My dance training experience is limited, I took a class when I was four, then a beginning class as a freshman in college, but aside from those brief moments of training, I have spent most of my time “faking it until I make it”, something which is usually not advised when your desired career requires an extensive knowledge of dance usually only found in official training. This semester, I committed myself to start that training, partially in a class with a professor and partially self-taught through videos and other resources I have collected. While I can acknowledge that I am starting my training later than most people who dance, I wanted to start regardless because I wanted to become better in my career path and because it was a skill I had always wanted to pursue, but had not been given the adequate space to pursue it. Despite my ability to acknowledge this, I quickly became frustrated in my classes. My body couldn’t move like others in the class, no matter how hard I tried to push it to. My muscles had not been trained in the ways needed for the types of dance like others had. In front of my dance studio’s mirror, I felt incapable and, to put it simply and truthfully, I felt ugly. This feeling was all the more frustrating because dance had always made me feel powerful and beautiful, now it made me feel weak.
That feeling has not yet gone away, but that’s okay. While I shouldn’t compare myself to others, I am allowed to feel weak and ugly because that is just how I feel about it right now. I need to acknowledge that I do not feel good about my current skill level because pretending everything is fine will not make the feelings go away, it will just make me feel worse that I can not force the feelings away. Despite the insecurities I am feeling in my dance skills right now, that gives me all the more reason to not give up and to push myself to make more time for dance now that I have the space for formal education. These feelings of insecurities can often result in people giving up on a difficult task or avocation. But if I continue to work despite these feelings, one day I will reach a point where I may not have those feelings toward my skills anymore. Or maybe the feeling won’t go away, but I shouldn’t allow that feeling to prevent me from trying to get better, because I will not improve unless I put in the time. The next time I am in dance class and feel self-conscious, I’ll remember why I want to dance in the first place: because I love it.