I haven't blogged in awhile. Sorry. I've been busy writing actual stories so blogging only gets used lately when I'm stuck.
Hello. My name is Stuck.
Sigh.
This weekend I went with my coworkers to Fluid Dance Convention. We didn't have to go very far--it was downtown. But we still got a hotel room at the Graves 601. That place is really, really nice. I loved it. Of course I couldn't stop thinking about the Twins because Justin and Krista Morneau are the spokespeople for the Graves, and our room on the 16th floor directly overlooked Target Field. I was wishing it was not covered in snow. I was going to take more pictures of the room before 4 girls messed it up, but I forgot. I only took pictures of the view.
The convention was kind of an emotional roller coaster for me. I started off Saturday morning feeling okay, but a little bit out of my league. A lot of the kids that were there were really, really good. And I hadn't danced with my coworkers before, outside of our classes, and it's different when you have an award winning master coreographer teaching your class instead of your friends.
It's also a lot different when your new teacher asks you to do moves that you've never done--but everyone else in the room has. You don't feel like explaining that even though you took dance for 16 years your teacher was apparently crap because she never taught you how to do this stuff. And now you look like an idiot.
It became really apparent to me that my coworkers spend 20-30 hours a week in the studio when they were teenagers and I did not. I would have loved to, but my parents were not willing. So I got very jiped.
Our main teacher for the weekend, Lynne, both helped and hurt me. I should say she helped me a ton. She's probably fixed the entire rest of my career. But it was a painful process.
Lynne learned 10 rules for dancers from a friend and it's fixed all the issues in her studio. She explained that everyone thinks their center is over their heels. It's actually over the balls of your feet. And if you're having trouble with your tricks, it's because your center is too far back. There were other rules too, things I've never applied or even heard of.
So I have now learned that everything I've been doing for the past 16 years, everything I know (the few things I did) is wrong.
I have to re-learn EVERYTHING. All the things my body wants to do, all my habits are wrong.
At first I was upset that I hadn't heard this sooner. Then I felt better because I thought it would take an hour or maybe 5 minutes to fix and apply her techniques.
Um, not so much.
So then I felt worse because I couldn't seem to get it.
My coworker and I took her Turns & Leaps class at the end of the day. I thought it would be easy--she said if we applied her techniques we would be doing 4-6 pirouettes in a row by the end of the night.
Nope. My coworker is going great guns and I am going nowhere. She's clearly better than me. But supposedly if I can apply this stuff, I can do it too.
Only I can't apply it. I can't seem to retrain my body to do this stuff. I am falling all over the room like an ass trying to turn. Oh I'm not the only one, but it sure feels like it.
I managed to finish the class with maybe a C. We did the most ridiculous turning and leaping combination you've ever seen. Filled with more leaps I was never trained how to do and just had to guess. I was kind of upset, but at least happy I finished the class.
Then this morning in lyrical, it all went to hell.
I felt like I couldn't do anything. I couldn't remember her coreography, I couldn't do it, it was awful. What made it really glaring was that there were only 4 other people in the class so everything I was doing wrong was really glaring because they were all getting it. Everyone else could remember what she'd taught in 30 seconds and I couldn't. I felt completely retarted. We did tricks I'd never done in my life. But I felt like I should have been able to do them anyway.
After that lyrical class I felt like a complete failure. I couldn't believe I spent 16 years of my life dancing, it felt like a waste. I didn't even know what I was doing there. I thought seriously about going home and quitting dance all together (not my job, just dancing). I should probably preface this by saying I love lyrical and it's pretty much my favorite style and I have actually done it before (albiet more simple) so I felt like I should be good at it. I thought I WAS good at it, until Lynne and her intense coreography got ahold of me. Then I realized I didn't know jack shit about it.
It didn't help me that right after lyrical we had contemporary. I hate contemporary. I didn't like it before, but now I really hate it. So I already had a bad attitude because of what happened at lyrical, and then I have to do contemporary, where I have to pretend I'm a clock and do all these seizure-like motions to a song by a Swedish techno group called Mum, "Smell Memory."
Yeah. "Smell Memory" is a "song" about a clock. There are no lyrics. It's different beats and a ticking clock sound. The kind of stuff I hate. Mum also has other lovely classics such as "I Can't Feel My Hand Anymore, It's All Right, Sleep Still" and "I Was Her Horse" and my own personal favorite, "They Make Frogs Smoke 'Till They Exploded."
No I didn't make those up. Look it up on iTunes. I'm not sure if they're trying to be sarcastic or what.
So I spent an hour pretending to be a clock. When I was already upset. I won't say it was a waste or I'm upset I wasted an hour of my life--it was a good learning experience.
I learned I really hate contemporary.
We went to lunch. I brooded. We had a class where we sat around and discussed studio stuff. I brooded.
Then we had one class left for the day--lyrical from Lynne, for the seniors (high school age kids). We were going to take it even though we were "teachers." (I'm not technically a teacher). I wasn't sure I wanted to take it after that morning. I was still wondering what the hell I was doing even dancing, much less going back to lyrical, a style that until that morning I'd loved.
So I sat and watched for a bit, watching her coreography. It was really similar to her dance from this morning, same elements, different song and different order.
Finally I just snapped and thought "I'm going to do this. I'm going to take this class and learn this coreography no matter what it looks like."
And it clicked. It actually clicked. Apparently I needed a few hours to digest the morning class. I felt like I could do it, passibly, and I actually turned the easilest, most natural double pirouette I've ever done in my life! (my main issue is my spot--I keep losing it. And as Lynne says, "you can't drive a car anywhere if you can't see where you're going")
So I went right back to loving lyrical and realizing that I was not the only one who was struggeling. That I just needed to go back and practice this stuff so I can do it. I realized that most people couldn't do this stuff to save their life--and the fact that I can passibly do it having never been taught it means I can do this. I am meant to be here.
Sometimes all it takes is to get even one move that you know is super hard and just have it feel like it's the easiest thing you've ever done in your life. It's an amazing feeling.
I should be really tired now, but instead I'm wired and I have still been dancing since I got home, even though I am completely black and blue. I have bruises everywhere. It's wonderful :) I can't believe people who say dance is not a sport and it's easy. They obviously have never done it. I'm just as beat up as a football player or anyone else who plays a contact sport. If you don't believe it you can look at the pictures.
