Broche Banter #19 -- Cody
Today on the show, I interview Cody, one of the dancers who danced with us in our Denver studios.
We talk about how ballet calms her mind, a little about her hyper-mobility and her experience with perfect turnout.
But then we get real about quarantine and the effect it’s had on us all, and how sometimes, dancing at home is just a sad reminder of how much we miss our friends and our old life. If you’ve been struggling with this time, we help Cody’s words help you find peace.
Enjoy!
CORRECTION: In the Broche Bite section, the arm position “en bas” is spelled with an “s” at the end, not an “h”
Julie: Well, Cody, welcome to Broche Banter. I'm so excited to have you on the show this week to talk about your story with ballet.
Cody: Thank you. I'm super excited to share this story too. I hope it'll be interesting.
Julie: It always is, everyone's life story is different. And everyone's got something interesting to say.
Julie: You danced with us when we were open in Denver, for quite some time. I think you joined maybe when we only had this small studio for the first time. Does that sound about right?
Cody: Yeah, I think so. Um, it was Yeah. When I was first going to Broche it was in the Metlo Center, so I don't know that there was any other studio to go to.
Julie: I think that’s sounds about right. How funny. Snd so but you I've been dancing before then. So what When did it start?
Cody: Yeah, good question. So I'm way, way back when I took ballet as a kid, and like so many of us do, are adult learners now, but primarily as a social thing. So it was something that I was really lucky to have the opportunity to do. But I did it because my friends were doing it. I was like eight or nine years old. Okay. And it was fun. It was just for a couple of years. But it wasn't anything that I was like terribly serious about. I had other things that I was interested in. But it happened to be a thing that my friends were doing, and that I had the ability and opportunity to do so I did it. But I moved actually away from the city when I was 10 or 11 years old, and didn't pick it back up under after I moved. So I actually didn't pick it back up again until I was about 24.
Julie: Oh wow, that’s a long break!
Cody: Exactly. So I went from being not serious about it at all, to throwing myself into it at 24 because I was in an extremely rigorous academic program, out of state far away from any family or friends. And I'd realized at that point that my brain works way, way better when I'm getting like very intensive kind of like meditative exercise every day. And I had started rock climbing pretty much every day at that point, just to keep my head on straight. And a friend happened to show me that like, “Take Me to Church” Sergei Polunin choreography video, and I was like, “Oh, hang on. I remember this. I remember liking this. That looks really fun. I want to do specifically that.”
And I was in Boston at the time and I was lucky enough to find a studio, actually kind of like Broche, that has like an “only above 18 no scary pre professional teenagers” rule.
So, um,I picked it back up, having forgotten absolutely everything that I'd ever learned about dance, um, and kind of fell back in love with it like immediately and started going a couple times a week, and found that it did exactly the same thing for my brain as rock climbing does, which is that it shuts off all of the parts of my brain that are not associated with exactly the activity that I'm doing.
““You can’t think about work and life and school and whatever, while you’re doing this kind of thing.””
With climbing, you'll just fall and that’s sad, and with ballet, like your body just doesn't, it won't work the way that you need it to work if you're thinking about other things, right? Um, yeah, so I kept that up for probably actually close to a year while I was in Boston, and then moved again. I struggled to find a studio in Houston that had the same kind of vibe. I took a couple of classes at Houston ballet because they have like an adult open program and you know, there and encountered all of the scary professional teenagers. And it was wonderful. But it's also like, a little bit demoralizing to go in as like a 25 / 26 year old and take class with children who want to do this professionally.
Which is why I appreciate studios like Broche so much because like it takes the fear out of it a little bit.
And then ended up in Denver a little less than a year after that and found Broche right away.
Julie: You moved a lot during that period of time was that all for work was that for personal interest? What had you moving around so much
Cody: Work and school mostly. I have a tendency to apply for things kind of off the cuff and then get accepted for them, and then be surprised by that.
