And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance...
~Lee Ann Womack
~Lee Ann Womack
My desire to try ballet started at Circus Warehouse this March, it became a concrete goal for this summer in June, and a reality this past month. This week was the final of the 5-week summer semester course I took through a local ballet school.
Ballet is all about balance, especially about balancing in movement and at the limits of our body’s ability (known as dynamic and offset balance), so it’s an ideal cross-training activity. The focus on self-discipline and precision in ballet definitely appeals to me. Ballet is also about coordination, poise, grace, and artistry, which wouldn’t be bad things to have if ever I want to perform. As a klutz and a highly inhibited one at that, dance definitely hasn’t been my thing—at all—but I was willing to give it a try.
Trying ballet has, overall, been a truly positive experience, so I feel a bit guilty to confess that my first lesson was, frankly, fairly traumatic. (Obviously I have a pretty good life to be able to say that.) In general I try very hard, no matter how I feel, to appear and convey what is positive and upbeat. So it is positively wrenching to write candidly about that first lesson. However, I recently committed to being more honest and open in my blog, to sharing with you the bumps in my road as well as the triumphs, and to sharing my heart as well as my thoughts. So here goes:
Taking this ballet class may very well be the furthest beyond my comfort zone I’ve ever been. I knew that it was going to be a foreign environment and probably difficult, but it was one thing to tell myself that I’d probably be the most awkward and beginning-est of beginners in a room full of graceful people…it was another to live that reality for 90 long minutes. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way in those first 90 minutes.
I was indeed the only person in the class without any dance and/or ballet experience. I also hadn’t dressed the part: the shoes and the class seemed enough of an expense without adding dancewear. I arrived too late to ask how my newly purchased ballet shoes worked, so I wore socks rather than risk blisters and sloppy shoes (I thought the little bow at the front was purely decorative). Both of those factors added to the misery of watching myself in the mirror as I fumbled and stumbled through even the relatively basic sequences, out of synch with the rest of the class. This was definitely not one of the high points in my life in terms of coming prepared.
The pace of the class was fast: we went straight to work on exercises designed more for intermediate beginners than for the completely clueless. Because it seemed to me that everyone else was managing the sequences just fine, I never spoke up when the teacher asked if anyone had questions. It seemed like neither one question nor forty would even begin to clarify the utter confusion my legs and arms and brain were in.
The social aspect of that first class was probably what made it especially trying. My misery communicated itself to my fellow classmates and, perhaps to give me what privacy they could or perhaps because watching my beginner efforts was just a little painful to the more experienced, they did their best not to watch. Granted, the idea that they avoided eye contact is perhaps just stress-induced paranoia, but it is probably something that I would be guilty of if our roles had been reversed. Frankly, I needed empathy and assistance as much as I needed privacy and pity.
In spite of not having enough basic instruction, having the wrong kind of clothing and footwear, plus awkward social dynamics, I made it through those 90 minutes—those painfully miserable 90 minutes. I’m not exaggerating when I call it traumatic: I cried. Not until afterward, not until I was alone, but once I could, I sobbed. And I loathe crying.
Ok, now it’s time to put a positive spin on this experience—the positive spin it truly deserves. After that first class it would have been fairly easy never to go back—but I hate being a quitter. I’m glad I didn’t. That first lesson was five weeks ago—and I like my ballet class now.
So what changed? Stacey was the first saving grace. Stacey was one of the beginners in the class—not a complete beginner like me, but the single ballet class she’d had in college was years and at least two children ago. She sensed my frustration and positioned herself next to me as we waited our turn for corner work—and willingly expressed that she was struggling and frustrated herself. Just knowing I wasn’t the only one helped a lot. There is also safety in numbers: after class the two of us went together to the teacher about our need for even more basic lessons.
The instructor was more than willing to accommodate the needs of the beginner students in the beginner class—once we’d expressed what we needed. The complexity of the steps and the pace of the lessons did slow considerably after that. I also learned to speak up. Yes, I was that student who almost always nodded yes, please do that again…and maybe twice more after that.
Another huge help was the presence of one of those experienced, beautiful people. Britnie, a ballerina in the civic ballet company affiliated with the school, was attending the beginner class just for an additional workout. After that first lesson she took us beginners under her wing, offered clarifications and demos while we practiced sequences, and positioned herself strategically so we could follow her through the corner work. The extra coaching was incredibly helpful. (It also meant that the whole class didn’t have to pause every time I needed a little extra help.)
With all that going for me, the next nine lessons went much better. At the risk of swinging from the extreme of self-abasing sob-stories to self-congratulatory aggrandizing, I’m going to announce that I made a lot of progress in five weeks. More than one of my fellow classmates said I made impressive progress. (Given my rather low starting point, that is a very, very good thing.) The last two weeks especially were rewarding. I’ll be utterly, atrociously awkward at ballet for a long time yet, but by the last lesson I could at least attempt to add the correct arm movements to the steps, could often execute something that resembled the appropriate combinations—basically, I was almost dancing!
A lingering dissatisfaction I have with my ballet efforts is the stifling and inhibiting sense of caution that I'm struggling with. I quite frequently tried merely to do the steps approximately correctly to stay in synch with the rest of my classmates rather than getting the fundamental techniques correct and really going for it. I’d like to learn to throw my heart over those imaginary hurdles so my feet follow with the instinctive boldness that only true commitment brings—to go all out.
