Max Brophy
“I grew up in Oslo, Norway, where I lived until I was 8. My family and I moved to St. Louis since my parents thought Norway was too cold year-round. When we moved here, it was pretty hard because I didn’t know how to speak English, and everything about my surroundings was different. I had to pick up English quickly, which changed my personality in some ways because it was hard to talk to people. Not knowing how to speak English made me a little more independent and less social, and I started to seclude myself from others because I couldn’t talk to them. Right now, I still can be slightly anti-social, but I have become more comfortable because of how long it’s been. My family and I still visit Norway almost every year, and I love to ski there because there are really big mountains and it snows a lot. Even though my family and I moved to a different country, we still carry out our old Norwegian traditions. I speak Norwegian to my family at home, and we always watch Norwegian movies together.” – Max Brophy, 11
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![“I joined the Poms team because I like performing. I [have done] gymnastics since I was a little kid but I really wanted to do dance because I wanted to try performing in front of the school and my friends. Gymnastics is also really hard on your body, it takes up a lot of your time. I had practice every day for five hours and that was very exhausting. I wanted to try something new. Dance and gymnastics are similar, youre still performing but dance is more performing to a lot of people and interacting with the crowd, whereas gymnastics is youre doing it by yourself. A lot of my friends were dancing and I had watched them for so many years. I wanted to do that and then when I made the team, I was so happy to get the opportunity. We really bring each other up on the team. The difference between gymnastics and dance is with gymnastics you have to do it for yourself, but in dance youre doing it for other people. I think that really motivates everyone to do their best. I was definitely very nervous when I first started to be seen by everyone and show everyone what I could do. I realized though we practice so much and we know what were doing, so to just have fun.” -Abby Cauley, 11](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DSC0001-475x317.jpg)