Julie: And then you’re like well, now I have to pick what to do.
Cody: Right, exactly like, Oh, now I have to choose whether or not I want to move across the country again. And typically the answer is yes. So it's a lot of upheaval, but it's been kind of nice.
On hypermobility and perfect turnout (which Cody has)
Julie: So you dance with us at Broche for a while and you got en pointe with us. And we had lots and lots of fun together. I we You and I have had many, many deep technical conversations. So your your body is very, very hyper mobile, right. You have amazing, basically perfect turnout somewhat naturally in terms of your your, your hip positions and all of that. But that has caused so many interesting things that we've had to work through together. Any, any thoughts on that?
Cody: Yeah, my body is made out of spaghetti basically, is the immediate thought and what I didn't realize actually until I came to Broche was that I had done probably some damage to myself by not realizing that I had this hypermobility issue because it was always a fun like party trick for me. Like, oh, I can turn my feet backwards and look like that, like creepy, gross, cool. I'm gonna show everybody. Or, you know, when I was taking classes in Boston and in Houston, it was always like, oh, cool, this is a thing that I can do with very little like muscle involvement. And my joints just turn that far without me having to like, activate any muscles. And so I would do that. And as it turns out, if you if you do that, it's really really hard on your joints. Even if they do it automatically,
Julie: Right. So basically your feet just like flop out into turned out.
Cody: Exactly. Right. Exactly. And so, because I am just able to do that without any training or any, you know, strengthening or technique, really at all, um, when I start to apply that in ballet, it causes, like physical issues for me, basically. And it's caused, it's caused me I think to like, wear down my joints a little bit. And I didn't realize that until you actually kind of like called me out on it. You said like, “oh, you're not engaging any muscles at all. Like, why? What are you doing?”
Julie: How did you get like this without engaging muscles?
Cody: That’s right. And I have no idea because this is what my body has done since I was like a child. Um, but it's been a process of kind of retraining my body to do these things correctly. Because I've never had I haven't ever known how to feel for that muscle engagement. I've never really used it. And so I'd say probably over the past, I guess almost a year now. Um, I've had to do a lot of like re-learning how to actually turn out using the correct muscle groups and how to, you know, support myself when I'm really doing any kind of ballet exercise at all correctly. In my hips and in my legs. Just because I have a range of motion that's a little weird. And unfortunately, it can be damaging for me to just like, do what my body can already do.
Julie: Right? Yeah. It's like, and I think one of the ways that we bonded over this was that my ankles have a similar problem where my ankles are extremely hyper mobile, and they can flop into this very extended position and throughout my training teachers are like “ohhh pretty” and I'm like, cool, yay, I'm not sure how this is happening and why? I don't know, so you just keep doing more of it, and you don't realize that there's a way to do it with muscles because the bones actually will make the position just with the bones and the muscles do not need to be involved in order make that position whereas other people in your case will have to use muscles to get their feet to turn, but your bones, your feet will just turn by themselves.
And so I remember the first time I asked you to actually use your muscles, your feet turned backwards, and I was like, Okay, so I'm not that. Too far, because your natural range stopped at basically 180 and I asked you to engage your muscles in your feet turned backwards. And I was like, Huh. Let's go another approach. So then I think we ended up just putting you in your natural turnout and then getting the muscles to engage after the fact or like, sort of use them to hold the position not to get to the position.
Cody: Right. And that was so weird. Like, I had no idea how to do what you're asking me to do. Because like, I don't know that I've ever really used those muscles for that in my whole life. Like, “that's not what those are for.” No it turns out that that's definitely what they're for. But the process of learning how to feel that and feeling it in other positions too has been so weird, right? Like, so bizarre. I’ve never had a new sense of like what that's supposed to look like or feel like, right?
