An Enemy in Ballet Class

Strangely, I want to write about people I hate more than people I like. They are more fascinating, and aversion is intersting when you think about it.

There is this woman in one of my Saturday classes. Let's call her Goody-pointe-shoes.

I HATE HER.

It is an unreasonable, exaggerated hatred. She never hurt me or did anything to me. She just... kind of rubs me the wrong way. There are many little things, but mainly this: She thinks she is good. And she is not.

She doesn't say much, but when she does, it is something along the line of: I know this and that, I have done this and that. Her facial expression is always smug. When she doesn't get a combination, she blames the teacher, I see it in her face. She laughs disdainfully and doesn't try again. She is always wearing thick legwarmers on her calves, even on the hottest summer afternoon. She recently started showing up to class in pointe shoes. Gaynors.

It all doesn't sound so bad. I just seem to be allergic to her. So much that when I see her, I want to strike her. And no, I am not crazy.

When I first came to the class, I thought she was much more advanced just from her bearing and her expression. Until I watched her actually do ballet recently (because I noticed she annoyed me), and saw that she was... not. She's rather bad. Her movements are limp, she appears weak and soft. This actually made me really happy. If she WERE good, she'd be insufferable. As it is, I KNOW I am better than she, although she of course doesn't see it. Now, I have no problem with people who are better than me. Lots of people are, I am still more of a beginner after all. But naturally I want to have an advantage over people I hate.

What I tend to do, when I hate somebody, is the opposite of my instinct: I am nice to the person, chat with them, get to know them. In a way, that gives me power over them. They don't know I dislike them. But I know things about them. Who was it that said to keep your enemies closer than your friends? U-oh, this makes me sound like a creepy stalker!

The thing is, I detest confrontation. And often, the person in question never hurt me in any way. I just dislike the way they are. I have no excuse to be anything but nice. Getting to know them also satisfies some weird curiosity: I need to know what they are up to, to know where I stand with them, how much and why I can dislike them.

In this case, I wanted to know how long and how often she had been dancing, and where. So I asked her last week. She wasn't unfriendly, but smug. Well, just VERY confident and a little patronizing. She has only been dancing for a little more than one and a half years. (HA) Already en pointe. She goes to other teachers, somewhere at Deep Well. She asked me (meanly, I thought) whether Franca didn't teach anymore because I kept coming to this class. I said truthfully that I just liked Rosanna as a teacher. And that the (beginner) class now was actually more difficult than Franca's because Rosanna advances much faster. She then immediately added that this class was actually too easy for her, and she just came to do it en pointe. Gah!

The class was a whole other matter, but more on that later.

Do we have to choose?

Lately, I have been wondering whether being a passionate ballet amateur means remaining single.

I'm not one of those desperate women who feel incomplete without a man. No, I have been feeling very complete lately, despite being single. I don't know anything else. And that's exactly what I have been a little worried about.

Ok. Two things.

First: Will I - provided I find that elusive thing called mutual love - be able to adjust myself to him? Will I want to be with him often enough to satisfy him? Or will I want to get away a lot to walk and dream and write and think by myself? Will I be able to sleep with another person in my bed? To plan my days with him in mind, and maybe even his family? At the moment, while I long to be in love and experience this part of life that has passed me by so far, I also feel like it would be a great strain, and too stressful to keep up.

When I imagine myself in love and happy with a boyfriend, a part of me already imagines the end, and coming back in relief to the solitude I know.

And, secondly: What about ballet? Right now, I have class five days a week, and I would do more if I had classes available (and more money). A boyfriend might want to see me longer than an hour between work and class, or class and bed. I fear being torn between two loves once I HAVE two loves.

I fear being so much in love that I will give up dance and lose all my hard-earned skills. But I also fear being alone forever, never knowing true love. I don't want either.

I love ballet because it calls to me. Because it is a way of experiencing beauty not only in my soul, but also in my body. But it is an expression of joy and love, life-affirming things. It should not require sacrificing another, (I imagine) equally beautiful and uplifting part of my life: human love.
The few amateurs I know of who are as obsessed with ballet as I am, Johanna from Pointe till you drop, Rebecca from Twitter and Dave who tries ballet, all appear to be single. Is it impossible to combine love, intense ballet and work?

Maybe it could work if I find a man who dances, too. But since all the guys in my classes are slightly creepy... I'll pass for the moment.

Somebody saw - Part Two

(This is the second part of a post about a very special moment, a milestone in my life, I believe. Part one  here)


She said: 'This weight of yours is only like an armour, and inside it is the real you. A dancer.'

