fear and loathing in ballet class

Today I became a ballerina. At the tender young age of 27, I decided to take my first ever ballet class at a sweet little studio near my home, and I've just spent an hour and a half working muscles I didn't even know I had. Suffice it to say I now have a new appreciation for all the dainty, graceful, and seemingly effortless performances I've seen done by all ballerinas, prima or otherwise. (Whether you're center stage in the spotlight or way in the back holding up a piece of the set, those moves are hard!!)

My dance drug of choice thus far in my life has been BharathaNatyam, a form of Classical Indian dance that I love, and which has some striking similarities to the basic forms of ballet. When my new teacher - a precious and yummy-smelling woman named Benedicte - discovered I already had a foundation in movement, she launched right into the complicated stuff. "Great," I thought delightedly; "Bring it on."

So she did. Big time. And somewhere in between the demi-plie arabesque and the petit battement sur le cou-de-pied (I didn't actually do this one; I just think the name sounds awesome!!), my two most familiar fears entered my brain: fear of learning something new, and fear of working really hard to become good at it. We've become quite close, those fears and I, and they drop in to say hello on a regular basis. We have tea and crumpets, and, like all good risk-management personnel, they keep me safe. It's nice. 

And boring.

This evening, as luck would have it, my brain was quite preoccupied by the tasks at hand, so, try as they might, those fears could not get my full attention. And what happened as a result was fascinating: they went away. Bit by bit, thought by thought, they diminished until they finally disappeared. As they got smaller, my joy got bigger. My focus increased. My desire to learn - and my commitment to learning - went through the roof. And I was completely present in those beautiful moments of my life. The best part was, when I missed a step, the world did not fall off its axis. Nor did everyone point and laugh. Life went on, I kept up, and I loved it.

I am now the proud owner of a 10-class pass. Time to buy a tutu.