Being bullied, especially for most of your life, makes it difficult to thrive and learn to love yourself. Some people truly don’t understand the impact certain words have on people and how hurtful words can stick in their minds, causing them to constantly put themselves down.
Matt Steffanina shared a video on his YouTube channel about Lizzy Howell, a ballet dancer who has been bullied her whole life. Matt met Lizzy a year ago when his friends Darman and Jordan Matter invited Matt to teach Lizzy her first hip-hop class.
Matt says, “I’m not going to lie, it was a bit of a struggle, she lacked confidence, technique and you could tell that it was her first time doing hip-hop, but the one thing Lizzie had was passion and heart.” At the time, Matt told Lizzie that if she moved to LA, he would help her reach her dreams of becoming a dancer.
In the video below, a year after they first met, Matt calls Lizzie down to the dance studio, meeting her in the parking lot. Just by the way they walk up to each other, you can tell that after just a year, their friendship has really grown, and she feels comfortable being herself around him.
Matt then informs Lizzie that they are going to redo the first collab they did together just to prove how far she has come after a year. As they walk into the studio together, Lizzie talks about what it has been like for her out in LA since she moved there and answers his question about if she has been bullied anymore. Lizzie replies, “Not as bad, but there’s still some in every class I go to; I still get those weird stares, but I still come because it’s what I want to do.”
As they start to warm up and begin dancing together, Matt tells Lizzie that she needs to stop migrating to the wall when they dance together. Nobody puts Lizzie in the corner. You dance, girl!
The beginning of this video shows Lizzie and Matt dancing together for the first time, and you can see how timid she is. Then, after a year, Lizzie and Matt do the same dance, and I could not stop smiling as I watched it. Her confidence is screaming, she has a constant smile on her face, and she looks absolutely incredible.
To see Lizzie’s transformation, click on the video!
