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.
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