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...
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
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.
Friday, February 15, 2019
Lesson #6
Well, that kicked my ass. And I don't mean it in the that-was-new-and-tough way. I mean it in the I-knew-everything-we-did-and-it-still-kicked-my-ass way. It's that unique brand of ass kicking where you can't really peg a reason for it. Nothing was unexpected. You've been trending positively in terms of building skills and becoming a better dancer. There was just...no reason to suck as severely as I did.
I have a track record of being hard on myself, so maybe, objectively, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Plus, there really weren't any other newbies in my sixth class. It was a bunch of people who had done ballet at a different school (which just meant they had their own finesses on a bunch of the moves, which, I mean, I have, too, if falling is a finesse) and the guy who literally founded the place where I take lessons. So, y'know, no pressure. But, despite this, I could see a few moments, upon reflection, where I was at least slightly in the zone. Stretching, for instance. I think I have that down. I can stretch like a boss now. Jumping. I'm okay at jumping, as long as it's in the same place. It's the moving. Last week, we did these turns (not even spins, but turns) at the barre that, for whatever reason, felt easy at the time. Last night, we did the same turns, and it was like I just got a new pair of legs. As someone whose sole purpose was to turn, I consistently forgot which way to turn. There are only two options! Yet, every time, I felt like I picked the wrong way.
It was that feeling that dominated my experience last night, and I just left feeling...sucky. It was all in my head. My teacher was wonderful about reminding us that even she has days where it's one stumble after another. But what came of that was this thought:
Progress is not linear. Progress is fluid.
At least, I think that's true. Progress doesn't happen in one neat, straight line. It flows all over the place. Sometimes, that means a leap. Sometimes, that means a giant leap backward. And sometimes that means you're doing something in a totally different ballpark (I'm thinking Leonard-Nimoy-having-a-music-career different, here). I see this in my own students all the time. One essay will be a delight; the next will be approaching incoherence. That's no fault of the student. That's just how it goes. We can bemoan the fact that we, as humans, are sometimes-failures, or we can celebrate ourselves as sometimes-successes. If you want the ratio to favor the successes, well, I guess that's where the real hard work happens.
But I also think, on top of this, that this caveat, that progress is fluid, applies to gender, too. At least, gender as I experience it. I'll try to articulate this as best I can, though I'll probably fall short. Gender, to me, is fluid. You can kind of weave in and out of many performances in many ways, or perform more than one simultaneously. You can also be none! Or you can wear the same black turtleneck every day and let people make of that what they will. The options are endless, but, if you are someone who likes to blend and switch gender performances, then I wonder if, some days, you judge your look (or "lewk") to be more successful than others. You've got some feeling in your mind, a feeling of demiboy- or demigirl- or non-binary- or trans-ness, and you want to represent that through your comportment and attire. That takes creativity because there is yet to be a Gap Non-Binary, so you try to create a mixture of clothing (provided you don't just walk around naked) that gives those you interact with a snapshot of where your head is at. (Some enbies do this sort of blending, some don't - all are valid!) When you nail it, you know. When you're suddenly wearing lipstick on your earlobe and a thong as a top because it "seemed like a good idea at the time," well, you know that, too (and, for the record, I know some people who could *rock* that, but I don't think it would work for me). Or, to offer a more typical example of this sort of "failure," you know you're non-binary, but you have to put on a binary uniform for work (whether that be a suit, a skirt, or whatever is dictated by the workplace). It's easy for me to feel, in cases like these, like I've let down the part of my brain that wants to grow and experiment with gender.
But progress, like gender, is fluid. Just because I either *have to wear* or *end up wearing* a certain set of clothes on a given day that create dysphoria, it doesn't mean I've failed my self. It means that this is where the fluidity of progress has taken me today. It isn't up or down, good or bad - it just is. Tomorrow may be different. Self-exploration allows for this sort of happenstance.
It's a little less happenstance-y in skill-based work. It wouldn't comfort me to have a brain surgeon say, "Well, I don't really study this much, but, hey, if I mess up today, things could be better for the next patient. Who knows!" With ballet, I can control my own outcome a little bit through practice, which I'm horrible about doing on my own. I know, as a teacher, that should be the first thing I'm strict about. But I'm not. No excuses. I'm just not.
