This was the last class of my 10-class punch card. The 10-class punch card that somehow, magically, actually gave me 12 classes. I love it when other people's record-keeping is as creative as mine. Sometimes, I benefit. In this case, I did. When I first started, the idea of doing 10 of these classes (say nothing of 12!) felt like a fantasy. Now, it's routine. I've done one class a week for 12 weeks, and I couldn't imagine a week without ballet (or Bill-et, if that's in the cards). Of course, completing this cycle makes me feel like I should pause and reflect. Here's a list of things I learned over the past 12 weeks:
1. Bodies bend. This is true in many ways. Minds bend. Genders bend. Limbs bend (though, hopefully in the medically-advisable direction). Ballet instructed me to get even more comfortable with this. It begged the question: "What are you bending toward?" I'm at a place, now, where I'm enjoying sitting with that question. I can't answer it yet.
2. Move impulsively. One of the things I struggled to understand before ballet is how music could inspire spontaneous movement. I know plenty of people who, as if by rote, activate a dance response when certain songs come on. I was always too afraid to do that. My fear led me to lose sight of why anyone would even want to dance automatically. Suddenly, the myth that "dancing is stupid" was more comforting than the reality that "I am afraid to dance." Now, though, I totally get it. I even count myself among the spontaneous movers! It feels good to surrender to music, especially when so much of my life is mired in fairly obsessive (though, in its own way, fun) thought.
3. Bodies befriend. If ballet opened me up, it opened me up to others. I wonder if anyone truly dances in a silo. Being "bad" (or, more kindly, "new") at dance led me to others who were in the same spot. That commonality, plus the fact that we were fighting through the obstacles laid down by our cursory knowledge, gave us enough on which to build meaningful friendships.
4. Run with your gender(s). Whatever it is or they are, run with it. Run like a __________ (_______, and ________) and don't let anyone tell you you can't. If you don't know what that run looks like, invent it. That run is a dance in and of itself, and it is enough for beauty.
5. Be terrible. It's not bad to be terrible. If you're terrible for long enough, you'll find there are things in there that you're getting less terrible at. Celebrate those things. Do you have the entire stretch routine memorized? Cool! Because you didn't before. Gender-wise, did your outfit give you dysphoria today? That's painful, but it doesn't mean you failed at being you. It just means you found something out, and you can use that tomorrow (or today on your massive Buffalo Exchange binge - see you there!).
6. There are a million ways to dance. Find yours.
Next week, I'll return to ballet. I'll buy another 10 class punch card. I don't know that I'll continue blogging about each lesson, but I might update this sporadically with related musings that are taking up my brainspace. Perhaps that's the best sign of a successful experiment: the desire to make the experimental action just another facet of my being. Ballet, welcome to my world. Try not to trip on all the Star Trek.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Lesson #11
Why do we keep returning for more pain? Like, what drives us to do this? It feels like something out of a Nathan W. Pyle androgynous alien comic: "That caused me to hurt severely." "Will you return?" "Of course. Tomorrow." To know this feeling is to truly know Bill and his unique brand of dance, Bill-et. In all honesty, though, I was feeling off all day yesterday. I don't know why. Just one of those days. In the morning, my bus had the heat blasting right on top of my seat, which made me feel gross all day. When I walked into ballet, I pretty much had "This is going to suck" written on my face. But me and my Transformers T-shirt made it through. Thanks, Bumblebee.
It did suck, though. I mean, I sucked. You pretty much have to if you're doing Bill-et. It's rule number two. Rule number one is never talk about Bill-et, but I figured that, since I'm failing Rule Two, why not break #1 while I'm at it. My friend Mary was there. It was her first Bill-et, but she had heard talk of what was to come. She has much more ability than I do, having done ballet in spurts throughout her life. The return, now, she says, feels like coming home. I love that.
I'm not going to focus too much on the actual dancing, here. It was basically the same as Bill's last class. I'd like, instead, to focus on something new that I thought about while dancing. This time, I noticed I often led and/or landed on the wrong leg. I always received clear direction to "start left" or "close right," but for some reason I always ended up doing the opposite. This has been a life-long struggle for me, telling my left from my right. You'd think it'd be easy. There are only two options. But I usually tend to think, say, and go with the wrong one. I've read dyslexics have this problem. I don't know if that's why I have it, too, but it did get me thinking about neurodiversity in dance.
People learn differently. I know this from my line of work. There are myriad reasons for this. All learning types are valid. How, then, does dance look through the bodies of such learning-diverse individuals? How must it fundamentally change for the dyslexic brain? The ADD or ADHD brain? The Autistic brain? How is dance taught to people of these and other similarly-situated demographics? I don't have the experience to even speculate, but I know there are dance teachers exploring these questions, especially in young children.
That being said, I would love to see more ballet explicitly performed through bodies run by diverse neurologies. In fact, I'd love to see that in stories told through various media. Instead of penalizing those who interpret their instructions differently, let's elevate them. I'm not saying let me off the hook for leading with my left instead of my right. (I actually, personally, want to get better, through practice, at "correcting," especially as a beginner.) I'm saying lets pedagogically instill in dancers and other performers alike that dancing is de facto interpretive. Though choreography is followed, that choreography will look different beamed through different bodies and different minds. It has to. We aren't clones. We aren't robots. So let's mine our individuality for all of the artistic diversity it can contribute.
It did suck, though. I mean, I sucked. You pretty much have to if you're doing Bill-et. It's rule number two. Rule number one is never talk about Bill-et, but I figured that, since I'm failing Rule Two, why not break #1 while I'm at it. My friend Mary was there. It was her first Bill-et, but she had heard talk of what was to come. She has much more ability than I do, having done ballet in spurts throughout her life. The return, now, she says, feels like coming home. I love that.
I'm not going to focus too much on the actual dancing, here. It was basically the same as Bill's last class. I'd like, instead, to focus on something new that I thought about while dancing. This time, I noticed I often led and/or landed on the wrong leg. I always received clear direction to "start left" or "close right," but for some reason I always ended up doing the opposite. This has been a life-long struggle for me, telling my left from my right. You'd think it'd be easy. There are only two options. But I usually tend to think, say, and go with the wrong one. I've read dyslexics have this problem. I don't know if that's why I have it, too, but it did get me thinking about neurodiversity in dance.
People learn differently. I know this from my line of work. There are myriad reasons for this. All learning types are valid. How, then, does dance look through the bodies of such learning-diverse individuals? How must it fundamentally change for the dyslexic brain? The ADD or ADHD brain? The Autistic brain? How is dance taught to people of these and other similarly-situated demographics? I don't have the experience to even speculate, but I know there are dance teachers exploring these questions, especially in young children.
That being said, I would love to see more ballet explicitly performed through bodies run by diverse neurologies. In fact, I'd love to see that in stories told through various media. Instead of penalizing those who interpret their instructions differently, let's elevate them. I'm not saying let me off the hook for leading with my left instead of my right. (I actually, personally, want to get better, through practice, at "correcting," especially as a beginner.) I'm saying lets pedagogically instill in dancers and other performers alike that dancing is de facto interpretive. Though choreography is followed, that choreography will look different beamed through different bodies and different minds. It has to. We aren't clones. We aren't robots. So let's mine our individuality for all of the artistic diversity it can contribute.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Lesson #10.5
Last Friday, I saw something remarkable. Something life-changing. My ballet teachers are all in the dance company at the school I go to. They performed in a show, with the rest of the company, that included three short pieces, "Scramble" (Cunningham), "The Elements of Style" (Nash), and "The Seasons" (Alston, with music by John Cage). Since I can't get these pieces out of my head, I figured I should write about them. I'd call this a review, but there's really nothing that qualifies me to "review" any ballet. But that doesn't stop The New York Times, so let's call it a review!
I had underestimated the importance of watching ballet regularly when I started taking classes. It should have been obvious. The reading and theatregoing I do is so essential to the plays I write. Being an observer is essential to being a doer.