Julie: And you and I also have talked a lot about our garbage bag theory, which Yes. So basically, hyper mobile people, of which you are very, very hyper mobile, hyper mobile people tend to have lower proprioception, which is your brain to know where your body is in space, right? And so the two of us, and I'm sure other people will relate to this, feel in our own bodies extremely uncoordinated, and floppy, and sort of don't have this proprioception. Do you want to pick up where I left off?
Cody: Yeah, so functionally, I am a garbage bag full of body parts. And I don't know where my legs are at any given point. Specifically, when turning, which is hilarious, like the moment that I'm not just like standing straight up and down, I lose all sense of like, where I am in space.
Julie: Totally. It's like whereas you picture a normal person having a visual map of their body. And that visual map would have the head on the top and the arms on the side and the money in the middle and the legs down the side down the bottom. We might we both sort of picture our own body as like a grab bag of parts, right? There's like, there's a leg and then we're trying to like reassemble it into like a body. Feeling and then when you go to turn, right, which already messes with your proprioception, because you can see anything, your body just feels discombobulated.
Cody: Oh, yeah. No, it's too funny. That was the most like, I think apt comparison that, that I'd ever heard the first time that you said it. It's like, Oh, yeah, no, I'm just reaching blindly into a bag and hoping that I get the right body part. When you're like, “Oh, yeah, engage your psoas, or pull up in your hip.” Like what hip? Where? Where is it? It's gone.
Julie: Right? you kind of feel upside down. Or sometimes, yeah, backwards. It's very odd being being in that being in those shoes. I remember being a beginner dancer and seeing other people able to turn very, some people turn much easier than me and I'm like, I'm not sure how this is happening. This is this is really really complicated to turn. And you’re very similar, your first thing you said was that you are a bag of spaghetti noodles or something?
Cody: Yes. Just a big pile of noodles, unfortunately. And all of them are in a garbage bag. But um, yeah, I remember overhearing. I don't remember if it was you or another instructor, but somebody giving instructions to just like stop thinking about it, and just just do it just to someone else. Somebody else, but to just like turn and stop, stop thinking so hard about it. And just to see yourself as one like whole piece that's turning and I was like, I don't even understand what that would would be.
Julie: I'm sure that wasn't me because for me, I have also a garbage bag of body parts, so the idea of here to get one pieces is really really hard.
Cody: Not a thing.
Julie: Yeah. Right.
Cody: Oh, too funny.
Let’s get real about quarantine
Julie: Um, so to change the topic a little bit as we as we are in this crazy time of 2020, in August of 2020, we have all been at home for many, many months. And I haven't seen you in person in the studio since maybe the beginning of March, which has been many, many months. But I know quarantine’s been really tough for you. So talk to me about what's going on with with ballet and quarantine and life.
Cody: Yeah. So I'm, I consider myself very, very lucky. And I'm very grateful to be in a situation where over the course of quarantine, I haven't had to worry about losing a job. I haven't had to worry about being able to pay rent or like keep myself functional or anything like that. So I want to start off by saying that. Like, I am in a position that not everybody is in and so I'm very grateful for that.
However, I have been in kind of an interesting housing position that other people may have been in too, in that, you know, it's difficult to, in many cases, find space in a small apartment or a small home to take online courses. Um, and I've actually moved over the course of quarantine. But initially, it just wasn't something that could happen. The only space that I had was my bedroom, which was very small to start with. And I had ….
The roommate situation that I had wasn't an issue with it. It's just that it often got pretty loud in the apartment. And so it was hard to kind of create a space where I could actually take class and get something out of it. And that continued to be true throughout quarantine. And I kept finding what felt like excuses to not take class like the space wasn't right, or it was too loud or I couldn't, you know, find something to use as a barre. And the more…. I've kind of been thinking about this a lot lately ….. um, the more that I made these excuses for myself, especially about like my physical space and location, the more I started to realize that it actually had way more to do with like mental space and setting than anything else.
““The more that I made these excuses for myself, especially about like my physical space and location, the more I started to realize that it actually had way more to do with like mental space and setting than anything else.””