So acknowledging that I can actively take steps to "favor the successes" (and then, of course, take those steps), I can make space for the fluidity of progress, which goes hand-in-hand with metacognition. There's a version of that that can work for gender, too. We're all surely in some version of a self-discovery process, even if gender never enters your self-questioning. The more one engages that process, the more aware one can become of their own fluidity, however that fluidity manifests. (I would celebrate the person who decides to try cookie dough ice cream for the first time after a lifetime of vanilla AND I would celebrate the person who tests out a new gender performance for the first time. They're not the same, but both actions speak volumes in beautifully different ways.)
Therefore, on the days that suck, especially the ones that come after the days of success, spill a glass of water on a table, and remember that the water makes no judgement about the way in which it spreads, it only cares that it eventually covers the surface. This was the lesson I learned on Valentine's Day, and it's not a bad one. Love yourself, even if it seems like your ballet flats don't.
I have a track record of being hard on myself, so maybe, objectively, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Plus, there really weren't any other newbies in my sixth class. It was a bunch of people who had done ballet at a different school (which just meant they had their own finesses on a bunch of the moves, which, I mean, I have, too, if falling is a finesse) and the guy who literally founded the place where I take lessons. So, y'know, no pressure. But, despite this, I could see a few moments, upon reflection, where I was at least slightly in the zone. Stretching, for instance. I think I have that down. I can stretch like a boss now. Jumping. I'm okay at jumping, as long as it's in the same place. It's the moving. Last week, we did these turns (not even spins, but turns) at the barre that, for whatever reason, felt easy at the time. Last night, we did the same turns, and it was like I just got a new pair of legs. As someone whose sole purpose was to turn, I consistently forgot which way to turn. There are only two options! Yet, every time, I felt like I picked the wrong way.
It was that feeling that dominated my experience last night, and I just left feeling...sucky. It was all in my head. My teacher was wonderful about reminding us that even she has days where it's one stumble after another. But what came of that was this thought:
Progress is not linear. Progress is fluid.
At least, I think that's true. Progress doesn't happen in one neat, straight line. It flows all over the place. Sometimes, that means a leap. Sometimes, that means a giant leap backward. And sometimes that means you're doing something in a totally different ballpark (I'm thinking Leonard-Nimoy-having-a-music-career different, here). I see this in my own students all the time. One essay will be a delight; the next will be approaching incoherence. That's no fault of the student. That's just how it goes. We can bemoan the fact that we, as humans, are sometimes-failures, or we can celebrate ourselves as sometimes-successes. If you want the ratio to favor the successes, well, I guess that's where the real hard work happens.
But I also think, on top of this, that this caveat, that progress is fluid, applies to gender, too. At least, gender as I experience it. I'll try to articulate this as best I can, though I'll probably fall short. Gender, to me, is fluid. You can kind of weave in and out of many performances in many ways, or perform more than one simultaneously. You can also be none! Or you can wear the same black turtleneck every day and let people make of that what they will. The options are endless, but, if you are someone who likes to blend and switch gender performances, then I wonder if, some days, you judge your look (or "lewk") to be more successful than others. You've got some feeling in your mind, a feeling of demiboy- or demigirl- or non-binary- or trans-ness, and you want to represent that through your comportment and attire. That takes creativity because there is yet to be a Gap Non-Binary, so you try to create a mixture of clothing (provided you don't just walk around naked) that gives those you interact with a snapshot of where your head is at. (Some enbies do this sort of blending, some don't - all are valid!) When you nail it, you know. When you're suddenly wearing lipstick on your earlobe and a thong as a top because it "seemed like a good idea at the time," well, you know that, too (and, for the record, I know some people who could *rock* that, but I don't think it would work for me). Or, to offer a more typical example of this sort of "failure," you know you're non-binary, but you have to put on a binary uniform for work (whether that be a suit, a skirt, or whatever is dictated by the workplace). It's easy for me to feel, in cases like these, like I've let down the part of my brain that wants to grow and experiment with gender.
But progress, like gender, is fluid. Just because I either *have to wear* or *end up wearing* a certain set of clothes on a given day that create dysphoria, it doesn't mean I've failed my self. It means that this is where the fluidity of progress has taken me today. It isn't up or down, good or bad - it just is. Tomorrow may be different. Self-exploration allows for this sort of happenstance.
