Freshman year was Yuke Yu’s first encounter with the SHS dance team at a pep session. She says every member on the team impressed her with their smiling faces and how they were so confident in front of a crowd. She thought she would like to do the same thing. Trying out for the dance team helped her break out of her shell and socialize with others.

“I’m very shy and don’t talk much,” Yu said. “The captains at that time had made me confident and they would teach me and build my confidence up. They were like my role models. As a senior now, I would want to be the same thing to the freshman.

Dance helped Yu get over being shy. She says now she loves to perform in front of people. In the beginning, she felt she needed guidance and role models, and that’s what the older dance members ended up being for her. That’s also what she wants to be for the younger teammates now.

“I was really shy then. I didn’t ever want to ask for help,” dance team member sophomore Makayla Maxwell said. “When we did tryouts, (Yu) helped me with a lot to learn the last couple eight counts of the dance. I don’t know if I even would have made it if she didn’t help me, honestly.”

Another reason Yu joined the dance team was to distract herself from her home life and other problems, but it has now become one of her passions. Yu even plans to go to Indiana University Bloomington, where there is a dance team she aspires to join.

Now, with her growing passion for dance, Yuke Yu is the senior captain of the SHS dance team. Her coach Heather Todero says she influences her teammates for the better and everyone on the team enjoys her presence.

“(Yu) really wasn’t confident in how her body could move with the dances and stuff,” Todero said.

When Yu first joined the dance team, Todero says there were times when she was not comfortable with doing some of the dance moves, but in the end she did them. Now many of the younger girls that won’t do the moves are inspired when Yu does them. Todero believes that she has come from someone shy to a shining star that sets an example for everyone else on the team.

“She’s a ball of energy in a small little body, and you can’t help but love her because she’s just that kind of person,” Todero said.