In life, you must learn to pay attention to the signals that the Universe itself sends up to us: I was about to dance the music of “Lord of the dance” and surprise, the city of Freiburg, in those days, was half-covered with billboards of “Lord of the dance ” because the Irish Company would have come soon … it seemed like a good sign! After the Compulsory Dances I was in 3rd position and I wrote a message to my trainer-physiotherapist F., who replied: “What we need to do tomorrow is to disconnect the mind from the body.” I did not understand what he meant by this message, I thanked him and forgot about it. The big day came, the Free Dance day. I was quite excited, but ready and willing to take on this new challenge. As soon as I closed the door of my hotel room to go to the rink, I remembered that I had forgotten Patty, my fortune teddy-bear that my grandmother, dead the year before, had made for my first race when I was child. Returning to the room and grabbing Patty left on my bed, the eye felt down on the book left open on the table:

“The Warrior of Light believes in miracles, and because he believes, miracles begin to happen” (Coelho).

I had never paid attention to that sentence, it struck me so much that it almost frightened me.
It was my time! My Mom, who is also my coach, was there with me saying: – “Paola’s up to you, you cannot give up now, think of everything you’ve been through, you built up the your Free Dance the way you like it and, now, it’s the time to enjoy it, come on! go in and enjoy!. “- I went into the track with a big smile on the lips, with an emotion that came from the heart and expanded all over my body. After the first three steps, however, I realized that my left shoe was untied … panic !!! During the entire choreography I kept saying to myself: “And now what I do? I stop? If I stop I throw everything away! I try to keep going, ok now I’m on the right, attention left now …. ” So my rational mind kept worrying about what was happening to me as well as my rational mind was guiding me … I had disconnected the body from the mind!

I ended up my program without even realizing it, but I knew I did well so I started to jump and shout for joy!
The score was good, the screen showed “place 1”, but I had to wait until the end of the race. While waiting I was completely in trans, I felt I had already experienced that situation…a mix of feelings … amazing! I realized I had won only when everybody came to hug me. The final placements compared on the maxi- screen, it was all true … World Champion !!!

It took months for me to really understand what had happened … the miracle had actually happened, the whole universe had moved to help gaining that result. I struggled a lot to get it, nothing seemed to be going in the right direction but I continued to believe in it, not to give up, to overcome every obstacle, my head held high. Furthermore, all the signals were speaking to me, the numbers too: I won the World C. on November 19 -2009, on July 19, I won the Italian C. and the 19th was the date of birth of my dear grandmother died exactly a year before, she cared so much me and my races!
This experience marked me deeply, showed me that I had always had that power inside me but, since that day, I had not exacly found the key to express it. It was like I had been taken, shaken and screamed in my ears: “Wake-uppp … there’s a lot more than you think” I could not remain indifferent to all that. I was hungry to understand. And so I started my search, my studies, my experiments … and slowly, like a puzzle, the pieces were composing more and more in a meaningful way. I know for sure that we are much more powerful than what we think to be. We should all learn to know each other a bit ‘better and trust our potential and abilities!

 

Freiburg, 2009