It's a little less happenstance-y in skill-based work. It wouldn't comfort me to have a brain surgeon say, "Well, I don't really study this much, but, hey, if I mess up today, things could be better for the next patient. Who knows!" With ballet, I can control my own outcome a little bit through practice, which I'm horrible about doing on my own. I know, as a teacher, that should be the first thing I'm strict about. But I'm not. No excuses. I'm just not.
So acknowledging that I can actively take steps to "favor the successes" (and then, of course, take those steps), I can make space for the fluidity of progress, which goes hand-in-hand with metacognition. There's a version of that that can work for gender, too. We're all surely in some version of a self-discovery process, even if gender never enters your self-questioning. The more one engages that process, the more aware one can become of their own fluidity, however that fluidity manifests. (I would celebrate the person who decides to try cookie dough ice cream for the first time after a lifetime of vanilla AND I would celebrate the person who tests out a new gender performance for the first time. They're not the same, but both actions speak volumes in beautifully different ways.)
Therefore, on the days that suck, especially the ones that come after the days of success, spill a glass of water on a table, and remember that the water makes no judgement about the way in which it spreads, it only cares that it eventually covers the surface. This was the lesson I learned on Valentine's Day, and it's not a bad one. Love yourself, even if it seems like your ballet flats don't.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Lesson #5
Before going to ballet, I like to go for a run. My favorite place to run to is out by LaGuardia Airport. If you run to the Marine Air Terminal, you're right by one of their main runways. I love listening to a plane's engines spool up and then seeing the wheels jolt into action. When the plane hits its V1 speed, the pilot pivots the nose up and, in seconds, it's airborne. Just like that. From there, there's no telling where it'll go.
***
Ever get your ass kicked by a very pregnant ballerina? I mean, anyone pregnant is, by definition, solidly planted on the ass-kicker spectrum. But there has to be a special place for anyone who can be pregnant and do expert ballet at the same time. I'm barely managing now; I can only imagine how this would go if I had a vaguely human grapefruit inside of me. I kick myself enough with my own legs trying to get through the jumps, getting thwacked by another set from the interior? That is Alien chestburster-level pain...I assume. But my teacher today, someone new to me but clearly very experienced, doesn't need to assume. She knows. However, you couldn't tell by looking at her. She led us through class effortlessly. In fact, I think her child-to-be, who will no doubt be awesome, probably upstaged me in utero.
In all seriousness, though, seeing a pregnant body perform and teach ballet made me revel in the infinite combinations of body diversity that exist in the world, and how this art form can open itself to, I believe, any of those bodies. Pregnant bodies, differently-sized bodies, differently-limbed bodies, differently-healing bodies - you name it. It seems to me that the key is knowing the body you have. I don't think it's a "limitation" to say, "Okay, my body doesn't do that." When we were stretching by lying belly-first on the floor and flexing upward, I am glad that that was something my teacher said she was not going to do with us. Her body was doing other things, things that a hard floor on a stomach would not have helped. And if the thing that's being asked doesn't help your body do what it does, then I think that's a good enough reason to, well, not. If you're not sure whether doing a thing would mess with the truth of your beautiful body and you assess the risk to be worth it, then by all means: run the experiment. But other sentiments are much more expressive of for-certain body awareness. "My hips don't open like that." "This arm is shorter than the other one." "My knees won't like it if I jump like that." We should embrace statements like these. How great it is to know yourself enough to confidently say this stuff.
Beginner-level ballet seems like it can be receptive to this kind of awareness. In speaking with a psychologist friend of mine, though, career-track ballet isn't always so body positive. My friend talked to me about the eating disorders and body dysmorphia she sees in her ballet patients. Seeing ballet at my very, very introductory level, I kind of feel like this is a betrayal of what professional ballet could be, what ballet, in the best of circumstances, is. I know some dancers are pushing back against this, but perhaps any field where there's any sort of perceived homogeneity, there is pressure to conform. "Everyone looks like this." "Everyone does it that way." The sad thing is, it's almost always more interesting to see someone not do it "that way." It's one of the hardest things my students do in English: break away from the writing style of the person next to them. "But what if I'm wrong?" Reaching the clearest expression of your most essential self could never be wrong to me.
