“Whatever you’re doing, that’s better.”
“I can work with that.”
“Not bad.”
These are examples of authentic feedback given to me. We all need to, on occasion, be told how amazing we are. But it’s the authentic feedback that feeds growth. The above was all earned. What I was doing was originally not good, so when it was “better”, this was a great day. Seek out mentors and coaches that will give it to you straight, without ego and condescension.
We are our habits. Everything counts. Even if you’re rehearsing in an empty studio, you do it full out. Your expression is full out. Because if you’re not full out, it’s futile.
We tell dancers this in classes and rehearsals for competitions and performances. We say, ‘this is how you need to work’. Yet teachers will often see no difference. Many corrections aren’t applied or even attempted. Simple things, like ‘move your arms’.
We are our habits. They follow us outside the studio, on stage, in life. Each moment in class and rehearsal counts. When corrected, you take the note. Even if you hate smiling or think you look ridiculous, you take the note.
Change is hard. It’s even harder if you feel like you have to show up as someone that you think people will respect as legitimate.
I was a Rockette for years. I was really good at this job. Seriously. At one point ensemble members remarked how I never got notes. I was swung out of a dress rehearsal. This is HUGE. Then, everything changed.
I was hit by a bus, which fractured my skull in 7 places and put me in a coma for 6 days. Cut to recovery. I did another season as a Rockette, but the accident curtailed my dream career path. Who even was I anymore?
After years of showing up and standing in line doing as directed, I’m now no longer doing what I was adept at for so long. I thought I had to become something else if I’m now going to sit at this table with these people.
It turns out that it was much better to show up as myself.
Nobody is immune to hypocrisy. Cultural dancing that utilizes the hips offends a segment of the population. This is the same society that puts children in barely-there costumes and has them shake their behinds to the audience for 2 counts of 8 for a score.
It’s not my place to say what should and should not be taught. I teach what I believe and that is what I am responsible for. I can state the following as a fact though.
When I am behind the judges’ table and kids are on stage in revealing costumes doing movements beyond their maturity level to music beyond their maturity level, I am not impressed, I feel slightly awkward and occasionally sad.
Is it hypocritical that we will go on for days harshly criticizing adults dancing like adults for adults, and at the same time dress kids up just as provocatively and give them movement with a connotation that their maturity level doesn’t comprehend?
Some of my most monumental growth moments were when I jumped into something way out past the edge of my comfort zone. I, a person who is most often in front of people directing them what to do next, put myself into classes with great humans who excel in areas I am working to strengthen. Unexpectedly, I turned into a pile of sobbing mush, standing alone in front of these warm, supportive and talented people.
I can’t wait to experience that again. Something so weird happens to me, where I’m no longer capable of uttering a complete sentence. I am the definition of complete and unadulterated vulnerability. We don’t all get to feel what that is like, stripping down all of the layers to build something stronger inside of us. If you have a chance to work on a skill or craft that you dream of developing and fear keeps blocking you, get out your bulldozer and raze that hurdle.
We live in a time where everyone is great, and there’s a social accountability to showing the world exactly how great we are and what awards we got.
The other day I was expressing to a former dance teacher how grateful I was that she never told me I was good when I wasn’t. I have no recollection of what awards we won. We probably did well. None of that mattered.
I knew I had to go and get good. And nobody knew where I was going to get good. They didn’t need to. It wasn’t for them.
It’s the small, personal triumphs that add up to the most meaning, and we don’t need to wait for others to love us to feel successful.
One of the biggest things we can’t get back in life is time. We will say to ourselves for 20 years things like, ‘I really want to learn how to act’ or ‘I want to learn how to play guitar’. 20 years later that desire still lives, and if it’s a year later we still think we will get to it.
It’s easy to find acceptable reasons to convince ourselves why we can’t do something ‘right now’. It’s easier to let yourself believe that the time has passed and now it’s too late. Who says it’s too late? Society? Pffft. Ok. You might not be center stage at City Center and you might not have an exhibit at the Guggenheim, but when you finally do something you’ve wanted to do, it’s one of the most gratifying feelings.
So ask yourself. What is stopping you? It many cases it’s yourself. Don’t be afraid to be afraid, and don’t ever con yourself into thinking it’s too late.
In the novel The Alchemist, the main character has dreams of a treasure buried thousands of miles away. He embarks on a yearslong journey to seek this treasure. In short, he gets robbed along the way, falls in love, is attacked by robbers again, and comes to find out that the treasure he traveled thousands of miles to find was buried at home under the very tree he had those dreams.
I think about this metaphor often. The dance training I needed to succeed was right in front of me, in my first teacher’s basement, at the local studio where I received formative training. Through college, I went to local studios where I’d take extra classes to supplement the college dance classes I was enrolled in at the university close to my hometown.
Go for it. Experience it all. It will make you whole. Dance everywhere. Be like that little white feather in Forrest Gump and go where the wind blows you. In the end, you will discover that what you were looking for was right there in front of you.
I love being a student. I love going to a crowded ballet class and finding my spot at the barre to be a body in the room. At 42, I still want to be that kid who flies to L.A. alone to stay at a dingy hotel and take class at EDGE all day. A huge part of my soul is still that same 21 year-old. But it’s my turn now. It has to be my turn now. I am the age that the teachers and directors who shaped me professionally were when my journey took me to them. I look at the studios I’ve taught at and people I’ve worked for, and what they’ve created. They curate their programs and faculty, decide what their mission is and what their image is going to be. It’s my turn now. It’s my turn to be for others what those teachers and directors were for me.