"Scramble," the first piece up, was choreographed by Merce Cunningham, a man whose work is currently in the midst of a global retrospective. Can you imagine being so good at something that the entire world, collectively and simultaneously, decides, yeah, let's do this? From "Scramble," I can see why. The movements begin simple, contemplative, almost intentionally unstable. As the dance advances, it evolves in complexity, but still retains enough ambiguity to tease out audience engagement. For me, I liked how the quieter moments of the piece invited me to project my own internal thoughts, feelings, and struggles onto the stage. Art is, after all, the swirling of two projections: what you're projecting onto it, and what it's projecting onto you. This intermingling meant that, though my interpretation of "plot" was surely different than the person next to me, it was just as valid because it was built on a solid foundation of both textual reference and reasonable personal inference. I cannot help but wonder if, for at least some of dance, the spectrum of such interpretation isn't greater than it is for the written word, where it's easy for me to feel confined to the page, unless I'm reading Gertrude Stein, of whom I am a huge fan. In fact, now that I think about it, Stein's liberation of words from the page feels almost "ballet-ic" in nature. Words, for Stein, tend to dance, but intentionally so. "Scramble" strikes me similarly.
The evening also featured two musical interludes by people who seem to just be able to pick up the nearest instrument (in this case a cello and a piano) and just go to town. I found that when I closed my eyes, their music instantly started to draw a landscape. I see people close their eyes when they listen to music. I've tried doing this in the past, but it's rare I truly start to see anything vivid. For some, I assume this comes more naturally. Maybe it speaks to my mental state when I sat down for this performance, but I truly enjoyed the effect.
But the real crux of the evening, for me, was "The Elements of Style." This is what was life-changing. Here, Matthew Nash took an otherwise dry, grammatical guidebook and electrified it through interpretation and extrapolation. Rules that are otherwise instructional became playful. And why shouldn't that occur? The English rules for possession become exciting when we open up the word "possession" to all of its other meanings. As per the dance, an announcer reads the rule for the apostrophe "S," and then we hear his example: "Charles' friend." Two dancers, during this, enact, briefly, the plot of Charles having a rendezvous with a lover, who, facetiously, yes, is his "friend." By overlaying this meaning of "friend" and "possession" atop the traditional grammatical and syntactical definitions of both, as per Strunk & White, we're invited to bust the text wide open and consider it as a guidebook not simply for grammar, but for life. This makes me consider what other books are hiding. What purely functional works could make for amazing and meaningful ballet? Let's make dances based on Ikea instructions. Better yet, let's take Judith Butler's incredibly deep but often dense writing and juxtapose it with gender in action via ballet. Nash's "The Elements of Style" practically begs us to do this, to play with the traditional. And, if anyone instructs me to play, well, I'm more than happy to abide.
Alston's "The Seasons" asks us to do something similar, except instead of using a written text, he uses the natural "text" of seasonal progressions. This dance was cast in such a way that it seemed to be saying something meaningful about male interaction. The male or masculine dancers all had moments of interaction that situated the female or feminine touch within the context of male/masc movement. I felt like I was watching a grander version of what I experienced in class with "running feminine" (see Lesson 10 for more on that). Here, two or three male/masc dancers were involved in combining traditionally gendered movement in unexpected ways. To be clear, though: I'm speaking about this via how it felt. I don't know enough about dance to actually say if the movements they were performing are truly traditionally gendered feminine, like the running in Lesson 10.
All told, the evening was cathartic. I had always known, through working with amazing choreographers on plays of mine, that dance had this power. Now, I'm able to unlock some of it on the technical side. That only deepens its importance. It's like Richard Feynman and the flower. Feynman said that an understanding of the science of a flower only helps one appreciate its art. The same, evidently, goes for dance.
I had underestimated the importance of watching ballet regularly when I started taking classes. It should have been obvious. The reading and theatregoing I do is so essential to the plays I write. Being an observer is essential to being a doer.
"Scramble," the first piece up, was choreographed by Merce Cunningham, a man whose work is currently in the midst of a global retrospective. Can you imagine being so good at something that the entire world, collectively and simultaneously, decides, yeah, let's do this? From "Scramble," I can see why. The movements begin simple, contemplative, almost intentionally unstable. As the dance advances, it evolves in complexity, but still retains enough ambiguity to tease out audience engagement. For me, I liked how the quieter moments of the piece invited me to project my own internal thoughts, feelings, and struggles onto the stage. Art is, after all, the swirling of two projections: what you're projecting onto it, and what it's projecting onto you. This intermingling meant that, though my interpretation of "plot" was surely different than the person next to me, it was just as valid because it was built on a solid foundation of both textual reference and reasonable personal inference. I cannot help but wonder if, for at least some of dance, the spectrum of such interpretation isn't greater than it is for the written word, where it's easy for me to feel confined to the page, unless I'm reading Gertrude Stein, of whom I am a huge fan. In fact, now that I think about it, Stein's liberation of words from the page feels almost "ballet-ic" in nature. Words, for Stein, tend to dance, but intentionally so. "Scramble" strikes me similarly.
The evening also featured two musical interludes by people who seem to just be able to pick up the nearest instrument (in this case a cello and a piano) and just go to town. I found that when I closed my eyes, their music instantly started to draw a landscape. I see people close their eyes when they listen to music. I've tried doing this in the past, but it's rare I truly start to see anything vivid. For some, I assume this comes more naturally. Maybe it speaks to my mental state when I sat down for this performance, but I truly enjoyed the effect.
But the real crux of the evening, for me, was "The Elements of Style." This is what was life-changing. Here, Matthew Nash took an otherwise dry, grammatical guidebook and electrified it through interpretation and extrapolation. Rules that are otherwise instructional became playful. And why shouldn't that occur? The English rules for possession become exciting when we open up the word "possession" to all of its other meanings. As per the dance, an announcer reads the rule for the apostrophe "S," and then we hear his example: "Charles' friend." Two dancers, during this, enact, briefly, the plot of Charles having a rendezvous with a lover, who, facetiously, yes, is his "friend." By overlaying this meaning of "friend" and "possession" atop the traditional grammatical and syntactical definitions of both, as per Strunk & White, we're invited to bust the text wide open and consider it as a guidebook not simply for grammar, but for life. This makes me consider what other books are hiding. What purely functional works could make for amazing and meaningful ballet? Let's make dances based on Ikea instructions. Better yet, let's take Judith Butler's incredibly deep but often dense writing and juxtapose it with gender in action via ballet. Nash's "The Elements of Style" practically begs us to do this, to play with the traditional. And, if anyone instructs me to play, well, I'm more than happy to abide.
Alston's "The Seasons" asks us to do something similar, except instead of using a written text, he uses the natural "text" of seasonal progressions. This dance was cast in such a way that it seemed to be saying something meaningful about male interaction. The male or masculine dancers all had moments of interaction that situated the female or feminine touch within the context of male/masc movement. I felt like I was watching a grander version of what I experienced in class with "running feminine" (see Lesson 10 for more on that). Here, two or three male/masc dancers were involved in combining traditionally gendered movement in unexpected ways. To be clear, though: I'm speaking about this via how it felt. I don't know enough about dance to actually say if the movements they were performing are truly traditionally gendered feminine, like the running in Lesson 10.