But philosophy aside, today's class, the actual class, was amazing. It was small again. Not quite as small as last time, but small. It was a warm 61 degrees outside, so maybe folx decided to ditch and head to the park. Not me, though. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow. Nor sunshine. I'm like a ballet postal worker. Today was the first time I really felt in the same boat as everyone else in the room. There were students there whom I had seen before. Students who seemed so unattainably far from where I was. But today, watching them, I realized they were grappling with the same stuff I'm grappling with. There were points where we all struggled together. (And then **cough** **pirouettes** **cough** there were times when I was the only one flopping around like a fish out of water.) I don't think the others were having an "off day" or anything. I think I just now have a more detailed understanding of our work so that I can now see more clearly the complexity of every step. And complexity is, uh...complex? So people struggle with it. We all struggle with it. It's good struggling. It's educational struggling. And I think this impacted my comfort level in the room. I talked to more people. We shared insecurities and successes. We complimented each other honestly. That's the great thing that can come from struggle, the desire to uplift. I felt that tonight, and that dance was delightfully radiant.
And then I flew. Okay, so, not actually. Here's what happened: the final thing we had to do was a sort of leaping arabesque. My teacher demonstrated it, and, halfway through, I completely forgot the first thing she said to do. I watched everyone else perform the dance, studying them dutifully. When I tried it myself, I watched my feet to try to make sure they did what the others' did. They didn't. It looked like I was on roller skates for the first time, and both my feet were uncontrollably slipping off in different directions. There was nothing elegant about this. That's when my teacher, ever-attentive to the needs of everyone (as all the teachers here have been), said to us all that we are not just an exercise class. We are a dance class. Your eyes should look up. The floor will be there. You'll land on it. Science will take care of that. Just look up and leap like you're flying. I instantly thought of Supergirl and Superman. When they leap, especially in the older comics, they have this look of hope on their face, eyes pointed at the sky. This was clearly the right thing to tell me. I took my teacher's advice. I shed my need to micromanage my feet and I just looked up, hopeful, and leaped. When I landed, my teacher said, "That's it!" My delight made me totally miss the next step, but that was okay. After repeated failed launches, that one worked. In ballet, you can fly. And, if you're lucky, your feet might even leave the floor.
The movement was so liberating. It was like taking off from a skip. When I was a kid, skipping wasn't really considered a "manly" thing to do. There are plenty of male ballet dancers who would surely, and rightly, take issue with this, and I'd support them 100%. But, for me, to take a gesture that I was told was somehow a betrayal of my assigned gender and just fully relish it made me euphoric. I'll never understand why we try to restrain bodies, as if for them to move in one way or another will mutate them into something unholy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Body movement is a language, and, like any language, it takes on the meaning we give it, usually based on contexts both historic and personal. The sentence I said through this particular movement translates to, "My body does this now." Sentences like that, often bravely yelled by those with a lot less privilege than I have, inspire me every day.
I circle back to those planes I saw during my run. Their noses high, no one worried the wheels will somehow stick to the ground. Planes want to fly. When they land, they must account for ground effect, the air that comes up from the runway, pushing the plane back into flight. You can't keep these things down. Not when they have wings.
***
Ever get your ass kicked by a very pregnant ballerina? I mean, anyone pregnant is, by definition, solidly planted on the ass-kicker spectrum. But there has to be a special place for anyone who can be pregnant and do expert ballet at the same time. I'm barely managing now; I can only imagine how this would go if I had a vaguely human grapefruit inside of me. I kick myself enough with my own legs trying to get through the jumps, getting thwacked by another set from the interior? That is Alien chestburster-level pain...I assume. But my teacher today, someone new to me but clearly very experienced, doesn't need to assume. She knows. However, you couldn't tell by looking at her. She led us through class effortlessly. In fact, I think her child-to-be, who will no doubt be awesome, probably upstaged me in utero.
In all seriousness, though, seeing a pregnant body perform and teach ballet made me revel in the infinite combinations of body diversity that exist in the world, and how this art form can open itself to, I believe, any of those bodies. Pregnant bodies, differently-sized bodies, differently-limbed bodies, differently-healing bodies - you name it. It seems to me that the key is knowing the body you have. I don't think it's a "limitation" to say, "Okay, my body doesn't do that." When we were stretching by lying belly-first on the floor and flexing upward, I am glad that that was something my teacher said she was not going to do with us. Her body was doing other things, things that a hard floor on a stomach would not have helped. And if the thing that's being asked doesn't help your body do what it does, then I think that's a good enough reason to, well, not. If you're not sure whether doing a thing would mess with the truth of your beautiful body and you assess the risk to be worth it, then by all means: run the experiment. But other sentiments are much more expressive of for-certain body awareness. "My hips don't open like that." "This arm is shorter than the other one." "My knees won't like it if I jump like that." We should embrace statements like these. How great it is to know yourself enough to confidently say this stuff.
