We were lucky to catch up with Karla Sandoval recently and have shared our conversation below.
Karla, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Growing up in the competitive dance world self-esteem was something that took me a long time to develop and most times it wasn’t easy to just trust or believe in myself. I was young in a world that required lots of discipline and hard work all of this while trying to discover who I was as an individual. It took me a long time but I finally understood that confidence came from within me and not from the validation and opinion of others, at first I couldn’t accept that because I was so used to someone telling me if I was right or wrong. But after a few years, I started focusing on myself, it’s about how you talk to yourself and what you do to better yourself, it’s about not caring sometimes, feeling like you are the only one in the room, and giving your all.
It is definitely still a work in progress but being able to trust myself and being surrounded by people who support me is leading me to a better place.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I have been a dancer since I can remember, I have always loved music and movement even before I knew the meaning of it.
I was born and raised in Mexico, and started dancing seriously at 9 years old, I knew what I wanted to do from a young age and I haven’t stopped since.
Movement was my way of expressing my emotions and it has always been refreshing knowing that I can be myself doing it. I started dancing in a competition dance studio where we would prepare for a whole year to go to competitions around Mexico, I did this for many consecutive years, and meeting people and teachers from different places was always my favorite part, being able to learn something new from someone that I admired was always what I looked forward to the most.
At the end of my high school years, I had to overcome the decision of where I wanted to go to college and for me, there weren’t many options, I knew I wanted to continue my dance career but I felt limited by my options at home that I almost didn’t do it, I decided to wait a year and start applying to schools overseas, which before for me and my family that wasn’t an option, but I decided to go for it anyways, I applied to many schools in different countries, up until 2020 when things got hard for everyone and had to postpone my dreams.
After a year and a half of waiting, I finally found the perfect program to continue my dancing, and that is what brought me to New York, I enrolled in a two-year certificate program that focused on commercial dance, meeting amazing people from many different countries that became my best friends, people with as much passion for the craft as me became my mentors and learned so much about myself and my art in the process, I will be forever grateful for that place.
It took me 3 long years and, I am still working on it but now I am closer to my dreams than ever before, I have hope in them and I trust myself to do the work that is required, dance gives me life and purpose, it hasn’t been an easy road but I still have the same passion as my 9-year-old self, there’s so much left to learn, people to meet and places to be, but I am excited for the next chapter in my life.
I am a commercial dancer who also focuses on street and club styles and I grew up training contemporary, that’s a mix that I’ve learned to be okay with and incorporate into my style and that’s what I am the most passionate about at the moment, how I can create something new for what I’ve learned in all these years of training with different people, different places even different countries.
I am eager to keep learning and working with amazing people in an amazing city that has taught me so much not just in dance but in life.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for my passion and hunger for something better, for the hope that I have in my dreams, and definitely for the amazing support that I have from the people around me. When it comes to skills I think that I stayed resilient and committed even in moments when I thought it was not going to get better.
Everyone’s journey with art will look different, it’s true that most times will be uncertain, but my advice for people wanting to make a career out of it is to stay committed to the craft, to the feeling of making art, and to that core reason why you started in the first place, I sometimes like to look back and think about why my 9-year-old self wanted this so bad before she knew what was she getting into, and that keeps me motivated. It’s all about keeping it going but always remember that breaks are allowed.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
Uncertainty, this word has lived in my mind since the moment I decided to go all in with dance, I knew I had some sort of security for the first couple of years knowing that I would be going to college and keep on improving my skills, but definitely, no one prepares you for the moment when that is over and you get to face “the real world” everyone talks about it and how hard it is “out there”, but it’s definitely different for everyone in so many ways, a big challenge for me right now is accepting that everyone has their own path and timing, no one is you, therefore, no one will have the same path as you, it has been hard to come to terms with being stuck sometimes, in a routine, a feeling or a mindset. It’s how you manage to get yourself out of bed every morning to go pursue what you want that counts. And with so much not being certain all that its left is to keep going and do what is in my power to get where I want, time will tell the rest but there’s always hope.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaarsandoval/
Image Credits
Natalia Sanchez Kuoheng Huang Trecy Wendy