All told, the evening was cathartic. I had always known, through working with amazing choreographers on plays of mine, that dance had this power. Now, I'm able to unlock some of it on the technical side. That only deepens its importance. It's like Richard Feynman and the flower. Feynman said that an understanding of the science of a flower only helps one appreciate its art. The same, evidently, goes for dance.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Lesson #10
Okay. Okay, y'all. I can finally feel my legs again. That. That was hard. Whenever you get a substitute ballet teacher who starts off with, "Yeah, the stretches, I don't really do them, so if one of you could lead that part, that'd be great," you are in for pain. Don't get me wrong, this teacher was incredibly supportive, genuinely kind, and warmly attentive. I am so happy I got to work with this person, whose name is Bill, which I identify only so I can say that I did Bill-et instead of ballet. Ballet is something I'm kind of getting the hang of. Bill-et is something...different. Bill-et is swooping motions and hand-eye stuff and lots and lots of plieing. Bill-et is not for the weak. Not for the faint of heart. This is why they had us fill out that emergency contact form. It was because of Bill. I know that now. Bill is an amazing dancer. Bill is a seasoned professional. Bill is a joy to learn from and to watch. But Bill was also in Amadeus. So Bill knows more than you.
Thankfully, my old newbie friend Tom was there with me during this class, so we could at least find some company for our terrifying, 'Nam-esque misery. The work was hard, but Bill taught me that, if you've got someone encouraging you along the way, the work can be hard. You'll get through it. Sometimes, I see students of mine shrink in the shadow of hard work. They take it, sometimes, as a sign that it wasn't meant for them. That God doesn't want this for them. I don't know, but I don't think God works that way. I think God actually has no real sense of what human "hard work" is. All this sh*t we do down here has to be easy to God, right? I think what God probably really cares about is whether or not people can use difficulty as a point to come together, to empathize. I truly don't think God cares what the task is. I think God cares about reactions to tasks great or small. Obviously, I'm using "God," here, but I don't mean that to exclude my Atheist and/or Agnostic friends. I mean to suggest that, if there is anything at all greater than us controlling our paths even slightly, I just can't accept that that Anything would say to us, "Yeah...trigonometry is hard. I mean, you clearly had a passion for it, but the fact that you suck was just my way of saying, 'Hey, maybe don't aim so high.'" The Anything is at least partly responsible for trigonometry, so the idea of it being "hard" would surely be abstract to its (even partial) creator. But, since we have free will, our interactions could potentially surprise the Anything in ways trigonometry can't. When I'm falling all over myself, and a gruff, seasoned Bill-et instructor comes over and reaches out with empathy, I think that surprises the Anything, especially since we've demonstrated so many negative responses in our brief time here.
But the kicker was: I actually wasn't all bad! Bill explained that the hardest thing for ballet dancers to do in his auditions is walk and run. I liked this because it showed me that we can get so tied up in the complexity of it all that we forget the simplest tasks. We practiced running. There's a flourish you do with it, but, other than that, as Bill said, "Running is running. No need to reinvent it." Other dancers did try. They scampered across the floor in little baby steps. I don't mean to berate them. I actually thought it looked quite beautiful. But when he told me to run, I took off like I was on a treadmill. I figured, hey, I run a lot, so, yeah, I got this. And I did! Bill complemented my natural run! Now, I know that's a minor and perhaps manufactured victory, but I'm counting it as a win nonetheless.
It also provided space for my favorite thing about Bill's class. As we ran, Bill taught us that, traditionally, men keep their arm flourishes low. Women raise their arm flourishes high. High and low notes. Sopranos and baritones, metaphorically. As someone who gets very excited by subtle moments to prod my gender, I was instantly struck by this. When I ran, I flourished as high as I could. Knowing that this was the more "feminine" run provided, in my mind, a nice juxtaposition against my masculine presentation. There is no equation for non-binary-ness. It isn't a matter of adding just enough femininity and just enough masculinity. It's about something that goes beyond all that altogether. But, in that moment, it was nice to let masculinity and femininity swirl, and, in so doing, awaken something more, other nodes on the network of gender, feelings of freedom and selfhood.
I have many friends who have made physical changes to their bodies so that they better represent who they are. They are strong, they are beautiful, they are powerful. I have never had the impulse to do this through medicine or surgery, though. For me, my pleasure in being non-binary stems from what I'll call the "secrets." They're the internal knowledge that I'm doing something to feel more...me. I started my gender exploration as a cosplayer, where non-binary identities can remain a little more secret because gender-bending costumes can be viewed as just that, costumes that may in fact say nothing about someone's actual gender identity. For me, though, my gender-bending was my way of saying more about my non-binary interior. When I moved that exploration outside of cosplay, I started looking for all the other ways we costume, and all the ways, in there, that I could push and prod and question. I'm not sure if that will unfold into bigger manifestations, but right now I'm just fascinated by the details of gender that one might overlook.
So when I ran "feminine" in Bill-et, I found yet another one of those potentially liberating nooks of gender, and I was more than happy to cozy up to it, if even only for a moment.
Thankfully, my old newbie friend Tom was there with me during this class, so we could at least find some company for our terrifying, 'Nam-esque misery. The work was hard, but Bill taught me that, if you've got someone encouraging you along the way, the work can be hard. You'll get through it. Sometimes, I see students of mine shrink in the shadow of hard work. They take it, sometimes, as a sign that it wasn't meant for them. That God doesn't want this for them. I don't know, but I don't think God works that way. I think God actually has no real sense of what human "hard work" is. All this sh*t we do down here has to be easy to God, right? I think what God probably really cares about is whether or not people can use difficulty as a point to come together, to empathize. I truly don't think God cares what the task is. I think God cares about reactions to tasks great or small. Obviously, I'm using "God," here, but I don't mean that to exclude my Atheist and/or Agnostic friends. I mean to suggest that, if there is anything at all greater than us controlling our paths even slightly, I just can't accept that that Anything would say to us, "Yeah...trigonometry is hard. I mean, you clearly had a passion for it, but the fact that you suck was just my way of saying, 'Hey, maybe don't aim so high.'" The Anything is at least partly responsible for trigonometry, so the idea of it being "hard" would surely be abstract to its (even partial) creator. But, since we have free will, our interactions could potentially surprise the Anything in ways trigonometry can't. When I'm falling all over myself, and a gruff, seasoned Bill-et instructor comes over and reaches out with empathy, I think that surprises the Anything, especially since we've demonstrated so many negative responses in our brief time here.
But the kicker was: I actually wasn't all bad! Bill explained that the hardest thing for ballet dancers to do in his auditions is walk and run. I liked this because it showed me that we can get so tied up in the complexity of it all that we forget the simplest tasks. We practiced running. There's a flourish you do with it, but, other than that, as Bill said, "Running is running. No need to reinvent it." Other dancers did try. They scampered across the floor in little baby steps. I don't mean to berate them. I actually thought it looked quite beautiful. But when he told me to run, I took off like I was on a treadmill. I figured, hey, I run a lot, so, yeah, I got this. And I did! Bill complemented my natural run! Now, I know that's a minor and perhaps manufactured victory, but I'm counting it as a win nonetheless.
It also provided space for my favorite thing about Bill's class. As we ran, Bill taught us that, traditionally, men keep their arm flourishes low. Women raise their arm flourishes high. High and low notes. Sopranos and baritones, metaphorically. As someone who gets very excited by subtle moments to prod my gender, I was instantly struck by this. When I ran, I flourished as high as I could. Knowing that this was the more "feminine" run provided, in my mind, a nice juxtaposition against my masculine presentation. There is no equation for non-binary-ness. It isn't a matter of adding just enough femininity and just enough masculinity. It's about something that goes beyond all that altogether. But, in that moment, it was nice to let masculinity and femininity swirl, and, in so doing, awaken something more, other nodes on the network of gender, feelings of freedom and selfhood.
I have many friends who have made physical changes to their bodies so that they better represent who they are. They are strong, they are beautiful, they are powerful. I have never had the impulse to do this through medicine or surgery, though. For me, my pleasure in being non-binary stems from what I'll call the "secrets." They're the internal knowledge that I'm doing something to feel more...me. I started my gender exploration as a cosplayer, where non-binary identities can remain a little more secret because gender-bending costumes can be viewed as just that, costumes that may in fact say nothing about someone's actual gender identity. For me, though, my gender-bending was my way of saying more about my non-binary interior. When I moved that exploration outside of cosplay, I started looking for all the other ways we costume, and all the ways, in there, that I could push and prod and question. I'm not sure if that will unfold into bigger manifestations, but right now I'm just fascinated by the details of gender that one might overlook.