I think that was the moment the tears came to my eyes. Maybe because I was still a little shaken by my emotions in class, but mostly because it was a moment of truth.

SHE KNEW. 
SHE SAW. 

I said yes, through my tears. 'Yes, I feel it. Sometimes, when I listen to music and I just want to... ' here I made an opening gesture with my arms '... come out and... '

There are no words for it. 

BUT SHE UNDERSTANDS.

I saw it in her face. She understands, because she is a dancer. 

More tears came.

Then she added: Sometimes I see glimpses of it, in the way you lift your arm at the barre for example.
Don't let your shyness stop you, don't let self-doubt stop you.

I nodded again.

SHE KNOWS.

In those small beginning movements, I often dare to 'open myself'.
But then my courage fails me.


She also said it was a pity I couldn't jump.
I said yes, but that I wanted to dance all my life and not ruin my joints. And that I hoped one day I'd be light enough to jump.

Melanie: 'Maybe you will one day be allowed to jump, then you will be able to feel the pressure of your feet against the floor when you take off, and you will feel weightless for a moment in the air. It is a wonderful feeling.'

I nodded, smiling.

I KNOW, I wanted to say. I never did those jumps, but I KNOW how it feels. 

Melanie also said: 'If you hold yourself back, the class will only do so much for your feet and legs, your strength etc. But if you dare to let go...
Do come more often to my class. I am always wondering, will Alienor be here today? And if you are not, I am disappointed. I really like you.'


Then she told me about her trouble, something to do with her husband's job, which was making her tense and irritable. She apologized for the way she had behaved in class. She had just suddenly felt as if all her effort to give a great class was unappreciated. So she grew very angry and just gave easy combinations as I wrote above. But she didn't blame me, although I had made as many mistakes. I still don't know who she meant, we were all trying.


Well. That was a milestone moment. At last, I have proof. I am not imagining things. I do have this deep love of music and movement, and it is evident. I am not fooling myself.

Everything I have experienced so far, all the suffering, all the joy, have brought me here.

I can't wait for what is still to come. It is scary, but exciting.


Four years ago, (after taking classes for two months) I wrote this in my diary, after an open house day at a dance school where I'd taken five different classes. It came to my mind just now. The moment I first truly realized it for myself:

"... After ballet I went to African Dance. A tall, beautiful African taught that class. The music was wonderful, almost only drums. I longed to just dance to it, and in fact the teacher told us to, in pairs. But I didn't feel ready yet...

But then he taught us steps, and slowly put together a dance. I was not always fast enough, but the stomping and bending felt wonderful. He told us to forget goals, to think only of dancing, to smile. He said every body was different, so we couldn't all dance the same way. It was important to dance, not to do everything right. A child came in and started dancing right away. The teacher immediately invited it in. It was a young girl, and in the end, when we had to improvise, she just jumped and jumped and shouted with joy.

This lesson especially made me feel keenly that I am a dancer, under all my fat, behind all my fears. And I will set myself free and dance until my dying day. ... "

Somebody saw - Part One

I had the strangest ballet class this morning. I've never felt so bad in class before, not even at the opera this summer where the teacher didn't demonstrate and just mumbled a barely audible stream of complicated combinations and I was totally lost and sat out the whole centre and the class was full of pre-pros and pros.

It was a small class, only five students. This russian girl and Marianne who are less advanced than I, and Carla and Maria who are more advanced.
Our teacher, Melanie, got suddenly angry for no apparent reason other than some of us making mistakes. She stopped speaking and only demonstrated, and gave the simplest, most basic combinations like four battements en croix etc. I picked up on her anger immediately and felt really bad. I couldn't believe a teacher was behaving like this. It worried me and made me feel bad and after some time, angry.

The result was that I was at first really unconcentrated, then close to tears, even blinking while stretching, and then just plain furious. I made lots of mistakes, wich made me feel stupid and guilty for maybe feeding her anger, and that made everything worse still. One exercise I just didn't do on the left, because i felt like a fool attempting something difficult while she just stared. I didn't want to expose myself in this atmosphere.

After class, everybody left right away. I wanted to stretch and did so, even though Melanie was still there sorting her CDs. Then she came over to me.

Here I must write down something I have been wanting to write about for some time. It is important for what happened today:

Lately, while listening to beautiful music, there has been a feeling inside me, of the most intense longing. I have known it for years, but it has got so much stronger lately, so that I am often close to tears. It feels as if I want to burst, as if I want to sing and dance and jump and fly up to the sky and play all the instruments of the world at once, because the music is so powerful.

