I have a former ballet student I first started teaching when she was in my 3-4 year old class and taught until she was five. That year was interrupted by this jerk named Covid, and also ended up being my last year teaching, but now that she’s older and in shows I still get to see her. Last year her mom told me the only thing she requested for her birthday was private lessons with me (melt my heart), and this year she requested them for her birthday AND Christmas (I’m a puddle, y’all). Today marked our fourth lesson this summer. She got her pointe shoes in December and began the pre-pointe class with the shoes in January. This being July means she’s brand new to pointe. I’ve been looking forward to these classes and to work with her, but I wasn’t sure where she would be skill wise by this point, especially since their classes are so huge now. This kid is 10 1/2 and she has been blowing me away. I shouldn’t be surprised; she’s very driven, extremely teachable, and incredibly smart, and I have been beside myself with how quickly she is progressing already.
At the start of our lessons, I asked her what things she had worked on already, what she’d tried, what she felt confident with, and what she’d like to work on. One of the things she had seen in the Intermediate summer intensive classes at the studio were pirouettes, but she wasn’t quite sure how to do them in pointe shoes and the class was geared more towards girls a little more advanced than she was (though I’m really impressed with how well she kept up this summer. Tremendous for her growth, for sure). We’ve been working on getting the rolling up in the shoe to pointe, balancing, and rolling down so that she can get the feel for what it’s supposed to be like in these new types of shoes. We discussed the fundamentals of the turn and have broken it down to help her feel confident.
Pirouettes on pointe are terrifying. Especially when you’re brand new. You mean I have to do this thing, on this box, and I’m supposed to stay up there, while moving in a circle, and the only stability I have is the tips of my toes in this box, and I’m supposed to somehow not roll my ankle?! Most kids are apprehensive at first—I know I was, and I was 26 when I learned these. I told her I wouldn’t make her try pirouettes until she felt she was ready, which I was gauging would be about halfway through (making it next week) but today when she got to the studio she said she wanted to try them today.
Heck yes.
We did our normal warm up, I showed her some new things we’ll work on to help with her saut de chats (those are the leaps you think of when you think of a dancer jumping across the stage), and then we got the tall standing barre out to do some pirouette preps first. She marked the one side, then stepped a little further out, and tried a pirouette.
And she did it.
There’s a bit of technique to clean up, as expected, but she fully rolled up on her shoe and turned and rolled down. I was so ridiculously proud.
We tried the other side, which is the foot with which she’s less confident, and the nerves hit. She would start strong, then psych herself out, do it on demi pointe, or stop herself halfway through. These are all the exact things I did when I was learning pirouettes on pointe. These are arguably some of the scariest things you’ll ever learn when learning pointe work (the next being the intense lifts some dancers learn) and it’s really easy to get in your head about it.
I told her, “we can keep trying for as long as you want, but if you ever feel like you want to stop for today, that’s okay too, just let me know. We don’t have to have it all figured out today and you’re already making such great progress.” You could see she was scared, I could feel it in my own bones having felt that specific kind of fear myself, but she wanted it more than she was scared of it and kept trying. I then stood in front of her and had her do the preps holding on to me before she tried to turn, giving her gentle voiced counts in hopes it would give her that to focus on and she’d forget to be scared. I’d tell her, “Do you trust me?” and she’d say, “yes,” and I’d say, “I would never let you try anything I didn’t think you were capable of doing. You can do this, you’ve done it on one side, so I know you can! I believe in you, you got this.” And she’d try again.
Then there came a point when she said, “I think I want to stop for now” and I told her that was as brave of a decision as her decisions to keep trying. It’s so important to know when you need to take a breather, regroup, and try again next time, and she listened to what she needed and stood by that.
Everything she did today made me so proud I found myself fighting the urge to cry. I’m not much of a cryer, though I am quite the feeler, but this gave me pause as it was quite an intense amount of emotion I felt. I told her how impressed I was with her progress today, and how each time she tried she was improving, even if she didn’t feel it, I could see it. I told her to take the weekend and imagine herself doing it correctly—don’t image yourself messing up, but imagine what it looks and feels like when you get it right. If you can feel it, you can achieve it, and if you can feel it that confidence will begin to grow. I also reiterated how important it is to know when to put it on pause. Every dancer knows that some days are just not your day for turns, and that’s totally okay. Sometimes you need to push through, and sometimes you need to give yourself some grace.
When I got in my car to head home, I sat with all the emotions that were coming up for me. What is all of this I’m feeling?
I started to think through how cool it is to get to work with her, to know that the gentle tones I took with her as she’s facing her fears are going to become some of those pivotal voices in her head that she hears when she’s scared of trying pirouettes. She’ll hear me saying, “you got this, I believe in you, I’m right here, you’ve got everything you need inside you to do this.” I’ve mentored kids, for lack of better word, for most of my life, having begun babysitting when I was 10, working in the nursery at my church, teaching ballet, etc. I’ve got a gaggle of “fake nieces/nibblets” that I check in with and to whom I make myself available. Somehow, in all those years, I’ve not really considered the possibility that I could be becoming part of the voices in their heads that replay when they’re alone and struggling.