So when I ran "feminine" in Bill-et, I found yet another one of those potentially liberating nooks of gender, and I was more than happy to cozy up to it, if even only for a moment.
Friday, March 8, 2019
Lesson #9
It was my birthday on Monday! The unintended consequence of that was that I felt like a complete blob for most of the week. That was good, at first, but then the blobbiness sort of overtook me. I knew I should move my body beyond the Bermuda Triangle that is my bed -->couch --> kitchen, but it was cold. And I was comfortable. And G.I. Joe cartoons were streaming. Eventually, though, on a day I unexpectedly had off, I left for ballet.
That was Thursday. I was back with my usual teacher, and my usual friends. This time, that felt less like a treat and more like a routine, though I certainly welcomed it. It's good to find some sort of reward whenever you have to force yourself to do anything. For me, that was getting in a few laughs with friends, and enjoying the teaching style of an instructor I really have come to like. She's precise in her lessons and genuine in her encouragement to all of us. She models some of the qualities I hope I bring into my own classroom.
This time, there was a new-newbie. This person had never done ballet before in his life, as he told us. I remembered being in his shoes (well, socks), when even the opening stretch routine felt alien to me. Now, even though I'm only nine lessons in, that part of class is almost entirely muscle memory. That's good because it lets me focus on the stretch itself and the way it makes my body feel rather than which movement goes where. This is where I'd offer empathy for the new-newbie, where I'd say something like, "He'll get there," but...I'll get to that.
When we did work at the barre, I noticed my feet align more easily now into fifth position. That was really hard on day one, and it's still difficult, but I can feel, little by little, my ability to twist more. That gradual improvement is a nice reminder that, for many things in life, regular practice - if not daily practice - will bring results. As a person thinking about their own gender, this is helpful because it means that the simple act of thinking *is* work. That, with every thought I have, and with every question I try to answer, my mental feet are aligning more and more with where I hope them to be, eventually. Even if I don't feel like it, the fact that I'm there counts. No one tells you how to be who you are. You just have to experiment, set up some sort of fluid goal, and try to get there.
It wasn't long before my blobbiness came out in class, though. I wore a Wimpy T-shirt (you know, the cartoon guy obsessed with hamburgers) that said "Slacker" on it because I was not trying to be subtle about my feelings. After we put the barres away, I really had to concentrate in order to at least attempt all the steps in a given routine. My focus was often broken not just by my blobbiness, but by...
The new-newbie. [Okay, if you're sensitive to harsh language, or maybe you're reading with kids, now is the point you may want to stop reading. I'll let you know when it's safe again. Hopefully you can just skim to the next set of brackets. Okay, still here? Great.] F*ck the new-newbie and his f*cking innate ability to seemingly do everything f*cking perfect and ask these questions that are, like, f*cking deep, but also relatable, and just so exactly *get* to the f*cking brass tacks of what we're all trying to accomplish here BUT ALSO BE F*CKING FUNNY, like waaaaay funnier than me, which f*cking kills me because, like, you can take my ballet ability, that's easy, but all I have are my sh*tty jokes and if you do THOSE better than me, gawd I just askjfhs;lkuhkdhjaksjdhgakfjdhg!!! AND HIS HAIR. Let's talk about f*cking that for a sec because it was f*cking lustrous. Like out of a Disney movie - any gender in a Disney movie as long as they're young and the protagonist. I didn't really get to see his eyes, because he's also f*cking taller than me, but I'll bet they are just so d*mn soulful, too, like they contain the answers to the f*cking universe and sh*t and tucked away, in there, is all these beautiful ballet questions that I'll bet he has on HIS blog which is probably some Paul-Krugman-of-Ballet-level sh*t and I should probably just link to it if I ever find it because I'm sure it's waaaaay more awesome than this sh*t right here. Okay. Rant over. [Bring the kids back into the room. I'm ready to empathy again.]
There's a lesson, here. The lesson is that everyone learns differently, and everyone comes to different environments bringing different stuff. Sometimes, people bring exactly what they need to survive. Sometimes, you have to fashion those essentials out of whatever's around. I have always been in the latter category. The new-newbie seems to be a quick study, but I wonder if, to him, he doesn't feel like he's fighting an uphill battle. Maybe, even though we all learn differently and at different speeds, we are often more united than we think in our self-images. I wish communication and collaboration were taught in schools, from an early age. We know we're supposed to "work together," but we don't get much in the way of what that means. What do we express to one another? What frustrations can we express academically? How do we uplift others who express those frustrations? There are no standardized answers to these questions, but we can at least address those issues in classes.
In my class, my students have bonded in a very positive way. This leads some to, from time to time, be armchair therapists to others who are struggling. I like seeing this in action because (a) I know those students would never mistake themselves for *actual* therapists and (b) students helping each other can form bonds that will last the rest of their college days. In some ways, we're forming those bonds in ballet. In other ways, I'm forming those bonds gender-wise.
Anyone who is either not cis or performs their cisness in a way that others may not expect can feel adrift in the sea of gender rigidity and discrimination that exists so unfortunately (and so strongly) today. Being uplifted by others facing the same challenges (or different challenges, but with keen awareness of your challenges) propagates empowerment and agency for all involved. It can be a beautiful thing.
So, new-newbie, even though, to me, you seem to have absolutely zero problems, I reach out to you, on this blog you will most likely never read, and offer myself as a source of positive reinforcement and understanding. Goodness knows I've taken enough such empowerment from those I've been lucky enough to meet. If I can put more out into the world, I'd be delighted.
Aaaaaand if that doesn't work, then I'll always have Walgreens. I stopped in on my way home and found that this particular Walgreens had an action figure in stock that I had been looking for. This action figure is exclusive to that chain. It's of Mystique, the X-Men mutant who can shape-shift. It's really cool! And it was on sale. So now I have that, a totem that will accompany me as the blobbiness overtakes me once again.
That was Thursday. I was back with my usual teacher, and my usual friends. This time, that felt less like a treat and more like a routine, though I certainly welcomed it. It's good to find some sort of reward whenever you have to force yourself to do anything. For me, that was getting in a few laughs with friends, and enjoying the teaching style of an instructor I really have come to like. She's precise in her lessons and genuine in her encouragement to all of us. She models some of the qualities I hope I bring into my own classroom.
This time, there was a new-newbie. This person had never done ballet before in his life, as he told us. I remembered being in his shoes (well, socks), when even the opening stretch routine felt alien to me. Now, even though I'm only nine lessons in, that part of class is almost entirely muscle memory. That's good because it lets me focus on the stretch itself and the way it makes my body feel rather than which movement goes where. This is where I'd offer empathy for the new-newbie, where I'd say something like, "He'll get there," but...I'll get to that.
When we did work at the barre, I noticed my feet align more easily now into fifth position. That was really hard on day one, and it's still difficult, but I can feel, little by little, my ability to twist more. That gradual improvement is a nice reminder that, for many things in life, regular practice - if not daily practice - will bring results. As a person thinking about their own gender, this is helpful because it means that the simple act of thinking *is* work. That, with every thought I have, and with every question I try to answer, my mental feet are aligning more and more with where I hope them to be, eventually. Even if I don't feel like it, the fact that I'm there counts. No one tells you how to be who you are. You just have to experiment, set up some sort of fluid goal, and try to get there.
It wasn't long before my blobbiness came out in class, though. I wore a Wimpy T-shirt (you know, the cartoon guy obsessed with hamburgers) that said "Slacker" on it because I was not trying to be subtle about my feelings. After we put the barres away, I really had to concentrate in order to at least attempt all the steps in a given routine. My focus was often broken not just by my blobbiness, but by...