Beginner-level ballet seems like it can be receptive to this kind of awareness. In speaking with a psychologist friend of mine, though, career-track ballet isn't always so body positive. My friend talked to me about the eating disorders and body dysmorphia she sees in her ballet patients. Seeing ballet at my very, very introductory level, I kind of feel like this is a betrayal of what professional ballet could be, what ballet, in the best of circumstances, is. I know some dancers are pushing back against this, but perhaps any field where there's any sort of perceived homogeneity, there is pressure to conform. "Everyone looks like this." "Everyone does it that way." The sad thing is, it's almost always more interesting to see someone not do it "that way." It's one of the hardest things my students do in English: break away from the writing style of the person next to them. "But what if I'm wrong?" Reaching the clearest expression of your most essential self could never be wrong to me.
But philosophy aside, today's class, the actual class, was amazing. It was small again. Not quite as small as last time, but small. It was a warm 61 degrees outside, so maybe folx decided to ditch and head to the park. Not me, though. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow. Nor sunshine. I'm like a ballet postal worker. Today was the first time I really felt in the same boat as everyone else in the room. There were students there whom I had seen before. Students who seemed so unattainably far from where I was. But today, watching them, I realized they were grappling with the same stuff I'm grappling with. There were points where we all struggled together. (And then **cough** **pirouettes** **cough** there were times when I was the only one flopping around like a fish out of water.) I don't think the others were having an "off day" or anything. I think I just now have a more detailed understanding of our work so that I can now see more clearly the complexity of every step. And complexity is, uh...complex? So people struggle with it. We all struggle with it. It's good struggling. It's educational struggling. And I think this impacted my comfort level in the room. I talked to more people. We shared insecurities and successes. We complimented each other honestly. That's the great thing that can come from struggle, the desire to uplift. I felt that tonight, and that dance was delightfully radiant.
And then I flew. Okay, so, not actually. Here's what happened: the final thing we had to do was a sort of leaping arabesque. My teacher demonstrated it, and, halfway through, I completely forgot the first thing she said to do. I watched everyone else perform the dance, studying them dutifully. When I tried it myself, I watched my feet to try to make sure they did what the others' did. They didn't. It looked like I was on roller skates for the first time, and both my feet were uncontrollably slipping off in different directions. There was nothing elegant about this. That's when my teacher, ever-attentive to the needs of everyone (as all the teachers here have been), said to us all that we are not just an exercise class. We are a dance class. Your eyes should look up. The floor will be there. You'll land on it. Science will take care of that. Just look up and leap like you're flying. I instantly thought of Supergirl and Superman. When they leap, especially in the older comics, they have this look of hope on their face, eyes pointed at the sky. This was clearly the right thing to tell me. I took my teacher's advice. I shed my need to micromanage my feet and I just looked up, hopeful, and leaped. When I landed, my teacher said, "That's it!" My delight made me totally miss the next step, but that was okay. After repeated failed launches, that one worked. In ballet, you can fly. And, if you're lucky, your feet might even leave the floor.
The movement was so liberating. It was like taking off from a skip. When I was a kid, skipping wasn't really considered a "manly" thing to do. There are plenty of male ballet dancers who would surely, and rightly, take issue with this, and I'd support them 100%. But, for me, to take a gesture that I was told was somehow a betrayal of my assigned gender and just fully relish it made me euphoric. I'll never understand why we try to restrain bodies, as if for them to move in one way or another will mutate them into something unholy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Body movement is a language, and, like any language, it takes on the meaning we give it, usually based on contexts both historic and personal. The sentence I said through this particular movement translates to, "My body does this now." Sentences like that, often bravely yelled by those with a lot less privilege than I have, inspire me every day.
I circle back to those planes I saw during my run. Their noses high, no one worried the wheels will somehow stick to the ground. Planes want to fly. When they land, they must account for ground effect, the air that comes up from the runway, pushing the plane back into flight. You can't keep these things down. Not when they have wings.
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