Julie: Yeah.
Cody: And that specifically for me, zoom and WebEx are tools that I associate with work. And over the last several months, I have not been able to dissociate them from work, because they continue to be things that I use three or four times a week for project team meetings and for just like general kind of work stuff. So it's really hard for me to use those as a social tool or as like a hobby like ballet related tool without bringing in all of the feelings that I have about work all the time. And so I think what kind of made me realize that that was the issue for me more so than like, the physical setting issue was that like, at work, you know, especially in online meetings, when you don't have that face to face interaction, I think if you present something incorrectly or you're misunderstood, that you often get a sense of kind of like embarrassment or guilt or shame or whatever. And that is a feeling that I've never ever had in a ballet class. Usually, I think I'm pretty curious and resilient when it comes to like messing things up. Where I'm like, Oh, that's weird. Like, my leg just doesn't do that, I wonder why, let’s figure that out. You know, why is why is everybody able to turn except for me?
I'm like, it can be frustrating, but it's never something that I feel like embarrassed about or guilty about or anything. It's a point of curiosity for me. And I realized that in taking online classes, I actually was feeling like, embarrassed about about the things that I couldn't do, right, and the amount of space that I had and why it wasn't working for me. And that I think is just like an emotional kind of bleed over from emotions that I have about work rather than ballet. I don't know if that makes sense, or if that's a generalizable experience, but um, I think that's really what's made it hard is the connection that I already had with these tools and with like, work work.
““I realized that in taking online classes, I actually was feeling like, embarrassed about the things that I couldn’t do, right, and the amount of space that I had and why it wasn’t working for me. And that I think is just like an emotional kind of bleed over from emotions that I have about work rather than ballet””
Julie: Well, and you mentioned in the beginning that a really big important part for you of ballet and physical movement was that you could turn off all of that chatter in your mind and that actually critical for you to be able to shut that portion of your experiences off right. So if you're having even if the experiences aren't extraordinarily negative, they need to be quieted down. I mean, that you you need a moment away from them, right. And, all encompassing escape. So is it sort of like you're looking at a screen and it looks the same format as what you looked at all day? And you're like, there's someone looking at me there's other people are looking at me, and I didn't do it correctly and like that just brings all of that in with you.
Cody: Yeah, I think it's it's more internal. Like, I'm not worried about being watched by people. I'm not, there's no concern about that for me. It's it's more just like, you know, when I mess something up at work, I feel bad about it. When I mess something up in ballet. I generally don't feel bad about it. I'm just like, oh, that's weird. Like, let's do better on that next time. And that like, feeling of badness was was really starting to bleed in. And because like you said, Actually, yeah, because I associate these with work. It's really hard for me to like shut all of those parts of my brain off that have to do with work and life and all of that when using these type of tools, even though it's an activity that I love, and that normally very much does that for me automatically.
Julie: Yeah. I think during quarantine, a quote that's been with me is the idea of “wherever you go, there you are.” And there's been, I never understood that quote, really until this period of time where I realized how much I always needed to be able to escape from my own mind and how much I relied on external things to go to shut my mind off, and actually how difficult that was to do without these external cues… without changing your clothes and driving to a studio and having a separate space. And like that's a learned, I mean, that's a learned skill, like everything else is to actually like, I mean, man, this thing up here, this mind up here, it can go wild, if you're not careful with it. It can go wild. It's it's amazing how that association is so strong in our minds, between the things we're looking at and the sensations that we feel.
Cody: Definitely, yeah, I think it's, it's a good wake up call to remember that like, that ability to shut things off, at the end of the day kind of needs to come from inside yourself. Like, all of these, not to get kind of existential about it, but like all of these external things are in so many cases temporary. And like you, you only have your own physical ability for so long. And you only have places like, all these places that we go to kind of detach from everything that stresses us out. You know, we may only have access to them for for a specific period of time, and hopefully not, but like, that's kind of how life is. And so if you can do that for yourself, that is so much more helpful.
