How Dance Influences My Life
A paper written when I was a college freshman.
(I stumbled across this paper tonight and decided that there was no better blog and no better way to word it than the paper I already wrote. The sentiments have not changed a bit. The only thing that has changed is the time gone by since the events mentioned)
I can hardly remember a time when dance wasn’t a major part of my life, but my mom does. She often speaks of my first month of dance classes. I was two years old and amazingly shy. Each week, my mother would bring me to the studio and each week, I’d stand in the corner, motionless and silent, staring at the walls and refusing to dance. My mother, a dancer herself, often cried after we left the studio. She refused to believe that her daughter wouldn’t love to dance as much as she did. After about a month of paying for lessons that I wasn’t taking, my mother decided to give it one last try. Luckily, that week was the week that I decided to dance.
When I walked into the studio that morning, I got into the circle with all the other students. When asked to define the different French ballet terms, I shouted them loudly and proudly. It was as though I had needed some time to absorb everything that was being thrown at me before I could decide whether or not I liked dancing. From that day on, dance became a part of my daily life.
I’ve often said that “everything I know, I learned at dance” and this is true. Dancing certainly has changed my life. One of the most important things that dance taught me was to have a positive body image. My dance studio was the center of a series of news articles called, “Thin Is Not Always In For Dancers.” At my dance studio, no one was turned away because of size, fitness level, lack of natural talent, or because of a learning disability. My dance teacher takes the time to help every student. She teaches a weekly class for the mentally challenged, she teaches a class for adults, she’s had deaf students and students with down syndrome. From a very early age, I’ve wanted to have the same effect on people as she does. I learned early on that everyone should be treated equally and that no one should be denied help or education for any reason.
One of my best friends has been very overweight and pre-diabetic since she was born. I met her at dance class. When we were little, she really enjoyed dancing. Unfortunately, she didn’t love to practice and she hated how she looked in costumes. After seven or eight years of dancing, she quit. I never thought that it was fair for her to have to quit something she liked because of her size. Recently, she decided to come back to dance. She’s so much happier now and for the first time in her life, I can see an air of confidence surrounding her. Even when she had chosen to quit, no one gave up on her and she was welcomed back to the studio with open arms as soon as she decided to come back.
Dance also taught me discipline. When I was a little girl, it was up to my mother to make sure that I practiced daily. She would call me into the family room, put the tape into the stereo, and make me practice my dances and steps until I got them right. As I got older, my mother slowly started to leave practicing to me. I quickly learned that if I didn’t practice, I didn’t dance as well. I also realized that if I made a mistake, it effected the entire class, not just me. Taking responsibility, I began to set aside time every day to practice. I learned time management skills, diligence, and how to work with others.
For me, being in a dance class was like being on a sports team. For the first time in my life, I was socializing and learning how to make friends. Many of my best friends and I met through dance. I was always the youngest one in my class. I had to learn to act more mature than my age, and how to socialize with the other kids. I needed to learn not to monopolize conversations and I needed to learn to control what I said. As I moved from level to level, I often left my friends behind and had to make new ones, while remaining friendly with my old class. There were so many challenges that I had to overcome, but with each challenge came a skill that has helped me in my everyday life.
When I was little, my favorite thing to tell my dance teacher was that I couldn’t do something. It was no coincidence that she loathed the idea of not being able to do something. As a way to boost my self-confidence, she came up with a new rule. Each time I said, “I can’t” or any variation of that statement, I owed her a quarter. At first, those quarters built up quickly. After awhile, I stopped saying that I couldn’t, so that I could keep my money. Eventually, I began to believe that “I could.” When she had made her point, she gave me back all the quarters and I was able to see how much my confidence level had changed.
Perhaps most importantly, dancing is a way for me to release my emotions and to have a good time. When I’m having a bad day, I dance better than I usually do. I throw myself into my dancing and a burst of serotonin rushes to my brain. I’ve always used dance as a way of controlling my depression and hyper-anxiety disorder. As a young girl, I always asked my mom if I could take cheerleading, gymnastics, horseback riding, swimming, and many other lessons. Each time, she told me that I could, but I’d have to quit dancing. I never took her up on this offer.
Recently, dancing has been difficult for me. I’ve always had to struggle against a birth defect in my left knee. Since I was seven or eight years old, I’ve danced with a knee brace and have had to “alter” steps to favor my bad leg. All I ever wanted to do was dance en pointe. My mother had always said that my leg wasn’t strong enough. Finally, I found a physical therapist who had been a prima ballerina in a New Jersey dance company. She treated me for several years, until she felt I was ready to go en pointe. The next weekend, I went shoe shopping. I never felt the pain in my toes, feet, or legs; I was too excited to notice it.
Another recent obstacle for me has been my increasing health problems. Beginning in the tenth grade, I began to have trouble doing simple things, like walking around and getting out of a chair. Obviously, this meant that I couldn’t dance. I fell into a deep depression, believing that I had lost the one thing that made me whole. In the beginning, I was going to dance class and watching from the corner. This quickly got to be too much for me, and I requested to stay home. If I had any doubts as to how important dancing was to me, they were quickly squashed.
I began dancing again, slowly, trying to move through the pain. I knew I wasn’t back to the dancer I had been, but I still felt wonderful being able to do it again. I’ve danced with tears brimming in my eyes, but I refuse to give up something that I love. The toughest thing I ever had to do was take a break from dancing. When I was sick, I’d throw the music on and, while lying in bed, I’d move my feet and practice my dances, hoping to do them again in class soon. When I had MRI’s and CAT scans, I’d keep my headphones in, playing my dance music, and would take two of my fingers and, holding the rest of my body very still, would turn them into legs and would practice my dances. One of my nurses once told me that I was the first patient she had that slept with perfect turnout.
My mom and my dance teacher are best friends. Through my mom, my dance teacher has become a second mother to me. She teaches me more about life than all my school teachers ever did. She loves all of her students, yells at us because she cares, and hugs us when we’re sad. She was there for me when my Great Grandmother died, and she was there a year later when my Grandmother died. I know she’ll be there for me as long as I live. She has influenced my life because I want to be just like her. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to make an impact on everyone I meet. Like her, I want to change the world, one person at a time.
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