What an honor that is; what a gift; what a responsibility.
My aunt Becky was the most important person in my life and I have tried, whether consciously or not, to make kids feel how she made me feel. Emulating her is how I learned how to treat people and I’d be remiss if I denied that her voice is on of the voices that’s carried me, though unfortunately we didn’t have ample opportunities to spend time together over the years, given the distance and now she’s no longer with us. To think that I have the opportunity to be that for these kids I would say is the highest honor of my life. They all mean so much to me.
As I’m driving on our new bridge, mulling all this over, I thought, “It’s almost as though when I’m speaking to her, little me is listening.” And that’s when the tears came.
Kids are impressionable and the adults and authority figures in their lives give them the building blocks upon which they can choose to build the foundation of their lives. I’m choosing to give her blocks of encouragement and am hoping to teach her that she can trust herself, which is a hard lesson for anyone to learn, really. I hope that as she grows, these will be helpful and beneficial to her and that the other influences in her life are doing the same. (I truly believe this is the case for her, which makes me so excited to see the person she will grow to be as she’s bound to be a real gift to the world—she’s off to a great start in that regard.)
It’s only been recently that I’ve begun to truly realize that I’ve been through a lot. It seems silly from both sides of that token; silly that I would think what I’ve been through isn’t a lot, and also silly that I would consider everything I’ve been through to be a lot, the latter mainly coming from opinions I’ve been handed throughout my life. Still, I’ve been trying over the past few years to make a conscious effort to pay attention to the thoughts and opinions that are guiding my life and really evaluate them before I let them take any more of a hold.
It’s as though my whole life I’ve been handed these bricks from the adults and authority figures in my life. I was given a Cornerstone, told how to lay my foundation, and handed these bricks and this mortar to hold it all together. I was told not to ask any questions, that the way I felt about things may not be the way things are because if it goes against this, that, or the other, then it can’t be correct and I shouldn’t listen to it, and I trusted what I was told. It sounded good, I trusted the people guiding me, and honestly I didn’t know there could be any different way.
But now, now I’ve been working hard to dismantle the house I built. I’m taking it apart brick by brick, examining each stone, and deciding if it still serves me. If it does, I’ll hold on to it. If it doesn’t, it gets discarded. I’ve torn up the foundation and removed the Cornerstone.
I’ve restarted as fresh as anyone could hope.
And now, I’m removing the voices who told me the things that harmed me. I’m removing myself from the influence of all those who handed me faulty bricks, even if they thought they were helping me. I’m starting from the ground up, set a new cornerstone, and I’ve poured a fresh foundation. I have surrounded myself with people who speak to me gently, telling me, “You got this, I believe in you, I’m right here, you’ve got everything you need inside you to do this.” I’m paying attention to whose bricks I accept to be part of the house that is my life. It’s been a long process; there have been times where I’ve paused, too terrified to go past what I’ve built, telling myself, “you know, I think a one story house is sufficient” and I’ve stayed there. Those influences who have leant their lessons to become the voice in my head are different now. Instead of having a more authoritarian tone, telling me what I need to do to live a successful life or achieve what I’m told I need to achieve like the ones before, these tell me to take my time, to listen to myself and honor that, to be gentle with the struggles and appreciate every bit of progress, even (and especially) if it doesn’t seem like much to me at first. And eventually, I can see that this one story is strong, it’s sturdy, and this house isn’t going anywhere. I can see that it is safe to build the second story; even if I don’t quite trust myself yet, I trust the influences that have leant their voices to create the one in my head now. I go back to my carefully inspected bricks, and I begin to build again, and before I know it the second story is finished and I can’t believe how much life has opened up to me with this new level.
I realized in that moment in my car driving over the new bridge, an incredible sunset out my drivers side window, that the entire time I was speaking to my dancer today, the little version of myself was listening. That I’ve finally gotten to a point in the deconstruction of my life that the progress with the reconstruction has leant such a level of safety that little me feels safe enough to pay attention again. She trusts the voices around her. She feels security here. She knows that these people actually do have our best interest at heart and can tell the difference in their gentle tones. Even if little me can’t quite trust herself yet, she trusts me and knows that, when she’s ready, it will be safe to try again. That I wouldn’t ask anything of her that I didn’t have full confidence in her ability to successfully do and that I will be here cheering her on and celebrating every inch of progress in the process.
I realized the people who contributed to what makes up the voice in my head now—my therapist, my close friends, safe employers, teachers—have been giving me little gifts each time they impart into my life; reinforcing the notion that I am safe here, that I can trust myself.
I can trust myself…
What a notion, eh?
I think I like this neighborhood.
(sunset from the new bridge)
(the new bridge, with a guardrail to the right and the tall suspension structure to the left)
1988- 