The new-newbie. [Okay, if you're sensitive to harsh language, or maybe you're reading with kids, now is the point you may want to stop reading. I'll let you know when it's safe again. Hopefully you can just skim to the next set of brackets. Okay, still here? Great.] F*ck the new-newbie and his f*cking innate ability to seemingly do everything f*cking perfect and ask these questions that are, like, f*cking deep, but also relatable, and just so exactly *get* to the f*cking brass tacks of what we're all trying to accomplish here BUT ALSO BE F*CKING FUNNY, like waaaaay funnier than me, which f*cking kills me because, like, you can take my ballet ability, that's easy, but all I have are my sh*tty jokes and if you do THOSE better than me, gawd I just askjfhs;lkuhkdhjaksjdhgakfjdhg!!! AND HIS HAIR. Let's talk about f*cking that for a sec because it was f*cking lustrous. Like out of a Disney movie - any gender in a Disney movie as long as they're young and the protagonist. I didn't really get to see his eyes, because he's also f*cking taller than me, but I'll bet they are just so d*mn soulful, too, like they contain the answers to the f*cking universe and sh*t and tucked away, in there, is all these beautiful ballet questions that I'll bet he has on HIS blog which is probably some Paul-Krugman-of-Ballet-level sh*t and I should probably just link to it if I ever find it because I'm sure it's waaaaay more awesome than this sh*t right here. Okay. Rant over. [Bring the kids back into the room. I'm ready to empathy again.]
There's a lesson, here. The lesson is that everyone learns differently, and everyone comes to different environments bringing different stuff. Sometimes, people bring exactly what they need to survive. Sometimes, you have to fashion those essentials out of whatever's around. I have always been in the latter category. The new-newbie seems to be a quick study, but I wonder if, to him, he doesn't feel like he's fighting an uphill battle. Maybe, even though we all learn differently and at different speeds, we are often more united than we think in our self-images. I wish communication and collaboration were taught in schools, from an early age. We know we're supposed to "work together," but we don't get much in the way of what that means. What do we express to one another? What frustrations can we express academically? How do we uplift others who express those frustrations? There are no standardized answers to these questions, but we can at least address those issues in classes.
In my class, my students have bonded in a very positive way. This leads some to, from time to time, be armchair therapists to others who are struggling. I like seeing this in action because (a) I know those students would never mistake themselves for *actual* therapists and (b) students helping each other can form bonds that will last the rest of their college days. In some ways, we're forming those bonds in ballet. In other ways, I'm forming those bonds gender-wise.
Anyone who is either not cis or performs their cisness in a way that others may not expect can feel adrift in the sea of gender rigidity and discrimination that exists so unfortunately (and so strongly) today. Being uplifted by others facing the same challenges (or different challenges, but with keen awareness of your challenges) propagates empowerment and agency for all involved. It can be a beautiful thing.
So, new-newbie, even though, to me, you seem to have absolutely zero problems, I reach out to you, on this blog you will most likely never read, and offer myself as a source of positive reinforcement and understanding. Goodness knows I've taken enough such empowerment from those I've been lucky enough to meet. If I can put more out into the world, I'd be delighted.
Aaaaaand if that doesn't work, then I'll always have Walgreens. I stopped in on my way home and found that this particular Walgreens had an action figure in stock that I had been looking for. This action figure is exclusive to that chain. It's of Mystique, the X-Men mutant who can shape-shift. It's really cool! And it was on sale. So now I have that, a totem that will accompany me as the blobbiness overtakes me once again.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Lesson #8
I've often wondered why students tend to pick the easiest option. Like, if I offer a set of choices or offer work that is optional (generally, this is to further reading on an already assigned topic), the majority of students I have will opt for the choice of least resistance, especially at the start of the semester, and especially-especially if the extra thing doesn't bear any extra credit, only extra enrichment. Some teachers call this laziness, but I don't. I don't like the word "lazy" in the classroom. I was called "lazy" by my teachers in elementary school, and it couldn't have been more damaging. It made me hate school. And besides, I didn't think I was lazy. Truth is: "Lazy" is a lazy word. It's a quick way of shoving a complex situation under the rug. Students have responsibilities. In college, this comes in the form of work, taking care of family, caring for friends in crisis, and seeing to their own self-care. In elementary school, there are fewer responsibilities (though chores are certainly a thing), but many students can feel overwhelmed at that (or any) age.
My last ballet class got me thinking about why some have the tendency to set the video game level to "Easy" from time to time. I attended on Tuesday, so I was back with the teacher I originally had. I hadn't seen her in weeks, due to me taking Thursday classes. Her teaching felt a bit alien to me. Honestly, she wasn't doing anything terribly different from the Thursday teacher, but little tweaks in language and types of movement threw me off. I really felt good during the barre work. There, the teaching was similar to what I was used to, so I could focus on myself in the mirror.
This is generally hard for me to do, look at myself in the mirror. I'm prone to body shaming myself, and the more I see my reflection, the more I...don't like it. But Tuesday was an exercise in moving past that, and I think it kinda sorta worked. I won't say it wasn't uncomfortable, but there were times when focusing on something I liked about myself - the way my fingers fell, how my arm looked when it was outstretched, my Pikachu T-shirt (#nerdshirtsforlyfe), little things - I felt better. I felt like maybe I shouldn't try to avoid myself as much. As a result, the dancing felt smoother, more confident. It's as if...everything was connected. That's probably not shocking to read, but it's something I don't tell myself often enough.
Later, I moved through the across-the-floor routines pretty stumble-y. The teacher would demonstrate the series of moves we were supposed to do, and what their count was. This really stumped me. I'm having trouble counting music, and so when I dance, I try to count the music and get the steps right, and, as a result, I usually end up going at a snail's pace and doing neither the counting nor the dancing very well. Based on my experience with the barre work, though, I think this can improve if I just focus on counting music more outside of class. That way, counting can start to feel natural, and, when I need to count off steps in class, that'll just throw one less-natural thing into the mix (the ballet-ing). Plus, counting music can be done virtually anywhere. If I started practicing the sweeping dances on my bus ride to work, I'd probably get more stink-eye than that one time I cracked open a tupperware of hot fish (sorry! I hadn't eaten that day and it was the only vaguely healthy thing the store had!).
It's these across-the-floor dances (in which a series of ballet steps is designed to take me from one end of the studio to the other) that also gave me a moment to think about why students choose "Easy" sometimes. In these sequences, both the Thursday teacher and the Tuesday teacher give add-on steps that more advanced dancers can do if they like. In this case, the added step was a turn that I knew I could do. I had done it before in the Thursday class. Sure, it wasn't easy, but I knew I could do it. Yet, when it came time to opt-in and prove myself, I...didn't. I shied away and stuck with the easy steps, the steps that were, sure, not easy for me, but also not a push. I knew I could get away with doing those steps and not risk getting called out. (Being called out in this ballet class, by the way, is never bad. It's always supportive, and the teacher is consistently careful to use one-on-one coaching as a lesson to others, and she'll do that in a respectful way. I think getting called out, though, does trigger my feelings in elementary school, when those same teachers who called me "lazy" called me out for other stuff. I'm being forced to confront that here, which I think is good, but it'll also take work.)
This gave me some insight as to why my students might sometimes not elect to do the add-on work. They're *not* lazy, that much is for sure. However, their reluctance also does *not* stem from a lack of intellectual curiosity. They *do* want to get smarter, just like I *do* want to learn ballet. They stop short sometimes, as I do, because the challenge of performing the harder step comes with the risk of getting it wrong, and then that's two failures: not only did you fail to do the actual step, you failed in mustering courage, because the courage you mustered was in vain. Logically, I know it doesn't work this way. *Any* courage mustered, regardless of the result, is meaningful so long as it's in pursuit of an honest, positive goal. But, in the moment, when you have to make that split-second decision about whether to, as Master Yoda says, "do or not do," it's hard to think logically. The impulsive courage has to be there, and, for me, in ballet, it isn't.
