As a high school senior, Ephraim Bullock faced a major decision: pursue a career in professional ballet or attend college.<\/p>\n
A trainee at the Richmond Ballet, he had just received an offer from the company\u2019s artistic director to join its second company, the entry point into professional dancing, complete with a salary. It was a step toward making it into the main company, and he had been dancing ballet since fourth grade, so the offer carried the weight of nearly a decade of hard work.<\/p>\n
But a series of overuse injuries was reshaping his thoughts about his future.<\/p>\n
During a production of \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d the year\u2019s biggest performance, Bullock developed tendonitis and began working with one of the Richmond Ballet\u2019s physical therapists. A former dancer herself, she knew what it was like to rely on your body as your instrument. \u201cI was significantly stronger than before,\u201d he said of completing his physical therapy.<\/p>\n
The experience stirred something within him. \u201cI want to help dancers at their lowest points,\u201d he said, \u201cnot only to get back to where they were, but to be even stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
He applied to the University of Virginia and made himself a promise: If he got in, he would pursue a degree in kinesiology with the goal of becoming a physical therapist for dancers.<\/p>\n
He was at a rehearsal when he received his admissions decision. He snuck away to the bathroom, sat down and opened his computer. \u201cIt was a cathartic outburst \u2013 I got into UVA!\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know how to describe it. It was like all my dreams had come true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bullock described his first-year self as curious. He was a listener who gravitated toward upperclassmen, absorbing all the wisdom they shared, but school was harder than he expected.<\/p>\n
He struggled in biology, tying his sense of worth to every exam. The harder he pushed, the worse it got, he said.<\/p>\n
Through faith, he found his footing. He connected with the Navigators, a nondenominational Christian ministry on Grounds. At the last large-group meeting of the year, he ran into Nash Steed, a former high school classmate he barely knew. They went to Bodo\u2019s Bagels for breakfast that weekend and talked for hours. They would meet nearly every week for the next two years to talk about life and faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he balanced his work was really admirable,\u201d Steed, who graduated from the College of Arts & Sciences in 2024, said. \u201cHe was super, super busy, but was still available to hang out with and would prioritize his faith like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bullock eventually became a small-group leader himself, meeting weekly with fellow students. His grades, he noted, trended upward every year as he stopped hyper-fixating on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was idolizing academics,\u201d he said. \u201cI realized there\u2019s so much more to life than academics. You\u2019re not defined by your grades.\u201d<\/p>\n
He found time and ways to apply what he was learning in his kinesiology classes. During his first year, he worked as a UVA sports medicine student volunteer, working directly with varsity athletic teams to provide prevention, evaluation and rehabilitation of athletic injuries and emergency care during games.<\/p>\n
He spent one season with the men\u2019s soccer team, then moved to men\u2019s lacrosse, where he worked with Rebecca Vozzo, the team\u2019s head athletic trainer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a high school senior, Ephraim Bullock faced a major decision: pursue a career in professional ballet or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84],"class_list":["post-597957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}