E8: Cindy Bradley - The Ballet Teacher Behind Misty Copeland

Interview guest, Cindy Bradley, sits down with me to share her history with ballet, her coming-to-San-Pedro story, and how she knew Misty Copeland was destined for greatness from the start. Cindy and I chat about the podcast and she immediately brings up the "Misty's episode" (Episode 3: Fan-Girling Over Misty Copeland with Megan Barnes). She actually says that Misty loved the episode (!!!) and I basically die. I pull it together and continue with the interview. Cindy shares her childhood memories of growing up in Georgia during the "hippie time" and discovering ballet for the first time. Her father being in the Air Force caused the family to move around a lot. She saw a lot of the country before arriving in San Diego. Here she suffers a major injury that ends her career in ballet before it really began. This is when she decides to teach ballet and start a punk band. Cindy on coming to San Pedro for the first time: "We were driving down the harbor freeway to the end... there were those refineries everywhere... and we were like 'do we really want to live around refineries?' And then we got into it and it just opened up into this beautiful town surrounded by water." - Cindy She describes San Pedro feeing like home from the very beginning and how her and her band discovered that there was a local punk scene here in town. Meeting Patrick Bradley Cindy opens up to me about her health battles with crohn's disease. She is proud of the victories she's won in her health but credits her husband for getting her through the tough times. She shares the story of how they met and how he wooed her with a series of paintings. Cindy on the man that made her swoon: "Without him there would be no San Pedro Ballet, there would be no Wolf, there would be no Misty, there would be no anything because there would be no me." - Cindy Meeting Misty Of course, we have to talk about Misty Copeland. She talks about what it was like being her teacher and how she feels as though they were always in sync with each other. How she describes feeling the first time she knew Misty was a prodigy: "Immediately it just became the number one goal in my life to make sure that she would become a dancer... I didn't think about it much, it just became my mission." - Cindy We go on to talk about her talent for picking stars and her newest star that she likes to call her "male Misty", a young high schooler from Narbonne High School named Enrique. We talk about why its difficult to recruit and retain male ballet students and what we believe to be a toxic belief that society has about masculinity. Lastly, she proudly announces that the ballet school is celebrating 25 years and is very excited about the upcoming local performances of The Nutcracker. After the recording of this episode Cindy attended the premiere of "The Nutcracker & The Four Realms" with Misty Copeland and she also appeared in a piece in People Magazine with Misty, the article is titled "Misty Opens Up About the Teacher Who Changed Her Life: 'She Took A Huge Leap'". LINKS: Tickets to The Nutcracker at the Warner Grand http://www.sanpedrocityballet.org/upcoming-events/nutcracker Article in People Magazine https://people.com/human-interest/misty-copeland-teacher-changed-life/?fbclid=IwAR2ZJmPYeFWzex_JjBWl5x5BT9zWVvsLYKh5ntFKs6fNGbKIWdPVDWfKaqQ Preview of The Nutcracker & The Four Realms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXfxLIuNJvw SPONSOR: Siren's Java & Tea https://www.instagram.com/sirensjavateahouse/?hl=en