Julie: Right. Yeah, I mean, I would even read, you know, things from people who had been imprisoned and still did amazing things. Like, I mean, that's like the dramatic comparison but you're like if Gandhi can figure out how to shut his mind off and escape all of that and figure out how to do this when he has no change of scenery ever, literally ever and can and can create that compartmentalization. It's a fascinating, it's a fascinating skill really to think about, that you could be in the same environment for years and still create two different locations in your mind.
Cody: Right. Hopefully that never comes to pass for any of us. But yes.
Julie: But this feels like it in many ways, right?
Cody: Feels endless.
Julie: Yeah, it feels endless in many ways. I think your, I think your your revelation is fascinating about the space in your mind where you, you know, you're talking about how the space, the physical space of looking at the same visuals is what is creating a space in your mind. That's I'm still kind of mulling that over a little fascinating thought that if you're looking at zoom with the little yellow highlight on the box and the little name down in the corner and like the whole interface of the whole thing, and how that changes your experience is fascinating.
Cody: Yeah, I actually, it's funny. I got to go back to the studio. I went to Jessica studio for the first time, though since March, yesterday. It was such I had kind of almost in my head this feeling like, Oh no, this is going to be like online classes like something is going to have like, messed my brain up. I'm gonna have that same feeling but like no, it was just weird and Goofy and fun in the way that ballet normally is for me. But it's also that's a hard thing to realize because I would love to get as much out of online classes as I get out of in person classes. And I hope that that's a point that I can get to because like, what a great tool like what an awesome thing to be able to do and to do from anywhere like this opens doors for so many people who haven't had access to online classes in forever. Um, but it did kind of hammer in like, Oh, no, shoot, there's, for me at least, like, there is a hard difference between these two things. And it's something that I get to work on now moving forward is kind of bridging the gap.
Julie: And I think it's I, you know, obviously, having had to transition to online only for our in studio, I spend a lot of time thinking about what the dancers are going through and what experience is like for people like you, and people in different situations and people, kids and people with all kinds of situations going on in their homes, and I think there's so much of right now because we're forced to do it, whereas it's not a choice. I mean, in some cases, it's not a choice, right? For some people, for some people listening, they have nothing, they had nothing and this is a boon for them, right. This is like I had no studio and now I have this amazing thing. But for people who had something in person and now have basically been forced to go home and do it on their own. It's very interesting to me to even hear people Who used to love practicing at home now do not want to practice at home, used to love practicing on their own, they used to love it, but now because it's their only option, it is overwhelming and they feel like … I almost wonder if people have put a sense of pressure on themselves. Like you said, I wish I wish I could get the same thing out of it as in person. Somehow we have told ourselves that if we are not, if that if that is it is not equal, it is not worth doing.
Cody: Right. Yeah. I think that that that's such a good point too. Like, we need in the same way that like, you know, things are temporary. We need to also be comfortable with the idea that like, what we're getting out of things changes. And that's okay. Like you can get different things out of things at different times. And sometimes you don't have a choice in that, and right now might be one of those times and that's okay. Like, if you think any, any practice is better than nothing, as long as it's still something that like brings you joy.
Julie: Yeah. And I think for so many, the feeling of loss was so great because you lost everything. I mean, not just you, but like “one.” We lost that. I mean, you lost everything right? You lost your coping mechanisms, you lost your friends, you lost your community, you lost your silence, your quiet time in your mind, you know, and everything was lost and taken away at the same time. And I think somehow we were all craving for a one size fits all solution to it. And you're like, well, ballet used to be that for me, and this is nowhere near that. So I hate this. And this is awful. And this is more overwhelming than if I did nothing because every time I do it, I'm reminded that it's not everything for me. It's like, I don't know what we're all searching for something to use to get through this. Whereas if at any other time, this online thing had popped up in conjunction with your in person experience and you didn't simultaneously lose that it wouldn't be such like a traumatic experience to try to dance online.