I do think that ballet will help with rope walking. After spending so much time on incredibly narrow and often unstable surfaces, trying to balance on a flat, wide, and stable surface seems like a luxury—but then the need to contort my body into beautiful shapes while standing on tip-toe negates the advantage of having a whole floor to work with. Turns on slackline and balance pipe are my current nemesis, and I do think that the chaînés turn drills—learning not to get dizzy and spot for a focal point—are helping with that.
I’d like to keep ballet as a cross-training activity I think; all-in-all I’m quite pleased with this beginning to ballet balance. Oh, and in case anyone is interested in seeing a ballet-style tightwire performance, of course I have one in my collection of YouTube favorites: here.
Ballet is all about balance, especially about balancing in movement and at the limits of our body’s ability (known as dynamic and offset balance), so it’s an ideal cross-training activity. The focus on self-discipline and precision in ballet definitely appeals to me. Ballet is also about coordination, poise, grace, and artistry, which wouldn’t be bad things to have if ever I want to perform. As a klutz and a highly inhibited one at that, dance definitely hasn’t been my thing—at all—but I was willing to give it a try.Trying ballet has, overall, been a truly positive experience, so I feel a bit guilty to confess that my first lesson was, frankly, fairly traumatic. (Obviously I have a pretty good life to be able to say that.) In general I try very hard, no matter how I feel, to appear and convey what is positive and upbeat. So it is positively wrenching to write candidly about that first lesson. However, I recently committed to being more honest and open in my blog, to sharing with you the bumps in my road as well as the triumphs, and to sharing my heart as well as my thoughts. So here goes:
Taking this ballet class may very well be the furthest beyond my comfort zone I’ve ever been. I knew that it was going to be a foreign environment and probably difficult, but it was one thing to tell myself that I’d probably be the most awkward and beginning-est of beginners in a room full of graceful people…it was another to live that reality for 90 long minutes. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way in those first 90 minutes.
I was indeed the only person in the class without any dance and/or ballet experience. I also hadn’t dressed the part: the shoes and the class seemed enough of an expense without adding dancewear. I arrived too late to ask how my newly purchased ballet shoes worked, so I wore socks rather than risk blisters and sloppy shoes (I thought the little bow at the front was purely decorative). Both of those factors added to the misery of watching myself in the mirror as I fumbled and stumbled through even the relatively basic sequences, out of synch with the rest of the class. This was definitely not one of the high points in my life in terms of coming prepared.
The pace of the class was fast: we went straight to work on exercises designed more for intermediate beginners than for the completely clueless. Because it seemed to me that everyone else was managing the sequences just fine, I never spoke up when the teacher asked if anyone had questions. It seemed like neither one question nor forty would even begin to clarify the utter confusion my legs and arms and brain were in.
The social aspect of that first class was probably what made it especially trying. My misery communicated itself to my fellow classmates and, perhaps to give me what privacy they could or perhaps because watching my beginner efforts was just a little painful to the more experienced, they did their best not to watch. Granted, the idea that they avoided eye contact is perhaps just stress-induced paranoia, but it is probably something that I would be guilty of if our roles had been reversed. Frankly, I needed empathy and assistance as much as I needed privacy and pity.
In spite of not having enough basic instruction, having the wrong kind of clothing and footwear, plus awkward social dynamics, I made it through those 90 minutes—those painfully miserable 90 minutes. I’m not exaggerating when I call it traumatic: I cried. Not until afterward, not until I was alone, but once I could, I sobbed. And I loathe crying.
Ok, now it’s time to put a positive spin on this experience—the positive spin it truly deserves. After that first class it would have been fairly easy never to go back—but I hate being a quitter. I’m glad I didn’t. That first lesson was five weeks ago—and I like my ballet class now.
So what changed? Stacey was the first saving grace. Stacey was one of the beginners in the class—not a complete beginner like me, but the single ballet class she’d had in college was years and at least two children ago. She sensed my frustration and positioned herself next to me as we waited our turn for corner work—and willingly expressed that she was struggling and frustrated herself. Just knowing I wasn’t the only one helped a lot. There is also safety in numbers: after class the two of us went together to the teacher about our need for even more basic lessons.
Another huge help was the presence of one of those experienced, beautiful people. Britnie, a ballerina in the civic ballet company affiliated with the school, was attending the beginner class just for an additional workout. After that first lesson she took us beginners under her wing, offered clarifications and demos while we practiced sequences, and positioned herself strategically so we could follow her through the corner work. The extra coaching was incredibly helpful. (It also meant that the whole class didn’t have to pause every time I needed a little extra help.)
A lingering dissatisfaction I have with my ballet efforts is the stifling and inhibiting sense of caution that I'm struggling with. I quite frequently tried merely to do the steps approximately correctly to stay in synch with the rest of my classmates rather than getting the fundamental techniques correct and really going for it. I’d like to learn to throw my heart over those imaginary hurdles so my feet follow with the instinctive boldness that only true commitment brings—to go all out.
I’d like to keep ballet as a cross-training activity I think; all-in-all I’m quite pleased with this beginning to ballet balance. Oh, and in case anyone is interested in seeing a ballet-style tightwire performance, of course I have one in my collection of YouTube favorites: here.
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