I can foresee that changing, though. In this class, there was one familiar face. There was also one kind and warm newbie who was taking her first class. We spoke afterward, and she expressed sadness that she didn't get a lot of the steps right. I told her I can relate to that feeling. "But you're so good!" she said. This I did not expect to hear. I am, by no measure, "good." But I appreciated hearing her say that. I reassured her that any improvement I have made has happened because I started in exactly the same position she was, and that, over time, you really do notice incremental improvements. Especially when you blog about them! I told her to stick around, and if she's falling over her feet, I am probably falling over mine, too. As the colorful, plastic Ponies say, "Friendship is Magic," and they are absolutely right.
That may be why, later in the semester, students take risks in my class more readily. They have people they know will love them either way. Early on, though, I feel like the choice to not take the added risk makes total sense. I wouldn't encourage people that way, but I do get it. They'd rather put their effort into something that has a higher chance of working out more-or-less perfectly than risk *both* failing a task (graded or not!) and failing some sort of test of courage. Maybe this is where we need our heroic stories to step in. Should Luke Skywalker be celebrated even if he took that shot and *didn't* blow up the Death Star? (Okay, that would make for a much different movie, but maybe apply that to a lower-stakes, real-life situation.) I think yes. I kinda think courage for courage sake, regardless of outcome, needs more celebration in our stories. That may be where the true virtue of *Rocky* (the first one) lives. Creed wins the match, technically, but the endurance Rocky exhibits (and his love for Adrian) means we are still happy to partake in tears. It isn't that we leave "unsatisfied;" we leave questioning what truly satisfies us. Change that in our stories, and I think we'll start changing it in our lives, too.
In my class, there is an older student. He is in his 70s. After class, we talked. He told me he wished he had his youth back. He told me that dancing must come from the heart, and if you don't have that, you don't have it. He told me about how much he loves the music that comes with our lessons, which I do, too. I see him every class, but, in this vulnerable moment, he seemed to feel as though his physical age was a barrier to success. Quite the contrary. I've seen this person at every class I've attended, including the one on the infamous -15-degree night. When he's dancing, he's clearly in love. He gestures beautifully, and, though there are some steps he physically can't do (again, in his 70s), the dances he performs are so graceful, so delightful. I would pay to see him dance! All I could think as he was talking was how much he is the most youthful student in class. He's an example to me. I hope, someday, I can achieve the level of carefree elegance that he has. It's that kind of courage I want to celebrate.
QUICK GENDER THOUGHT:
This is a thought that couldn't really flow with the rest of this post, but I wanted to write a paragraph about it, anyway, just because it was on my mind. In this class, we, like usual, have the task of moving barres out to the floor of the studio and then putting them back in their place afterward. (There are also fixed barres on the walls which don't move, obviously.) In this class, I moved the barre back by picking it up in the center. Two women flanked me, carrying the barre at the ends. One joked, "I didn't know we were gonna be able to take it easy today, having a big, strong man carry this for us." I laughed and shrugged that off, returning the joke by furthering the humor with some off-the-cuff comment I don't really remember. It was a light moment, and I'm happy to let it be such. But it did get me thinking about when mentioning my non-binary self is "appropriate," in the sense of "personally rewarding." On the one hand, I want everyone to know I'm non-binary - I'm happy to be! On the other, my masculine appearance doesn't exempt me from gender-based joking around (or male privilege, another thing I want to remain conscious of and take VERY seriously), and I kind of am not bothered by that? I need to think about this more because I'm not yet sure if I go along with being a "man" in some cases for my own comfort or for the comfort of others. I'm not in a place where it really hurts me to *not* shoot down a joke based on me being a "man" (and a big, strong one, at that! [Where was that comment when I was younger and probably could have used the confidence boost!?]). I know some non-binary people for whom that sort of implication, the implication that they are of a binary gender, would be quite triggering, though. So, at times, I feel like I want to be better at saying, "Actually, I'm non-binary, so..." not just for me, but for *them.* For the people who really are hurt by misgendering in this way. (Intentional misgendering WOULD hurt me, too, but this sort of jokey, innocent assumption-based stuff doesn't.) I want to contribute to a world where enbies of all neurologies are at home. I'm just not fully sure, yet, how to reflect that in my behavior. So I think on...
My last ballet class got me thinking about why some have the tendency to set the video game level to "Easy" from time to time. I attended on Tuesday, so I was back with the teacher I originally had. I hadn't seen her in weeks, due to me taking Thursday classes. Her teaching felt a bit alien to me. Honestly, she wasn't doing anything terribly different from the Thursday teacher, but little tweaks in language and types of movement threw me off. I really felt good during the barre work. There, the teaching was similar to what I was used to, so I could focus on myself in the mirror.
This is generally hard for me to do, look at myself in the mirror. I'm prone to body shaming myself, and the more I see my reflection, the more I...don't like it. But Tuesday was an exercise in moving past that, and I think it kinda sorta worked. I won't say it wasn't uncomfortable, but there were times when focusing on something I liked about myself - the way my fingers fell, how my arm looked when it was outstretched, my Pikachu T-shirt (#nerdshirtsforlyfe), little things - I felt better. I felt like maybe I shouldn't try to avoid myself as much. As a result, the dancing felt smoother, more confident. It's as if...everything was connected. That's probably not shocking to read, but it's something I don't tell myself often enough.
Later, I moved through the across-the-floor routines pretty stumble-y. The teacher would demonstrate the series of moves we were supposed to do, and what their count was. This really stumped me. I'm having trouble counting music, and so when I dance, I try to count the music and get the steps right, and, as a result, I usually end up going at a snail's pace and doing neither the counting nor the dancing very well. Based on my experience with the barre work, though, I think this can improve if I just focus on counting music more outside of class. That way, counting can start to feel natural, and, when I need to count off steps in class, that'll just throw one less-natural thing into the mix (the ballet-ing). Plus, counting music can be done virtually anywhere. If I started practicing the sweeping dances on my bus ride to work, I'd probably get more stink-eye than that one time I cracked open a tupperware of hot fish (sorry! I hadn't eaten that day and it was the only vaguely healthy thing the store had!).
It's these across-the-floor dances (in which a series of ballet steps is designed to take me from one end of the studio to the other) that also gave me a moment to think about why students choose "Easy" sometimes. In these sequences, both the Thursday teacher and the Tuesday teacher give add-on steps that more advanced dancers can do if they like. In this case, the added step was a turn that I knew I could do. I had done it before in the Thursday class. Sure, it wasn't easy, but I knew I could do it. Yet, when it came time to opt-in and prove myself, I...didn't. I shied away and stuck with the easy steps, the steps that were, sure, not easy for me, but also not a push. I knew I could get away with doing those steps and not risk getting called out. (Being called out in this ballet class, by the way, is never bad. It's always supportive, and the teacher is consistently careful to use one-on-one coaching as a lesson to others, and she'll do that in a respectful way. I think getting called out, though, does trigger my feelings in elementary school, when those same teachers who called me "lazy" called me out for other stuff. I'm being forced to confront that here, which I think is good, but it'll also take work.)
This gave me some insight as to why my students might sometimes not elect to do the add-on work. They're *not* lazy, that much is for sure. However, their reluctance also does *not* stem from a lack of intellectual curiosity. They *do* want to get smarter, just like I *do* want to learn ballet. They stop short sometimes, as I do, because the challenge of performing the harder step comes with the risk of getting it wrong, and then that's two failures: not only did you fail to do the actual step, you failed in mustering courage, because the courage you mustered was in vain. Logically, I know it doesn't work this way. *Any* courage mustered, regardless of the result, is meaningful so long as it's in pursuit of an honest, positive goal. But, in the moment, when you have to make that split-second decision about whether to, as Master Yoda says, "do or not do," it's hard to think logically. The impulsive courage has to be there, and, for me, in ballet, it isn't.
