This article contains a mention of eating disorders which some readers may find upsetting.
Imagine being told you might never be able to do the thing you love most in the world.
In December 2025, Rosie Stores shared a reel on Instagram compiling various clips, starting with dancing in the studio, followed by her being pushed in a wheelchair, and then a series of movement: in the gym, on the track. The text overlay reads: “At 19 you will get pulled from your childhood sport, lose your passion for movement and be told you’ll struggle to walk properly ever again. It’s VERY important you push through this.”
For someone like Rosie, who had been Irish dancing since she was five, this was a particularly hard pill to swallow. Sport and fitness had always been a central part of her life — she started in gymnastics before later becoming a devoted student at the Claddagh Academy of Irish Dance in her hometown of London.
She worked her way up the competitive ladder, earning third place at the Scottish National Championships in 2017, then qualifying for Worlds the following year in Glasgow, where she placed 46th. She didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time she’d lace up her ghillies.
In the lead-up to the Great Britain Championships that same year, Rosie had been experiencing discomfort in her left foot, but pushed through it as she continued to train. The night before she was set to take the stage, while practising, she broke her right foot — incidentally, not the one that had been troubling her.
“You’re so much more than just a dancer”
Rosie Stores
That sidelined her for six months. With her focus on recovering from the broken foot, the pain in her left foot went largely ignored. When she returned to dancing, it came back worse than before — affecting her walking and her sleep. But with Worlds on the horizon, she pushed it aside.
“When you’re dancing and that’s all you want to do, you’re so engrossed in the small world and nothing else tends to matter in that moment,” she says.
She completed three rounds in Glasgow, and stepping off the stage, she knew something was wrong. Back home, a scan revealed damage to the navicular bone — a small, wedge-shaped bone in the midfoot that serves as a central pivot point and is critical for walking and stability. Hers had completely collapsed.
“That obviously put a very quick, abrupt stop to my competitive career, but I didn’t know that it would take me out completely,” Rosie shares.
At first, she thought she’d be out for six weeks and back in the studio. But bone density issues stemming from a private struggle with an eating disorder at the time — a significant contributing factor as to why Rosie suffered her injury in the first place — meant surgery wasn’t an option. The doctors were transparent: her foot might not ever properly heal.
Through it all, she leaned on family and friends. Yet, even their support couldn’t fully cushion the particular loneliness of watching others continue doing the thing she loved. As fellow dancers competed at feiseanna and made their professional debuts in shows, Rosie sat at home. It felt like the rest of the world was moving without her.
“It’s so important to respect your body, to move your body”
Rosie Stores
“At the beginning, it was very hard to see everybody do something that you wanted to do. And when somebody physically takes it away from you and it’s not on your terms, it’s a lot harder to deal with,” she says.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Suddenly, everyone was stuck at home, and Rosie found unexpected relief in that. She wasn’t the only one sitting still anymore.
The years that followed had their ups and downs, as she struggled not only with the injury but with other mental and physical health challenges. “Not only are you not able to do what you want, but your body’s kind of working against you,” she shares.
Alongside the physical recovery came a quieter, harder question: who was she without dance? It’s a feeling many dancers will recognise — when something consumes so much of your life, it often becomes inseparable from your identity. But rather than letting that uncertainty paralyse her, Rosie reframed it: “I think the positive element of having to stop was figuring out who I was without something that I love.”
It took five years for her foot to fully heal. Even now, she acknowledges it isn’t quite the same as it once was. But somewhere in that long recovery, she found her way back to movement — not just for her body, but for her mind: “It’s so important to respect your body, to move your body, but then equally as exercise for your brain as well.”
“If you want to perform adequately, you need to give your body the respect it deserves”
Rosie Stores
Rosie’s return started with strength training, mostly through weightlifting and reacquainting herself with the gym. Still, she felt like something was missing.
“I wasn’t moving fast anymore. I didn’t feel athletic. I didn’t feel excited by the movement anymore,” Rosie explains. “I missed the buzz. I missed the challenge. I missed the stamina. I missed the fast pace.”
Living in London, she had no shortage of options. She dove into the city’s vibrant fitness scene, exploring functional fitness and CrossFit — different movements, different skills, but a familiar sense of challenge. It reminded her of the dance world, and crucially, it was movement entirely on her own terms. “It was challenging, it was waking my brain up,” she says. She’s since competed in fitness competitions and attended events with major brands like Gymshark and Lululemon.
“Once you’re not in the space of someone telling you that you have to do it and you’re doing it because you want to do it, I think that opens up so many doors to regain your love for something,” she says.
For dancers managing major injuries or navigating similar pivot points in their careers, Rosie is clear about what she wishes she had known sooner: “If you want to perform adequately, you need to give your body the respect it deserves.”
Beyond physical care, she also encourages dancers to exercise their mindsets and strengthen self-awareness that extends beyond results and rankings. “You’re so much more than just a dancer,” she says.
These days, Rosie doesn’t take a single workout for granted. She knows too well what it feels like to wonder if movement will ever come back. But it did — and she intends to make the most of it: “If you put the time and the effort in, you owe it to yourself to give yourself the best possible opportunity.”
Follow Rosie’s journey on Instagram.
