Emma Phillips has overcome major hurdles to realize her dream. She shows off her new skills juggling parasols at the Wuqiao Acrobatic School. Zheng Jinran / China Daily

Her flight to China took a long time, but she is used to long journeys - like the hard road she traveled to realize her childhood dream of becoming an acrobat.

Phillips was 13 when she saw a performance by a circus troupe visiting her hometown.

"When I saw the amazing contortions by the performers, I thought it was fascinating," she recalls, her eyes shining from the memory even though it's been a decade since then.

She made the change from dancing - jazz, cabaret and ballet - and was determined to become an acrobat.

In Whangarei, where Phillips comes from, children took up acrobatics more as an extra-curricular activity, rather than a full-time pursuit. Phillips was not daunted, and turned to videos on the Internet to help her train.

After she graduated from high school at 17, she enrolled in a local circus school for two years. Even so, it did not offer what she wanted.

The school gave the students lessons on dance, theater and performance, but Phillips had expected more. She decided to further her skills after graduation.

She heard about the circus schools in China and decided to see for herself in 2010, traveling around for months. She returned to Beijing in May 2012, and then started preparing to train, finally, in the country where acrobatics had its origins.

She first attended a circus school in Beijing, where she made many friends from abroad, all sharing the same vision. But she wanted more, and so she enrolled in the school in Wuqiao.

"The training is really hard. I am exhausted but happy," she says in her dormitory during a short break.