Simon 'Blue' Robinson

I got things wrong every day, but you just carry on.

Well, if you get punched, and I often did, you know, tackled and hard hit or punched on a footy field, you can lie there and groan and stagger around a bit.

Not in ballet.

Ballet is, if anyone thinks they want a hard workout, go to a ballet class.

It is incredible.

And it's all day.

You know, you start class in the morning, then you may have a class later on, then you perform in the evening for three hours.

I was stunned by the physicality of it.

Absolutely stunned.

Incredibly phenomenal.

His legs were incredibly powerful.

And again, you can Google images of him just standing there.

He started dancing at 17, which was late.

And so he was ridiculed because he couldn't do the steps.

And that brought a fire in him, a real temper.

which also led him to ignore pretty much everybody except for himself.

And he did exactly what he wanted all the time.

In the school, he was so cocky, in the ballet school in Kirov in Leningrad, that they locked him out one night in the cold.

But he overcame.

That was his magical phrase, you will overcome.