for dance, which is re­flect­ed in her dai­ly life - as she says, she nev­er stops danc­ing. "Every­where I go I dance; from dance class to sim­ply walk­ing through the gro­cery aisles, I dance. Once you have a love for some­thing and do it be­cause you want to and not be­cause you have to, you'll nev­er get tired of it", she told gieMAGAZINE.Not on­ly is dance Jones' way of ex­press­ing her­self, but it al­so keeps her fit.

She does both bal­let and mod­ern dance and sees it as a re­al­ly great way to main­tain health and fit­ness. It al­lows her the sta­mi­na and phys­i­cal abil­i­ty to be able to per­form at her de­sired rate and to her sat­is­fac­tion. Every time she goes to class it is re­al­ly a very stren­u­ous work­out as dance aids to stretch and work every mus­cle in the body. How­ev­er, she was quick to point out that while it is hard work, it is al­so thor­ough­ly en­ter­tain­ing and en­joy­able and she ac­tu­al­ly does not feel too worn-out af­ter­wards.Cur­rent­ly, the dancer is in her ad­vanced lev­el and while she is sat­is­fied with where she is, Jones is com­mit­ted to mov­ing for­ward. She has com­plet­ed her ISTD (Im­pe­r­i­al So­ci­ety of Teach­ers of Danc­ing) mod­ern dance ex­am syl­labi with ho­n­ours - this is ac­cred­it­ed by uni­ver­si­ties in Lon­don and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Al­so, she has per­formed with oth­er com­pa­nies such as the Mar­cia Charles Dance The­atre Com­pa­ny for two ma­jor na­tion­al events. The young dancer has al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in mu­si­cals such as 'The Lit­tle Mer­maid' and just fin­ished par­tic­i­pat­ing in 'The Li­on King,' which ran at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts and was pro­duced by Car­val­ho Pro­duc­tions.

Her com­mit­ment to dance has no lim­i­ta­tions for though it puts con­straints on her so­cial life, the sup­port she re­ceives from fam­i­ly, friends and teach­ers helps her through. She stat­ed "I could dance all day long but I have re­alised that it can take a toll over one's body and as such, a com­mit­ted dancer must en­sure his/her di­et con­sists of a lot of fruit and veg­eta­bles and take vi­t­a­mins. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he/she must ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly to main­tain fit­ness for a slop­py dancer is not a pret­ty sight!"The jol­ly dancer is cur­rent­ly on a gap year be­fore she be­gins uni­ver­si­ty and is us­ing the year to im­prove on her danc­ing and start mak­ing her dreams a re­al­i­ty. Her biggest as­pi­ra­tion is to even­tu­al­ly open a dance school and she is get­ting apt ex­pe­ri­ence, as cur­rent­ly she teach­es dance at her al­ma mater, St. Joseph's Con­vent Port-of-Spain. Af­ter the year, she wants to go abroad and study dance; she be­lieves go­ing abroad would be best, as she would be able to learn from the best and pos­si­bly tour with a com­pa­ny or per­form on Broad­way.

For those ea­ger to have fun while main­tain­ing fit­ness, Jones rec­om­mends danc­ing. She said that many young peo­ple like to start with hip hop danc­ing, as it is the most en­er­getic and adapt­able genre of dance for a per­son to grasp. She laugh­ing­ly said, "I rec­om­mend dance to the world! It is def­i­nite­ly one of the best ways to ex­press your­self and it has sure­ly made me feel com­plete in every way pos­si­ble."So, the ques­tion is, do you think you can dance? It may not be too late! There are dance groups and com­pa­nies all over which any ea­ger youth can join; just en­sure you have a pas­sion for it! As Jones says: "dance is not just about ex­press­ing one­self; it is al­so the abil­i­ty to tell a sto­ry, to show an emo­tion be­hind every move­ment and every breath. It shows an in­ner pas­sion that I my­self can't ex­plain in words. Al­most like life ful­fill­ing. The rea­son why dance is art is be­cause your body is able to say what words can­not. There's a feel­ing of de­sire and pas­sion, a mes­mer­iz­ing mo­tion that just drifts you off in­to your own zone, where you can be who you want and feel the way you feel and every­thing's per­fect­ly un­der­stood."Jones is def­i­nite­ly on the road to suc­cess with her com­mit­ment to dance and ex­cel­lence and her nat­ur­al de­sire to move for­ward.