Always an overachiever, I decided to start this challenge with the scariest thing I could imagine: heading back to a dance class after nearly 7 years dance-less.
One rainy night as September turned into October I found myself inside a dance studio with four other smiling adults. The space was small, yellow, and smelled like my dreams and memories. The instructor was young, hip, and looked as though he had just stepped off the So You Think You Can Dance stage. He oozed quiet confidence to the point of respectable cockiness.
He looked at all of us then said, casually, oblivious to the personal struggle I was engaged in, “Okay, here we go – &5 deep lunge right, &6 spring back up, hold &7 &8, deep squat to the floor &1 and hold for 4.”
Old. I felt so old.
My first thought was, “NO WARM UP!? MY KNEES CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT A WARMUP!”
CRACK, I lunged low. CRACK, I made it back up. CRACK, one count late I was in a full on squat on the floor trying to bounce like I was a backup dancer in an MTV video.
I panted. I was convinced my quads were done for the day. We were officially 30 seconds into class.
There were days, years ago, when I was a professional ballet dancer, I would waltz into my 8th studio hour after eating nothing but Pizza Hut breadsticks and drinking Diet Coke and, without a warm up, dizzyingly spin sixteen fouettes on pointe on a quarter. Without throwing up.
But this particular night, those days felt far behind me. Teenage me laughed at my cracking knees and straining quads. I groaned and moaned as I tried to remember, and execute, thirty-two counts of choreography. It occurred to me I used to know entire full-length classical ballets. My friend Christine and I would dance the entire Nutcracker ballet in the wings while we waited for our three-minute performance as twelve-year-olds.
That night I felt silly in my “hip-hop outfit”; my shoes were mercilessly inappropriate and squeaking; I kept thinking just how out of place I was. I mean, as a mom to two young boys and closer to 40 than any other age, should I really be doing pelvic thrusts to hip-hop music?
Then. Something happened. Something big happened.
I stopped thinking. My brain turned off, my eyes stopped looking, and it all clicked. My body took over, the music came in, and it happened.
The music, the rhythm, the lighting, the smells, the feeling, the sensations, the wonderful people who are the kind to do a hip-hop class on a rainy night at 7:30 pm… it was compelling. At some point during that 60-minute class I stopped thinking about what I looked like to others. Instead, I started to feel. I just felt good.
I wasn’t the best in class. I didn’t nail the choreography and the instructor didn’t saunter up to me afterwards and ask me if I wanted a part in the upcoming performances. Those experiences are behind me.
But he also didn’t march up to me and demand I never come back.
I left laughing and truly happy. I was drunk in love with my body and what it did. And I have, indeed, been back.
I am constantly trying to push myself outside of my comfort zone, to try new things, to learn to embrace this big world – I also find that if and when I feel sad and lonely, I can conquer and feel brave and bold. I can force a new perspective.
Dance had been my life for a very long time. Throughout my decades, it has formed my biggest, deepest friendships and through the studio space I was introduced to teachers that I think about every day to this day. It was at the barre I was pushed to mature beyond my age, and while being ruthlessly assessed in auditions I learned how to cope with failure and hold on to confidence. Dance taught me what matters and how to truly be kind. It also showed me how low I could go and how awful I could feel.
But I was good back then. I was a good dancer and always pushed to be the top. I wanted to be the best. What happened, after I choreographed my way to American College Dance Festival and soloed in a summer intensive in Italy even after I thought my dance days were done, was that I lost the space where dance was beautiful and right. I lost the space where I could get lost in music and movement.Â
BodyJam filled that void for a few years. Then I lost that.
At some point, I made an unconscious decision that if I wasn’t going to be good at it, I was going to have to quit. At some point, instead of remembering why I moved my body to music, I became fixated on how I used to move and what I used to look like. I wanted a dance experience that was perfect. I still wanted to be perfect at it.Â
But, unconsciously, I missed it heavily. Not having my passion was worse than having it and not being good.
It took a lot of courage to step into that dance studio in that rain. I called the studio at least six times prior to attending to ask questions, the most important of which was ensuring that I was not going to be the only adult in an adult hip-hop class (many times advanced teenage students will attend adult classes for credits and hours in the studio). The poor receptionist patiently answered my phone call each time and greeted me with a big smile, “I wasn’t sure you would show up!” when I walked in.
I am proud I went but, in the end, the lesson I learned the most is that I don’t care if anyone knows I went in or not – I don’t need anyone else to be proud of me. I just need to dance.
I love this challenge, but it is hard. It is so hard to walk into something you might not be good at.
It is even worse to walk into something you used to be good at but won’t be anymore.
The thing is, pushing myself to operate out of my comfort zone works.
I am grabbing life by the horns and holding on for the ride. It is bumpier but it is much more spectacular this way.
Try it. What are you scared of being bad at?