The Dance Inside My Head

I just got home from my beginner ballet class, and it was both difficult and great. We are madly practicing for the spring recital, which is in four weeks (we only have four rehearsals to go). Our class wasn’t learning the steps at the rate my teacher wasn’t us to, so she changed things to make them much simpler, but so that it still looks cool. Today we learned this new and simply choreography (and some old choreography that I never really learned), and what has up to this point been mostly trying to move my legs and point my toes now looks like a dance.

Life can be a lot like choreography. Trying to figure it out all at once can often be overwhelming, but if we go one step at a time, we can make it to the end. In the case of my life outside ballet (ie. school), it’s one assignment at a time; one chapter at a time; one half-hour study block at a time. It’s the small steps that make up the big movements. Sometimes big things make life happen fast, but for the most part in everyday life, I find that it’s the small steps that move us forward and make what needs to happen happen.

In the world of school, the term is almost finished. Project due dates and exams are on the horizon. It can feel overwhelming (correction: it usually does), like a string of different dance steps in my mind, but it’s helpful to ask myself what I can do with my time right now. I can’t finish everything at once, but I can read my book, or write part of a paper, or answer a few questions in a half hour. I can even stretch for ballet. Anything helpful is good, and I don’t have to get down on myself if I miss the mark. I can just start from now and do what I can – taking it one step at a time.

I know that’s probably so cliché sounding, but tonight at ballet I really did literally have to take it one step at a time. The choreography that all the dancers were doing has now been made into a duet for another dancer and me. Thus, it was revealed to everyone that I didn’t know the steps, or even how to start this particular section of the dance. I was pretty much clueless, because I had been focusing mainly on trying to do the section right (which was pretty much a flustered flurry of trying to follow along) instead of taking a deep breath, breaking it down, and concentrating on every step.  The thing about that is that when you know every step, you can put them all together into the dance, and it looks fine; but when you don’t know the steps separately, there is no dance. It was embarrassing when I was singled out because I wasn’t dancing, but I had to stop trying to swallow this whole particular section of the dance (ie. expecting myself to know it all right away) and learn each step separately. That can be humili….. –izing? Something halfway between humiliating and humbling. Hehe. We went through it quite a bit and I got better as I tried to focus less on looking kind of right and just learning each step separately. I also asked for help at the end from my teacher, which was great. And now I know what to do.

I like how the lessons I learn in ballet tend to correlate to the rest of my life. Today I started my day feeling so overwhelmed with my various assignments that I quit and didn’t do any work. It was a setback for sure. I thought I should be doing everything at once (not literally, but I got stressed out over everything I had to do instead of taking one bite at a time), and I probably don’t have to say that I can’t juggle very well. So I dropped all the tasks and went and released stressed on Pinterest with a friend (Pinterest is both a blessing and a curse sometimes…). It was the same thing as the steps that I couldn’t do it class; I wasn’t focusing on one at a time, so I went nowhere. I am getting back on track now, mainly due to this real life metaphor and how God has been hammering it into my head. I like how God uses ballet to teach me things that aren’t as obvious to me in real life (or things that I know but sometimes ignore. I really do know that I can’t juggle assignments, but I just didn’t listen to reason today…). It’s pretty sweet. In September I was wrestling over whether to do ballet or not, because it cost extra money, and I felt like I wasn’t getting any answer from God – but He’s ended up using it a lot to teach me both big and small concepts. It has been an amazing thing for me. God is very creative. J

And one note to my future self: even if it looks hard, try! It's better (and more productive) than doing nothing.

So whether your steps are literal or figurative ones, it is so often way more manageable to take them in stride. We don’t have eight feet, and can’t multitask eight things at once (unless maybe you’re a mom of a young child? I’ve heard that they can be very adept at multitasking J), and less stress usually = better decisions. I’m glad to have had this demonstrated to me in a literal way. Next time, I won’t forget. Hehe. Object lesson complete. Onward!

P.S. I feel so sore right now, but it is awesome! I feel like I got a workout from this class, and that we squeezed as much as we could have out of it. We learned a lot more of our dance, and just in time! Only four rehearsals to go!

P.P.S. I like blogging more regularly, and I think it’s a good release. Sometimes I have thoughts and no where to put them, and other times I need to put thoughts into words so that I understand them myself. Hence, a blog! I will probably be posting more regularly.