Finding your Way Back to the Barre Amidst COVID
Are you unmotivated to dance at home or actually grieving?
For some people, the introduction of online ballet and at-home practice options has been a huge benefit. For dancers who had previously not been comfortable to go to the studios, were caring for children, or lived somewhere without access, online ballet is amazing.
But, for many others, it’s been a different experience entirely — one of loss, grief, guilt, confusion, or even embarrassment.
Maybe you even used to love practicing at home when it was supplemental to your in-studio dancing. Maybe before all this started, you WISHED you had something like the online options available now to be able to practice with at home between classes. But, now practicing at home doesn’t feel the same and you just can’t find the motivation to do it. Your space is too small, you just don’t feel like it, you miss your friends, your kids/pets/roommates/dirty laundry get in the way, and for whatever reason, you just can’t do it.
“Maybe you even used to love practicing at home when it was supplemental to your in-studio dancing. Maybe before your studios closed, you WISHED you had something like the online options available now to be able to practice with at home. But, now practicing at home doesn’t feel the same and you just can’t find the motivation to do it. ”
It’s taken a long time to put the thoughts for this post together, as I’ve been going through my own host of loss with trying to support our community of dancers while at the same time losing our Denver studios. But, I think I’m starting to understand a part of our experiences, and am ready to share some of my thoughts with you all on this topic today.
So let’s have a little real talk about this messy time in all of our lives.
Let’s start by establishing that ballet at home is not in-studio ballet. And that’s ok.
Let’s talk about what we are doing when we’re dancing at home, and what we’re not.
What is dancing at home?
A tool to learn at home conveniently, as the mood strikes
A chance to get technique corrections and tips from the instructor when you have access to live classes or video private lessons
A way to learn & practice ballet on your own time
The ability to explore topics you’re most interested in
A way to practice by yourself, self-correct and learn self-awareness
If you didn’t have anywhere to dance before this, it’s a huge benefit and access to something you didn’t have at all before
What it isn’t
The same social immersive experience you had when your in-person studios closed
A physical studio with amazing flooring, barre and mirrors (well, at least for most of us)
A physical change of scenery “escape” from your day/life
“Me time” in the car to and from class and in the studio
Time away from your roommates, kids, pets, or messy house
A place to hang around after class, chat with friends, have casual conversation about life
An excuse to get out of the house
Perfect (well, nothing really is!)
What both of them are
Learning, refining and studying ballet technique
Gaining tips and tricks from fabulous instructors
Getting stronger
Building confidence
A community of wonderfully supportive people who are there for you on your journey (though it manifests quite differently … see points above)
Okay, so they’re not the same. But why is that ok?
Let’s take a moment to dive into the many things you might be feeling right now. My guess is, they’re complicated and multi-faceted and super confusing.
Within the last several months, we’ve experienced the loss of our communities, friends, and our ways to find joy and relieve stress. Some of us lost jobs, or the sense of calm and “me time” that we got from leaving the house. Some have even had to also grieve the loss of loved ones and pets, as the tragic events of normal life have not hit pause while we’ve gone through all of this.
No matter what, we’ve all lost peace of mind and the sense of security and stability of our day-to-day lives that we didn’t even know we had. We’ve lost so much in the world (not just ballet), and we’ve all had to come to terms with the fragility of ourselves and of our world.
“No matter what, we’ve all lost peace of mind and the sense of security and stability of our day-to-day lives that we didn’t even know we had. We’ve lost so much in the world (not just ballet), and we’ve all had to come to terms with the fragility of ourselves and of our world. ”
And for some of us, all the while, we’ve had the constant 24/7 of childcare that we didn’t expect or have time to plan for. Combine all this with the social & political unrest taking place nationwide in the USA.
Wow. That’s a lot to handle. Too much, if you ask me.
AND THROUGH ALL OF THIS, WE’RE EXPECTED TO TRANSITION SEAMLESSLY TO A REMOTE LIFE
Well, ok, whether or not we’re actually expected to make this transition “seamlessly,” we definitely put that expectation on ourselves. In an instant, overnight, we now have to shift to:
Remote work
Remote school
Remote hobbies
Remote friends and family
Remote weddings, birthday parties & funerals
Remote social hours
All this, without ANY HUGS from non-household members! Just ask my extremely social dog Otis.. this removal of affection and casual physical contact can be devastating! I had to elbow bump my mom, who I hadn’t seen for a year, when she came to visit. Ugh!!
Ok so life is weird right now. But ballet used to bring me joy and help me escape, so why can’t I bring myself to do it when I know it’ll make me happy?
Perhaps maybe it’s too sad to just have half of what we once had.
This is a little bit of a farfetched analogy, and I have not actually experienced this before except in my mind, but hear me out … I can imagine that if my beloved mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, as much as I’d desperately want to spend every possible minute with her, I think there is a possibility that I might actually be too sad to spend any time with her. It might be too much to bear. I might feel a need or desire to detach entirely in order to emotionally handle the situation, instead of seeing her even just a little bit.
