Lana Talks Being Told That Her Wrestling Moves Are "Too Pretty", Trying To Be More Aggressive
The women's division in WWE has been experiencing many historical firsts, the most recent being the first-ever, all women's pay-per-view, WWE Evolution. WWE SmackDown Live superstar Lana competed in the battle royal at WWE Evolution and has been in the mix of this changing women's division since she began wrestling in 2013. She started her performance career as a dancer before making a full transition to wrestling.
Lana recently sat down with Fangirling and discussed how she thinks the demands of being a dancer and being a WWE performer are actually quite similar. She mentions how her most difficult challenge now is removing the "graceful aesthetic" from her wrestling moves.
"The one common thread in all of those things is that we are storytellers, and all of that, and we entertain," Lana began. "And so, I feel like I've lived all these different lives but when I take a step back, I go, 'oh no, the one thing I always did was entertain and always tell stories.' If I was Giselle, or The Nutcracker, or Swan Lake, or a modern dance piece with Alvin Ailey, to WWE. That's what we do in WWE, we tell stories. And it's the same thing and there's challenges in it, too. Trying to lose the graceful aesthetics and they're always like, 'you go out there and your moves are too pretty.' Cause I'm a bad guy, ya know? And they're like, 'your moves are too pretty'. And I was like, 'Ok, let me try to be aggressive!'"
Lana has worked with world renown dance companies and is an active part of WWE's roster, an impressive feat she attributes to positive thinking and believing in herself. Lana hopes, at the conclusion of her career, that people will remember her for being a grateful and positive person.
"Believing in yourself, for sure, is a huge one," Lana continued. "And I think that it can be interpreted in so many different ways. And even I doubt myself sometimes. I mean, there's days that I get down on myself and I doubt myself. So much of our life is dictated by our mindsets. So much of it! Of how we think, we shall become. So if we're always like, 'oh, I'm a loser. I suck. I'm going to never succeed.' We're going to live those words. Like, we're gonna manifest those words. And I never want to look back and be like, 'oh, if I was a little bit more positive, if I chose to have be a little bit more grateful, if I had chose to say, "no, this is going to happen! Like, I am going to be successful. I am going to achieve my dreams!" And literally have that on my vision board."