Cody: Right, exactly like what an awesome tool, we would have all perceived this as if it hadn't come during quarantine and it hadn't like been necessitated by a pandemic, but it was. So there's that. But yeah, I think that's a really good point that there's like, a kind of a grieving period with that too. Like there's there's a really significant change in how we're perceiving like, the way that we get to take class and the way that you know, we have to be taking things out of it or not. And I think if we don't honor that grieving period, and maybe for some people, it may not be and it may just be like a really excellent opportunity. So this is maybe not something to generalize, I don't know. But you got to just kind of sit in that if you're sad about it and feel that and accept it. Because like if you just try to push past it, which is very much what I did for the whole first half of quarantine, you end up avoiding it entirely. Like, you're like, Okay, well, I just won't think about ballet at all ever, and I won't stretch and then you know, when I finally do try to take a class again, I will have lost all of my muscle strength.
Julie: I think that's a good point. And I think that's very much like this all or nothing idea that if we can't have it all, we don't want any of it because sometimes having some of it is too sad because it reminds you what you don't have. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's maybe that's not wait, where you're going with that. But that's kind of kind of what I'm seeing too from other people who are like they, they can't do ballet, but they can do yoga, or they can’t do ballet but they can do something else. Because having just a little bit of it is a sad reminder of having a lot of it.
Cody: Yes, that's very much I think, where I was going, like if you It makes, I think me and a lot of other people almost too uncomfortable and too upset to like, enjoy what we can have of it because it's like a reminder have what we had before, which was so nice and such a like, wonderful distraction from life or just such a, like, I don't know, such a kind of joyous part of life. And, and so to have little bits and pieces of that, that now like, you know, in your house because you're not allowed to go anywhere else … it's a little rough. Yeah.
Julie: So I it's funny. I mean, I think it's been really fascinating for me to compare the experience that I've had as a dancer, not as a studio owner or anything, but as a dancer with other people's experience as a dancer. And it's funny because for me, ballet had already been re-associated with work, there was no more ballet is separate from work. I've learned to do other things to separate myself from work because for me, ballet is work when I'm in the studio, even if I'm dancing for myself, I'm thinking about how I'll teach this concept of someone or like, Oh, that's interesting. I bet Cody would benefit from this. I'm kind of always thinking about it or if I'm in the studio, Oh, that corner is dirty, like, let me clean that afterwards. You know, there's always been that experience. So for me going to take class online myself wasn't a big deal. I didn't feel those sensations of loss because I had already lost that three years ago when I opened the studio. So it wasn't like a big deal for me to lose that again. Because for me, it's like, great, I don't have to drive to the studio to take class. This is great news. So I've been fascinated this whole time and in trying to think about and trying to figure out how to support people through this period of time, when the experience is so different for everyone. And it's so so different, what everyone's going through, in trying to find their way back to what they love and in their own way and on their own time and, and what that journey looks like. It's such a different journey for everyone.
Cody: It is it is and I think that, you know, we can go through this process of loss kind of change, and eventually come back to it or not. And then, you know, hopefully everyone who's loved this is able to kind of find it again, either during this weird period or after. But, you know, for those who who find something else that also works for them, that's that's also really wonderful. But yeah, it's, it is an odd process. And I'd be interested to know what it's, you know the differences between how you processed that three years ago going from owning a studio or from dancing to owning a studio, and then how that works when it's a forced thing.
Julie: Yeah, I mean, it's, for me when once I started owning the studio, I also crave that escape and for me, the only way to get the escape is to move my body too, like it's the mind is noisy. It's very loud up there. It just never quiets down. Right, we talked about this before. That we share this thought that the mind is just like always going, it's always going. I'm sure everyone experienced this to some extent. And like, I just started meditating last week for the first time and the thought of sitting still for 10 minutes doing nothing and trying to quiet my brain is just like, No, I'd rather do yoga, I'd rather do push ups than this. This is terrible.
