I was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on Friday morning June, 23rd 1972. Even though I was born in the city I lived my childhood in a very small town outside of Amsterdam.

My dance life started at the age of 10 after my family decided it was important for my social skills to learn ballroom dancing. My grandparents were competitive ballroom dancers so it didn't come as a surprise to many that I should follow in their footsteps.

 

I learned to love competitive ballroom dancing because winning competitions gave me confidence, and I realized how competitive I actually was.

 

Dancing gave me the opportunity to express feelings without saying a word and I also experienced it as therapy to deal with many emotional obstacles throughout my childhood.

 

From the age of 15 I was traveling abroad representing my country in major dance competitions in both Ballroom and latin. Those early international years gave me a lot of experience and the realization that if I wanted to make it big I needed to take risks and make major life altering decisions. I had to get an international partner, move to England and therefore stop traditional school. My mentor/coach, Ruud Vermey PhD and I convinced my parents (not sure if I didn't want to finish school because of my career or just the excitement of not having to go anymore..lol) to permit me to terminate high school at 16 to pursue my dance career. My parents were torn, because they wanted me to finish my education. I totally agree now as an adult, but in hindsight I thank them and my school principal on my knees that they let me go. I took a huge risk by supporting my decision, because I was still under age. When I became world champion in 1994 that school principal who supported my decision was invited to the celebration party and in his speech he said 'I could have lost my job over the decision to let you leave high school early, but now I'm so happy I did knowing you reached your dream. Your country is proud of you'.

 

During the summer of 1989 I started a whole new rollercoaster in my life with my beloved British dance partner, Julie Fryer. It started as a crazy fast career boost. We learned, laughed, triumphed, lost, gained, cried, split up, got together again. Doors opened and closed, but with blood, sweat, and tears I found my intuition was my life saver on many occasions. Sometimes following your gut is more important than listening to others. I did and it helped me make life changing decisions when times got rough. With intuition I felt my passion and love for dance made me happy and I became more sincere in my expression in dance and life.

 

After three world Latin Dance championship gold medals in 1994, 1995 and 1996 I fulfilled more than one dream and was so appreciative for all of my blessings. I still felt an urge to do more. From my earliest age I was always been cross trained in many forms of dance and was educated in choreography as well , by my mentor, Ruud Vermey.

 

I wanted to explore the world of bringing Ballroom Dance mixed with other forms of dance to the theater world. When I first came to NYC in 1991 I fell in love with the city. I told my friends that when I retired from competitive dancing in my late thirties I wanted to move to New York City. Well, as fate would have it I stopped competing at 26 and moved to New York City in June of 1997. I took the risk and followed my intuition once more. I packed my two suitcases, bought a ticket and moved to the Big Apple leaving my home country. A new chapter of my life had begun, and I had no idea what was in store for me.

In that summer I had the pleasure of working with many amazingly talented dancers many of whom are now known to you as my colleagues on DWTS. Not only was I coaching Tony Dovolani, Karina Smirnoff, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and his brother Val since my early days in NYC, but we became close friends. Now working on DWTS together is amazing, especially since we have all known each other for so long.