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.
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