To dance is no longer enough, even if I were the best dancer in the world. I want to dissolve and BECOME the music.

When I am alone, and sometimes in class, especially when I feel unwatched, I can let myself express some of the delight of the music through my movements. It is EXQUISIT.
I love myself in those moments, and the world and all the things in it.

I have often wondered if this love is visible to others. Does Franca see it? She never comments.


Mrs. H said sometimes, when I did something like this on rare occasions, that I deeply moved her. At the time this scared me.


I don't remember what Melanie said word for word, but in essence this is what happened:

So, after this crazy class Melanie came over to me - I was stretching on the floor - and said (and she didn't sound angry at all anymore): Alienor, you work so intelligently. Much more intelligently than the others, by the way. I see that you UNDERSTAND. But your problem is that you are too shy, you are afraid.

Here I nodded. I got up. It seemed more fitting.

Then she said: You need to trust me. I trust you, Alienor. Do you trust me?

I said yes, although at the moment I was still a little angry with her. But in general, it was true.

She said: There is a dancer within you, waiting to come out. But you need to trust me and to trust yourself. Don't hide.

She had already said something like that once before, in August. It had made me very happy then.

I answered that sometimes it was difficult with my weight, sometimes I'd see myself in the mirror and not like how something looked, and then I'd hold back. I told her I was trying to lose weight.

Melanie said that she knew, and that mirrors made us look at ourselves in a bad light, only seeing faults.
She said that when she'd been a dancer, she'd been very skinny, but she STILL felt fat, and always compared herself to the girls next to her.

It was in her head. She had no self-confidence to speak of. And that she was now trying to get rid of that, and it was SO important. To appreciate yourself...

Part two of this post

Sisters! A Rant.

I am furious right now. My little sister, Sina, is the most hateful, rude and humourless bitch person I ever met. I had such a lovely evening, a cosy chat in the kitchen with my mother, a little harp practice session, some tv-watching in the dusk. I was looking forward to the first family meal since last Sunday's breakfast. But she had to go and be horribly rude to me because I said something (and I am absolutely certain Diane got that it was meant as a humorous reference, although she denied it later and took Sina's part as always), and threaten to throw her food into my face (!) if I mentioned it again. She is 21, by the way, and, apparently, intelligent. This set off Papa, who began to scream at the top of his voice, like a mindless ape, that we should be quiet (how ironic!). I was so ashamed of him. And angry with Sina. She has been rude to me for weeks, but especially tonight. Everything I say or do sets her off, and her reactions are totally disproportionate to any (perceived) annoyances or insults.

I am not without faults, but this is going too far. I REFUSE to be spoken to like that. I walked away and stopped my ears with music in my room. In between songs I heard them arguing in the kitchen. Papa is still behaving like a petulant child, banging things apparently because I told him there was no need to scream like a mindless ape (it is true!).

Really, I had NO intention of offending or criticizing Sina. I made a humorous comment about her old, faded and tattered polar fleece jacket, which I had been objecting to for years. Last winter, I had been serious. I thought it was not fit to be worn anymore. But not this time. If I search my feelings, I was really just joking. I know by now that I will never be able to make Sina change her mind about something if I criticize or scold her.

I don't know what is the matter with her. But it doesn't matter whether she is afraid of something, in love, stressed or sad, as long as she doesn't tell us that something is wrong, she has no right to behave like that. If she came and told me she was having a difficult time and that was the reason for her short temper, I would make allowances. But I feel like she has been like this for the past two to three years. And lately, it has got really bad. When I ask her, she says everything is all right.

I just thought of something: What if it is my weight loss? She has been putting on quite a bit of weight over the last years, and I have been losing weight since the spring. Maybe she is jealous. Diane sometimes appears to be jealous, too. She is thin though, but her face is plain and she has very low self-esteem... Hmmm. I need to think about that.

I would rather become thin and have my sisters be mean to me than the other way around. I am working and making my own money. I am dancing a lot. I am taking an interest in my appearance. I am getting more confident and grown-up. I am thinking, and singing and enjoying life. They might resent that, but I won't tone myself down to make them comfortable. At last, I am learning to be who I really am. And adding to who I am. I will not be stopped.

From now on, I will watch my every word to my sisters. I'll make it a game. I'll show off a little, but make it appear to be completely unconscious. It'll be fun. Let's see what will happen tomorrow.