I can foresee that changing, though. In this class, there was one familiar face. There was also one kind and warm newbie who was taking her first class. We spoke afterward, and she expressed sadness that she didn't get a lot of the steps right. I told her I can relate to that feeling. "But you're so good!" she said. This I did not expect to hear. I am, by no measure, "good." But I appreciated hearing her say that. I reassured her that any improvement I have made has happened because I started in exactly the same position she was, and that, over time, you really do notice incremental improvements. Especially when you blog about them! I told her to stick around, and if she's falling over her feet, I am probably falling over mine, too. As the colorful, plastic Ponies say, "Friendship is Magic," and they are absolutely right.
That may be why, later in the semester, students take risks in my class more readily. They have people they know will love them either way. Early on, though, I feel like the choice to not take the added risk makes total sense. I wouldn't encourage people that way, but I do get it. They'd rather put their effort into something that has a higher chance of working out more-or-less perfectly than risk *both* failing a task (graded or not!) and failing some sort of test of courage. Maybe this is where we need our heroic stories to step in. Should Luke Skywalker be celebrated even if he took that shot and *didn't* blow up the Death Star? (Okay, that would make for a much different movie, but maybe apply that to a lower-stakes, real-life situation.) I think yes. I kinda think courage for courage sake, regardless of outcome, needs more celebration in our stories. That may be where the true virtue of *Rocky* (the first one) lives. Creed wins the match, technically, but the endurance Rocky exhibits (and his love for Adrian) means we are still happy to partake in tears. It isn't that we leave "unsatisfied;" we leave questioning what truly satisfies us. Change that in our stories, and I think we'll start changing it in our lives, too.
In my class, there is an older student. He is in his 70s. After class, we talked. He told me he wished he had his youth back. He told me that dancing must come from the heart, and if you don't have that, you don't have it. He told me about how much he loves the music that comes with our lessons, which I do, too. I see him every class, but, in this vulnerable moment, he seemed to feel as though his physical age was a barrier to success. Quite the contrary. I've seen this person at every class I've attended, including the one on the infamous -15-degree night. When he's dancing, he's clearly in love. He gestures beautifully, and, though there are some steps he physically can't do (again, in his 70s), the dances he performs are so graceful, so delightful. I would pay to see him dance! All I could think as he was talking was how much he is the most youthful student in class. He's an example to me. I hope, someday, I can achieve the level of carefree elegance that he has. It's that kind of courage I want to celebrate.
QUICK GENDER THOUGHT:
This is a thought that couldn't really flow with the rest of this post, but I wanted to write a paragraph about it, anyway, just because it was on my mind. In this class, we, like usual, have the task of moving barres out to the floor of the studio and then putting them back in their place afterward. (There are also fixed barres on the walls which don't move, obviously.) In this class, I moved the barre back by picking it up in the center. Two women flanked me, carrying the barre at the ends. One joked, "I didn't know we were gonna be able to take it easy today, having a big, strong man carry this for us." I laughed and shrugged that off, returning the joke by furthering the humor with some off-the-cuff comment I don't really remember. It was a light moment, and I'm happy to let it be such. But it did get me thinking about when mentioning my non-binary self is "appropriate," in the sense of "personally rewarding." On the one hand, I want everyone to know I'm non-binary - I'm happy to be! On the other, my masculine appearance doesn't exempt me from gender-based joking around (or male privilege, another thing I want to remain conscious of and take VERY seriously), and I kind of am not bothered by that? I need to think about this more because I'm not yet sure if I go along with being a "man" in some cases for my own comfort or for the comfort of others. I'm not in a place where it really hurts me to *not* shoot down a joke based on me being a "man" (and a big, strong one, at that! [Where was that comment when I was younger and probably could have used the confidence boost!?]). I know some non-binary people for whom that sort of implication, the implication that they are of a binary gender, would be quite triggering, though. So, at times, I feel like I want to be better at saying, "Actually, I'm non-binary, so..." not just for me, but for *them.* For the people who really are hurt by misgendering in this way. (Intentional misgendering WOULD hurt me, too, but this sort of jokey, innocent assumption-based stuff doesn't.) I want to contribute to a world where enbies of all neurologies are at home. I'm just not fully sure, yet, how to reflect that in my behavior. So I think on...
Friday, February 22, 2019
Lesson #7
I have a student who endured extensive bullying throughout high school. They* had friends, but those friendships ended, sometimes in betrayal. The student had at least one romantic partner, but the relationship was, at the very least, verbally and emotionally abusive. They want to make new friends now, in college, but it's tough. There's always a looming threat that anyone could turn out to be like their old friends, the friends who weren't really friends at all. The classroom is a very supportive one, even more so than previous years (and previous years have been great). I think this overall kindness and sensitivity comes from a sort of unspoken decision everyone made. They're all in this together, so by buttressing one person at their weakest, they're really reinforcing the whole, and by celebrating an individual success, they recognize everyone's. Slowly, the collective warmth of the group chips away at my student's shell of bad experiences. I hope this will allow the student to let loose the personality I see delightful glimpses of now, that of someone who is happy, curious, smart, engaging, and empathetic.
When I walked into ballet last night, it was more of a stumble. I don't know that I actually tripped going up the stairs to the studio, but, in the movie version of that scene, I did. But when I got there, I recognized two faces: one was my fellow newbie Tom (at least, that's what I think I named him in my Lesson #1 post to avoid outing anyone's experience level but my own) and his friend who I'll call Mary. Without even thinking about it, we just flowed into a conversation like old friends. "How was your day?" "I hope this 50-degree day just after a snowstorm isn't anything to worry about..." (Spoiler Alert: it is.) "Did you go to class last Tuesday or have you switched over to Thursdays?" Tom wears geek T-shirts, which is of course 1000% my jam. Prior to my first class, when I googled "What should I wear to ballet?," the results were pretty emphatic about the importance of me wearing a plain black T-shirt. I own exactly one of those, and it has been my uniform since Day One. But I told Tom I'd wear some of my geek shirts, too. So will Mary. If we're going to be a unit, then let's be a unit. And by "unit" I mean "wear nerd shirts and suck at ballet." And of course by "wear nerd shirts and suck at ballet," I mean "wear nerd shirts and suck less and less at ballet every day."
Starting class off on this foot made all the difference. We were chatting so much that, when the beginning stretches started, we had to consciously settle down like 2nd Graders. When we started working at the barre, I managed to talk to another student, let's say her name is Jessica, who is, for lack of a better term, damn good. She has clearly been taking ballet for a while. The teacher gives her pointers. Like, pointer-pointers. Pointers that aren't, "Aw, you fell. It's okay," but pointers like, "You have a tightness in this muscle that most people don't even know exists but if you stretch this way that'll open right up and you can really hit that seventh pirouette." But the awesome thing about Jessica is that I get the sense she's One Of Us. Part of the Nerd Shirt Unit (the NSU, obvi). We can joke about trying to ballet while drunk (a thing that I'm not convinced would make me any worse). She, like the rest of the NSU, can take the work seriously, but, as Barack Obama once said, "not take ourselves too seriously." Whenever our teacher asks who wants to go first, she, like Tom, Mary, and me, can muster a hearty, "Not me!"
Playing off the energy of those around me, I started taking risks. Often, our teacher will give three sets of instructions for the more complex dances. If you're a beginner, you can do one set of steps. If you're feeling a little adventurous, you can add in a spin here or a lift there. And if you're an expert, yeah, she's got something for that, too, but I usually can't make it out other than to say it looks like a flesh tornado. A fleshnado? I'll workshop that.