And for some of us, perhaps it’s too painful to dance at home right now (again, I know losing ballet is nothing like losing your mom. It’s just the worst thing I could imagine to help me think through this concept).
Dancing at home is a reminder of what we lost. Having just a small amount of something that used to bring us joy can be too sad to bear, and so we’d rather have none of it. And for some of us, our home studios have had to closed permanently. And we feel sad about that too.
“Dancing at home is a reminder of what we lost. Having just a small amount of something that used to bring us joy can be too sad to bear, and so we’d rather have none of it. And for some of us, our home studios have had to closed permanently. And we feel sad about that too. ”
So you add all this up, and it’s just a perfect storm of mental anguish, and for many of us it’s easier to just wrap all that up and throw it out and stop dancing.
Our reasonings about not having time, space, equipment etc, to dance are perhaps just the easiest way to explain to ourselves the confusion and mental chaos of all of that loss. We needed space from our life sadness, and dancing didn’t give us that space as it normally would. Then maybe we were too sad, guilty, ashamed, or confused that ballet didn’t give us that mental reprieve & human connection that we usually turn to it for, and so we stopped and blamed it on our flooring.
And then after we stopped dancing, we felt immense guilt that this amazing opportunity to take class with everyone we ever wished to learn from was in front of us and we couldn’t take advantage of it.
IT FEELS LIKE A LACK OF MOTIVATION ON THE SURFACE, BUT PERHAPS IT IS GRIEF.
So, now that we’ve acknowledged all of this sadness, where do we go from here?
I have a sense that many people are starting to come back from the dark period of early quarantine. I’ve seen more faces in class who I haven’t seen in a while, and the mood online seems to be looking for recovery. We’re starting to find acceptance and coping mechanisms for our new life as a whole. We know it’ll be a while, so we’re settling in. But maybe you’re still scared to get back to dance. Maybe you’re ashamed that you didn’t keep yourself up all this time. That you wasted this time not stretching, exercising, or working on your technique. That you’ll come back to the studio and be the only one who isn’t ready to put their pointe shoes on yet, or that your goals that were once within reach are now in the distant future.
We may beat ourselves up for not taking advantage of opportunities. We may feel guilty for taking this time off. The mental barrier to re-entry is high, and even if we’re starting to feel ready to come back, we may be unsure of how to take that step.
Our hearts ache, our bodies are stiff, and our turnout is nowhere to be found.
But I’m here to say that ballet is ready for you with open arms, whatever that looks like for you. Dance. Move in your kitchen. Listen to classical music. Read a book on ballet. Listen to one of our podcast episodes on inspirational ballet stories. Keep it tucked away in your heart, and return to it when the time is right for you.
“Our hearts ache, our bodies are stiff, and our turnout is nowhere to be found.
But I’m here to say that ballet is ready for you with open arms, whatever that looks like for you. Dance. Move in your kitchen. Listen to classical music. Read a book on ballet. Listen to one of our podcast episodes on inspirational ballet stories. Keep it tucked away in your heart, and return to it when the time is right for you.”
If you want to figure out how to dance at home, let’s start to reframe it, not as trying to replace the in-studio experiences that we lost, but as something different
It’s maybe the only way to enjoy it without introducing the feeling of grief and loss. We just can’t hold it to the same standard, because it’s a different game. So let’s re-think what it is, see it for what it is, and don’t hold it up as being a small portion of what we lost.
At-home ballet is technical, studious, and self-directed. In-studio ballet is all of that, PLUS social hour and all of the connections that humans crave. The social aspect of life will return one day, but in the meantime, maybe we can figure out how to move our bodies. Humans are clever and social and we’ll find solutions to these challenges.
So, if you’re itching to get back to the barre and looking for a way to reframe at-home ballet, think of it as ….
A way to exercise and keep our bodies limber that’s way more fun than squats and pushups (in my opinion, as a biased ballet dancer/teacher)
A way to keep in shape for a time when we do finally see an empty studio that we can leap across (yes, it’ll happen again one day! Maybe not until 2021, but it will definitely happen again!). Just imagine how ready you will be to jump if you do a bunch of rélevés every day.
A way to gain another perspective on our dancing — how can we get creative to solve time/space/motivation problems? If we practice solving them now, we’ll be UNSTOPPABLE when our studios do re-open!
Time to learn about ourselves, listen to our bodies, and get curious. Have you ever asked yourself “what do you want to learn today?” and then found class or a follow-along that would scratch that itch?
Gratitude development for what we do have when it’s available again. Will we miss class because we don’t feel like it so often in the future? Will we allow our work meetings to go so long and miss class knowing that one day it might be taken away?
And remember, this, too, shall pass.