![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Last night in class, a student told me that she got frustrated because the transitions between her moves were not as fluent as she wanted them to be. She asked me:'what can I do to improve my transitions? I feel so clumsy and frustrated all the time!'. I know what it feels like, I get frustrated by my perceived lack of skills every day! And by being anxious and angry at myself, I stop focusing on what I am trying to learn and things turn into a hot mess of angst that doesn't work out for anyone involved.
1. get real
We all want to be perfect. We all want to be as good as the person teaching the class and we forget that that person has years and years of training and experience that we don't have. I started classical ballet at the age of 28 and I will never ever be able to do the effortless double pirouette that my teacher is showing us so casually as an example. I remind myself that for my level of experience, being able to make a distinction between a tour en dedans and a tour en dehors is a big accomplishment. Let alone being able to sort of make those turns.
2.you are a winner for trying
Feeling incompetent is one of the worst feelings that we can have. It hits the core of our being, our wish to be good at what we do. You are a winner the moment you try something new because it is victory over not trying it at all. So what if you start piano lessons at age 60, just have a go at it.
3. failing is how we get better
A while back, we did turns during ballet class. I was having one of those days where everything went wrong and the harder I tried, the more mistakes I made. Right in the middle of practicins turns, I fell flat on my face. I admit to crying just a little right there and then. That is how I learned that when I am emotionally unbalanced, I should not try to push myself harder during a class as it works against me. that was a hard lesson that will stick with me. We learn by making mistakes.
I am not in a place where I can let go of my frustration each and every time, but I am getting there. As for the student in my class, I replied: 'Learning to dancing is like learning to write. You might feel frustrated that you can't write supercalifragilisticexplalidocious in one fluent motion. You had three classes and in those first classes you are learning how to write the letters of the alphabet. Give yourself time to learn and soon enough you'll realize that you can write words and that the words are getting longer.'
1. get real
We all want to be perfect. We all want to be as good as the person teaching the class and we forget that that person has years and years of training and experience that we don't have. I started classical ballet at the age of 28 and I will never ever be able to do the effortless double pirouette that my teacher is showing us so casually as an example. I remind myself that for my level of experience, being able to make a distinction between a tour en dedans and a tour en dehors is a big accomplishment. Let alone being able to sort of make those turns.
2.you are a winner for trying
Feeling incompetent is one of the worst feelings that we can have. It hits the core of our being, our wish to be good at what we do. You are a winner the moment you try something new because it is victory over not trying it at all. So what if you start piano lessons at age 60, just have a go at it.
3. failing is how we get better
A while back, we did turns during ballet class. I was having one of those days where everything went wrong and the harder I tried, the more mistakes I made. Right in the middle of practicins turns, I fell flat on my face. I admit to crying just a little right there and then. That is how I learned that when I am emotionally unbalanced, I should not try to push myself harder during a class as it works against me. that was a hard lesson that will stick with me. We learn by making mistakes.
I am not in a place where I can let go of my frustration each and every time, but I am getting there. As for the student in my class, I replied: 'Learning to dancing is like learning to write. You might feel frustrated that you can't write supercalifragilisticexplalidocious in one fluent motion. You had three classes and in those first classes you are learning how to write the letters of the alphabet. Give yourself time to learn and soon enough you'll realize that you can write words and that the words are getting longer.'
