My name is Penella Bee I feel like a  funky, fierce dance and circus performer now running the Fire Girls and Enchanted Circus but to get where I am has been a rocky road.

As a child I felt  really different and bullied for it. I really didn’t like my body and felt terrible pressure to fit in. I coped by dancing  for hours to RnB music  in my sitting room when my parents went to bed to escape from my negative world. I loved the discovery of hip hop clubs and my dance style really fitted in there.  The happiness didn’t last as at the age of 17 I fell pregnant and was terrified...I was really alone and didn’t feel like dancing anymore. I got a job working on phones and  like a true  blessing or fate  I met an outrageous, camp and wonderful friend Chris who thought I was amazing- bump and all!  He pushed me to follow my dreams. And so I did!

When Faith was born I was filled with happiness I wasn’t lonely, in fact I couldn’t even go to the loo without her following me. Soon after I went back to study dance. It was my passion but proved so difficult juggling being a young single mother and education. I often suffered with intense panic attacks. Some how I managed to scrape through university and complete my final show. This was a time to be my whacky weird and wonderful self .  I wanted to explore optical illusion, the cosmos  and dance. Inspired by working with club performers I discovered poi and stuff that glowed in the dark, I wanted to be able to spin theses things properly so I went to  the local circus club.

This decision changed  my life I still felt the escapism through dance but now I had a community of genuinely nice circus folk with a beautiful ethos on how to work and support each other. My discovery of hula hoop was divine, it became my special thing; like I  was in the living room again escaping from the daily pressures, but  this time I was an adult with a business and two children.

The hoop community online and at gatherings was a spiritual bunch of folk - sharing what they love and being fabulous in their own skin! 

Being fit is wonderful but just fitting in to your own skin is life changing! My message to you is to be funky, be fierce and be friends. Sure be fit but never fear if you don't fit in!