Grace was a key member of a local line dancing quartet who dominated the recent Australian Line Dance Championships held in Tamworth as part of the Country Music Festival.

They are now hoping to take on the best line dancers in the world.

Grace was joined at the championships by fellow JD Dance members Johnathon Hardy (founder and principal), Elise O'Connor (co-founder) and Anna-Lee Hodalj.

Grace is still soaking up her rise up the line dancing ranks.

“It was the four of us on the team and we won 97 medals, named the club champions and won two belt buckles,” she said.

Getting a belt buckle, for a line dancer, is a great achievement.

Grace is the youngest on the team at 16-years of age and is a Year 11 Bomaderry High School student.

It was by chance that she first started line dancing.

“One of my friends did line dancing for three or four years and then I started it last year in October,” Grace said.

A few months later and she is an Australian champion.

She laughs when it was suggested she was a natural.

“No I am not a natural – it took a lot of training,” she said.

The dancers started training three days a week and then ramped things up.

“Then it (training) got to basically every day towards the end of the preparations for the championships,” the teenager said.

“There was quite a few people watching at Tamworth – a lot more than they have had in previous years.”

The Bomaderry High student has danced in front of big crowds before and is an experienced dancer.

“I have done dancing since I was three, but not line dancing,” she said.

She loves lots of things about line dancing.

“The people are great and the people who run it are great and it's just heaps of fun,” she said.

Grace said more young people should try line dancing and they would then realise just how good it.

“It really is not daggy,” she said.

The four members of the Australian championship team are going to Mayworth, another prestigious competition, in May at West Tamworth, which is the masters' qualifier for the world championships.

“If we get through at Mayworth we then get to go to England,”  Grace said

Grace said she was committed to doing well with line dancing. She now has to work on a balancing act for her studies and dance training.

JD Dance is based at Bomaderry Public School, they run other competition classes and teach other dance styles like ballroom.

Grace would like to thank the other members of the team for their support.