I didn't go expert, but I did get a little adventurous. At one point, we all had to do a specific dance across the floor, from one side of the studio to the other. Normally, I hate these because I'm the slowest one in the class by far. Everyone, even the rest of the NSU, can book along at an express train pace. I take forever, pausing to reconsider, hear the beat, think about steps, revise what I'm doing; you know, like an actual express train if you are familiar with New York City's incredibly broken MTA. This class was no different. Our pianist had to really stretch that Jurassic Park theme for me to finally get to my target. (Seriously, I think the accompanist was worried she'd eventually have to work her way through the entire soundtrack.) But I didn't mind! I was with people I knew, and it changed my entire perspective. I shamed myself less, and focused more on doing the movements at whatever skill level I was at. Later, my teacher looked directly at me when talking about the "Beginner" option for another dance across the room. When I added the "intermediate" spin, I heard a resounding "All right Jonathan!" from the instructor. I liked that I felt motivated to take a risk and have that rewarded with recognition from a teacher whose skills I unconditionally respect and admire. That felt good.
And our teacher gets it. She has these wonderfully down-to-earth moments in class where she'll tell us about the things she gets wrong, even after all the years of work - a lifetime, really - she's put into the art of ballet. "Every week," she said, "I learn about a different thing I do wrong." I guess it's like that, if you're doing it right. I spend so much time worrying that I am royally fucking up so many areas of my life where I'm supposed to have "expertise." I haven't won X award or I haven't gotten Y opportunity or I don't look like Z. Something I wrote falls flat. A class didn't go the way I wanted. But what this helps me to see is the fact that these feelings are a sign that the wish was granted. You did become a famous whatever or an expert-level thingamajig, it just didn't happen overnight. Titles like that have to be paid for in failure, and the metacognitive work you do as a result are the receipts. My initial reaction to my teacher saying she learns about a different flub each week was sadness. I wanted to ask her how she did it, psychologically. How can you keep going if you know you'll get it wrong?
But by the end of class I didn't need to ask. I knew. It's the people. Your NSU. Whoever they are. If it's one person or a thousand. Your team. Regardless of what's on your resume, if, at the end of the day, you have someone else you'd dance with, and who would dance with you, then you have become the success you wanted to be. Even if you're alone, I imagine it's possible to create this through positive self-talk, but I still can't help but think that, the more you affirm yourself, the more others will be drawn to that. These are the people that get you, your personality, your gender, your passions, your talents, your weaknesses - you. In this way, the stuff you get "wrong" is like a leaf falling off a healthy tree. The trunk is there. The branches are there. The roots are there. It doesn't mean losing the leaf feels great, but it does mean that the leaf doesn't decide the tree.
I hope that's what my student will find in college. They've lost a lot of leaves, but I hope they realize that the tree survived, and that they are, against all odds, in a forest.
*I use the "they" in this case for the purposes of further anonymity, not necessarily to suggest a non-binary gender identity.
When I walked into ballet last night, it was more of a stumble. I don't know that I actually tripped going up the stairs to the studio, but, in the movie version of that scene, I did. But when I got there, I recognized two faces: one was my fellow newbie Tom (at least, that's what I think I named him in my Lesson #1 post to avoid outing anyone's experience level but my own) and his friend who I'll call Mary. Without even thinking about it, we just flowed into a conversation like old friends. "How was your day?" "I hope this 50-degree day just after a snowstorm isn't anything to worry about..." (Spoiler Alert: it is.) "Did you go to class last Tuesday or have you switched over to Thursdays?" Tom wears geek T-shirts, which is of course 1000% my jam. Prior to my first class, when I googled "What should I wear to ballet?," the results were pretty emphatic about the importance of me wearing a plain black T-shirt. I own exactly one of those, and it has been my uniform since Day One. But I told Tom I'd wear some of my geek shirts, too. So will Mary. If we're going to be a unit, then let's be a unit. And by "unit" I mean "wear nerd shirts and suck at ballet." And of course by "wear nerd shirts and suck at ballet," I mean "wear nerd shirts and suck less and less at ballet every day."
Starting class off on this foot made all the difference. We were chatting so much that, when the beginning stretches started, we had to consciously settle down like 2nd Graders. When we started working at the barre, I managed to talk to another student, let's say her name is Jessica, who is, for lack of a better term, damn good. She has clearly been taking ballet for a while. The teacher gives her pointers. Like, pointer-pointers. Pointers that aren't, "Aw, you fell. It's okay," but pointers like, "You have a tightness in this muscle that most people don't even know exists but if you stretch this way that'll open right up and you can really hit that seventh pirouette." But the awesome thing about Jessica is that I get the sense she's One Of Us. Part of the Nerd Shirt Unit (the NSU, obvi). We can joke about trying to ballet while drunk (a thing that I'm not convinced would make me any worse). She, like the rest of the NSU, can take the work seriously, but, as Barack Obama once said, "not take ourselves too seriously." Whenever our teacher asks who wants to go first, she, like Tom, Mary, and me, can muster a hearty, "Not me!"
Playing off the energy of those around me, I started taking risks. Often, our teacher will give three sets of instructions for the more complex dances. If you're a beginner, you can do one set of steps. If you're feeling a little adventurous, you can add in a spin here or a lift there. And if you're an expert, yeah, she's got something for that, too, but I usually can't make it out other than to say it looks like a flesh tornado. A fleshnado? I'll workshop that.
I didn't go expert, but I did get a little adventurous. At one point, we all had to do a specific dance across the floor, from one side of the studio to the other. Normally, I hate these because I'm the slowest one in the class by far. Everyone, even the rest of the NSU, can book along at an express train pace. I take forever, pausing to reconsider, hear the beat, think about steps, revise what I'm doing; you know, like an actual express train if you are familiar with New York City's incredibly broken MTA. This class was no different. Our pianist had to really stretch that Jurassic Park theme for me to finally get to my target. (Seriously, I think the accompanist was worried she'd eventually have to work her way through the entire soundtrack.) But I didn't mind! I was with people I knew, and it changed my entire perspective. I shamed myself less, and focused more on doing the movements at whatever skill level I was at. Later, my teacher looked directly at me when talking about the "Beginner" option for another dance across the room. When I added the "intermediate" spin, I heard a resounding "All right Jonathan!" from the instructor. I liked that I felt motivated to take a risk and have that rewarded with recognition from a teacher whose skills I unconditionally respect and admire. That felt good.
And our teacher gets it. She has these wonderfully down-to-earth moments in class where she'll tell us about the things she gets wrong, even after all the years of work - a lifetime, really - she's put into the art of ballet. "Every week," she said, "I learn about a different thing I do wrong." I guess it's like that, if you're doing it right. I spend so much time worrying that I am royally fucking up so many areas of my life where I'm supposed to have "expertise." I haven't won X award or I haven't gotten Y opportunity or I don't look like Z. Something I wrote falls flat. A class didn't go the way I wanted. But what this helps me to see is the fact that these feelings are a sign that the wish was granted. You did become a famous whatever or an expert-level thingamajig, it just didn't happen overnight. Titles like that have to be paid for in failure, and the metacognitive work you do as a result are the receipts. My initial reaction to my teacher saying she learns about a different flub each week was sadness. I wanted to ask her how she did it, psychologically. How can you keep going if you know you'll get it wrong?
But by the end of class I didn't need to ask. I knew. It's the people. Your NSU. Whoever they are. If it's one person or a thousand. Your team. Regardless of what's on your resume, if, at the end of the day, you have someone else you'd dance with, and who would dance with you, then you have become the success you wanted to be. Even if you're alone, I imagine it's possible to create this through positive self-talk, but I still can't help but think that, the more you affirm yourself, the more others will be drawn to that. These are the people that get you, your personality, your gender, your passions, your talents, your weaknesses - you. In this way, the stuff you get "wrong" is like a leaf falling off a healthy tree. The trunk is there. The branches are there. The roots are there. It doesn't mean losing the leaf feels great, but it does mean that the leaf doesn't decide the tree.
I hope that's what my student will find in college. They've lost a lot of leaves, but I hope they realize that the tree survived, and that they are, against all odds, in a forest.
*I use the "they" in this case for the purposes of further anonymity, not necessarily to suggest a non-binary gender identity.
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