Break

I did not write anymore for a long time, not just on the blog, but also in my journal.
For a time, I was feeling bad, afraid, depressed, unconscious. I fought with my negative thinking habits.

My feet were hurting in ballet, overuse I think. It just seemed so HARD. Ballet felt unnatural, the posture and turnout a distortion. Why was I dancing, if there was no joy anymore? I stopped.
Told my teachers I had to heal my injuries, had knee pain. While before I had been on ballet blogs and forums every day, drinking in the knowledge, I now was bored by them. It worried me a little. Where had all my passion gone? I didn't dance for two months. I never missed it. There was just this mild curiosity when or if it would return, my inner dancer. I did some strength work on the Power Plate, some cardio on the stationary bike, and stretching, of course. Flexibility was too nice to lose. 

I don't remember how my appetite for ballet returned, but it returned. I took easy classes again, then added more and more. During my obligatory Summer break at work I even took a week-long intensive. Over four hours a day, that was intense. But also wonderful! My achilles tendons complained, but with ice and creams it was manageable. And I have been training more intensely since those weeks, losing weight, and seeing some progress. Less fear in pirouettes, more freedom of movement. I would so love to jump, and learn pointe. But I need to wait until my weight is safe. 

After trying to change my beliefs about food, which didn't really work because those principles have been hammered into my head from my youth, I tried a new approach. Abraham said, and it makes sense to me, that the food was not what made us fat, but the thought about the food. That is why different people can have the same diet and yet see radically different results. So, I said to myself: Why not try to eat more things I believe are going to make me thin. No strict rules, just follow your emotions. So I tried it and it has become sort of a habit. The more I think this food or that food will make me thin or even just be NOT HARMFUL, the better I feel eating it and the better it makes my body feel. Recently, I saw a number on the scale I had not seen for eight years. My face is prettier, my leg goes higher, my feet feel stronger, I have energy, I have a waist! It's wonderful. I don't punish myself, I don't go hungry, I eat cake and cheese and butter and chocolate and fast food. But I also try to eat more good protein, whole grain, "alive" things. I drink rivers of water, it flows through me and keeps my thoughts and movements fluid.

The better it gets, the better it gets. My life is going well in other areas, as well. I enjoy my job, feel more secure. I rediscovered my harp and began making music. I got an iPod and have been listening to beautiful music. I had a beautiful summer, with biking and swimming and dancing and dreaming. I got a light tan which becomes me well, my hair curls around my face like silk. I got pearls and perfumes and adorn and adore myself. I filled my soul with the sound of the sea, the beauty of the stars and the sunrise. I discovered my thoughts, in times when I wasn't online reading other's thoughts. I read books again, good books that inspire me and enrich everything. Creativity is waking up inside me. The people from stories I used to make up in my head have come back, and my mind is overflowing with lovely prospects for new stories. Love and tenderness are part of these stories, and while they are not yet part of my own reality, I am happy to wait. I imagine how wonderful it will be, the first true love. It will come, everything good will come to me in time. 

The good thing

My flat was given to someone else. I am very disappointed, but don't want to dwell on that.

Let's focus on the good thing: My new bed has arrived! It came on Monday. I was so excited, and all morning time seemed to crawl. Then finally, around one o'clock the company called saying they were on their way. I let them in, they started unwrapping the bed and putting on the feet when they noticed that the fifth foot in the middle of the bed was missing. They had to go back to get it. But I was already late for work, so I reluctantly left (my mother was home to supervise things) and went to work, where I couldn't concentrate all afternoon. On the way home, I tried to imagine what my room looked like with the new bed, but somehow I couldn't.

When I entered my room the bed seemed HUGE. It is only a double bed, but my room is small and the bed is very high. I took off my shoes and threw myself down on it - heaven.
Then of course my sisters had to try it, and my father, and our dog. They all liked it, but said it was very soft (the dog didn't mind). Well, that's.the.point! It's soft but due to the amount of springs you are well supported.

Unfortunately the fitted bed skirt was not finished, so they lent me a ready-made one until it arrives. The one I chose is off-white, but the replacement skirt is brown. And a little short. But it's only for a month, so that's okay.

But now, the most important question: How did I sleep? Well, the first night I woke all the time, because that's the way it is in any strange bed I sleep in. I was also hot, because the topper has wool in it, as does the duvet. But the second and third night were wonderful. Sleeping so deeply that you can't remember what day it is on waking is a good sign, right? It really felt as if I had come back from another world. I am so happy. And going to bed is a joy now, not a nuisance.

There will be pictures as soon as I find my camera...