Today I write you in the evening time (although it's so sunny that it seems it's 16:00 instead of almost 20:40) because I've been having a lovely first real spring Saturday. It's been a beautiful day weather wise and I thought that I should enjoy it while it lasted!
Today I'm coming with a bit of a personal post to talk about disconnection.
As an aspiring dancer that's been onto this path for several years I've need to learn (and I'm still learning) to disconnect from ballet. Yes, that's a real thing and it couldn't be more beneficial although it might sound bad at first sight.
I've got inspired to talk about this after listening to Kathryn Morgan's last podcast episode where she talked openly about burnout moments and how good it was to step out for a while when a lot of things are going on and you can't see clear anymore. I really reccommend listening to it if you're interested in the perspective of a retired professional ballet dancer.
I'm extremely passionate about my profession. My mother told me "you're married to ballet" and she couldn't be more right. It's a bit of a roller coaster kinda relationship as sometimes you're in low points and you think you're doing everything wrong but suddenly everything is rearranged and you're floating in a cloud of happiness. But precisely because of that, I believe that I must allow myself to take some space because if I don't I'll get completley obsessed about it and I'll get into a very toxic relationship with the art that I fell in love with when I was just a child.
When I'm on a long vacation, specially summer break, and I'm more than three days without taking a class I start getting anxious because the first thought I have is "I'm going to lose everything I've learned and it's going to be terrible". Some years ago I would just go completely crazy to my parents begging to go to any ballet class I could get into in mid August (which is basically the month of doing absolutely nothing in Spain as everything is closed). My parents would tell me that I wasn't going to lose anything, that the body needed to rest and so on. And that's what I've been learning, specially on the last three years.
Sometimes taking a good stretch, doing a workout not ballet inspired, going on a bike ride, swimming, going for a long walk or rock climbing can be more beneficial than an actual ballet class. Actually I've noticed that my body learns some corrections after some time has passed and when I come back after holidays I can do some things that I was completely unable to coordinate the school year before. I know that actual muscular memory doesn't exist, but as a way of speaking, muscles do learn and remember. Specially when they've been learning for the past eight years.
I actually have a to do list of things completely unrelated to ballet that I would like to do and I think holidays are the perfect time to when there's a chance. I could probably share you in the future a part of it if you're ever interested!
Going back to main subject, I think it's important to talk about this as it's a bit of a tabu theme to bring up in the ballet world. All dancers are competitive. The profession is made this way but I don't believe that it should be in the wrong way. I explain: being competitive doesn't mean that you're trying to win a competition.
When you see some young dancers that are the sterotype of training more hours than anyone with a personal trainer that marks her/him special excercises and has at lesat three different private coaches plus presenting him/her to every single ballet competetion to WIN (because losing is not a possibility), you might look at yourself and sometimes think "Am I doing this wrong? Am I being too soft on myself?"
For me these kids will probably lose all energy and passion for dance once they get into late teenage years because they'll realize that they've lost a lot of their own childhood doing ballet to be perfect and not happy.
It's hard to mark where's the right balance, when is it too much or too less, but I believe that the limit is reached when you're not having any moment of real happiness anyomore. If you work hard and it still gives you some kind of reward FOR YOURSELF, then you're clearly doing it right. The moment you just see everybody in the mirror except you, it's the time to stop and think if it's actually worth it.
Being competitive can be fantastic. Learning from others that are better than you and aiming to reach their level is a wonderful motivation. But we can't forget that everyone is different and that everyone has different timings, needs and goals.
I'm not saying that we must accept lazyness and mistake it for "having a time for myself". Of course there's a clear point where you can observe a difference but we musn't punish ourselves for wanting a moment to actually disconnect.
Before a dancer, I'm a person and this is what makes me the artist I want to become. I don't know if I'm explaining myself but what I mean is that, my personality, my needs, my goals, my general well being must be taken care of by no one else but myself. If I don't care about it, if I don't listen to my own voice, I won't be able to then let myself speak through movement because there will be no motivation in myself to do so.
It's a hard subject to talk about in just one post and I'm willing to talk more about it in the future but I really felt like introducing it today and I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll leave some opinions down below as I'll be very happy to respond to your thoughts.
Tomorrow I'll visit a food festival in Karlsruhe and I'll post about the experience as soon as I arrive home. I hope you have a lovely weekend and see you tomorrow!
Love,
Muriel
Sometimes taking a good stretch, doing a workout not ballet inspired, going on a bike ride, swimming, going for a long walk or rock climbing can be more beneficial than an actual ballet class. Actually I've noticed that my body learns some corrections after some time has passed and when I come back after holidays I can do some things that I was completely unable to coordinate the school year before. I know that actual muscular memory doesn't exist, but as a way of speaking, muscles do learn and remember. Specially when they've been learning for the past eight years.
I actually have a to do list of things completely unrelated to ballet that I would like to do and I think holidays are the perfect time to when there's a chance. I could probably share you in the future a part of it if you're ever interested!
Going back to main subject, I think it's important to talk about this as it's a bit of a tabu theme to bring up in the ballet world. All dancers are competitive. The profession is made this way but I don't believe that it should be in the wrong way. I explain: being competitive doesn't mean that you're trying to win a competition.
When you see some young dancers that are the sterotype of training more hours than anyone with a personal trainer that marks her/him special excercises and has at lesat three different private coaches plus presenting him/her to every single ballet competetion to WIN (because losing is not a possibility), you might look at yourself and sometimes think "Am I doing this wrong? Am I being too soft on myself?"
For me these kids will probably lose all energy and passion for dance once they get into late teenage years because they'll realize that they've lost a lot of their own childhood doing ballet to be perfect and not happy.
It's hard to mark where's the right balance, when is it too much or too less, but I believe that the limit is reached when you're not having any moment of real happiness anyomore. If you work hard and it still gives you some kind of reward FOR YOURSELF, then you're clearly doing it right. The moment you just see everybody in the mirror except you, it's the time to stop and think if it's actually worth it.
Being competitive can be fantastic. Learning from others that are better than you and aiming to reach their level is a wonderful motivation. But we can't forget that everyone is different and that everyone has different timings, needs and goals.
I'm not saying that we must accept lazyness and mistake it for "having a time for myself". Of course there's a clear point where you can observe a difference but we musn't punish ourselves for wanting a moment to actually disconnect.
Before a dancer, I'm a person and this is what makes me the artist I want to become. I don't know if I'm explaining myself but what I mean is that, my personality, my needs, my goals, my general well being must be taken care of by no one else but myself. If I don't care about it, if I don't listen to my own voice, I won't be able to then let myself speak through movement because there will be no motivation in myself to do so.
It's a hard subject to talk about in just one post and I'm willing to talk more about it in the future but I really felt like introducing it today and I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll leave some opinions down below as I'll be very happy to respond to your thoughts.
Tomorrow I'll visit a food festival in Karlsruhe and I'll post about the experience as soon as I arrive home. I hope you have a lovely weekend and see you tomorrow!
Love,
Muriel
2 Comments
Loving your posts! xx
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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