But for me that what would end what shut my brain off was actually teaching. Dancing no longer did it for me because dancing was work, in a sense, in my mind could it wasn't all consuming enough for my mind to stop wandering. But what I'm teaching I'm like really focused on the dancers and what they're doing and what they're, how they're feeling and how they experience is going for them. So for me teaching was that shut off. And for me, that was no different on zoom because you have to be extremely focused on them. You have to be putting energy out there, you're still like, you're still doing those things. For me, I didn't feel much of a difference.
But I had already had a unique experience with zoom where I already had zoom relationships with my family and friends. I've been remote from my family for 13 years. So I'm used to having friendly relationships. My best friend Julee, also named Julee, she and I have had a zoom relationship for three years. So we chat every morning on zoom for half an hour, and we have fun and we chat about business, we chat about life. And so I'm used to having online relationships with people and so that I don't have one thing like you said, like for you, you have one thing that you associate with zoom, and that is stress and chaos and judgment and work and all of that. And for me, I'm like, no zoom could mean I'm hanging out, zoom could mean I’m calling my mom, it can I'm calling my best friend, zoom could mean I’m teaching, I'm taking class, like I already had multiple things to associate with it. So it wasn’t that weird. Different experience.
Cody: Interesting. Yeah, that's really cool. I think that there's a way to re-associate like positive things with even tools that we've only ever used for work, but it just takes time and practice. I'm not totally there yet, obviously. But um, I think it's possible.
Julie: I think it's possible to I think though if we can learn how to do ballet we can learn anything that is my opinion on the topic. I always work out myself with the Peloton app and do like home workouts with the Peloton instructors and yoga with them. And it's all just pre recorded and I can pause it I want and take my own time with it, which I do find personally helps me with taking the time for myself, because I know I can stop at any point. And if something changes, and I need to get up, I can do it. That's helpful for me, but I think, I don't know
Back to your point on the expectation of it, I think is super important because I mean, as dancers, we're such perfectionist. And if you're expecting a perfect experience anywhere, you're going to be disappointed right? And then you have that level of disappointment that you're dealing with over and over again and that disappointment is just bad, right so be it expectation is like, cool, I get to supplement at home or like, cool, I get to work on something I'm curious about at home and not like, cool, this will be my friends. This will be my, like, you know, it's the kind of things aren't what's happening. And that's not to be expected to happen because it's a different experience.
Cody: Exactly. Yeah, I think it's it's a rough transition in a lot of cases. But it is about managing expectations. It's not going to be the same. It can't be right?
Julie: It doesn’t have to be.
Cody: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be that's the point is that it's something different, it's not going to be your in studio ballet classes. It's, it's going to be another tool in addition to our instead of that, mostly, “instead of that” currently.
Julie: Not forever hopefully or you know, forever.
Cody: But um, but it's, it's, you know, something that we get to process and kind of transition through. We get to take new and different things out of Out of these zoom classes and online courses in general, I think it's, it's cool. It's a different opportunity.
Julie: Yeah, it's not it's not easy. It's not easy. And I think we can, like you said, honor the difficulty of it right? So like our expectation shouldn't be that it's going to be an easy change or an easy transition for some people. Maybe it is. And for some people like me, we've already gone through these kinds of things to set us up for this being an easy transition. That doesn't mean it's easy, because it was easy. It just means that we've been preparing for this for our whole life.
Cody: You were ready!
Julie: I was ready. I was ready for it not not knowingly or not on purpose. But I was ready. No, no, that big of a deal, right. But for those for whom it's a big deal, it's worth noting that it's a big deal. It's worth noting that it's a shift and that there is a strange amount of sadness and having half of something that you can't have.
Cody: Exactly, yeah. I think it's that's an important part of it. And if we don't like just kind of sit with that and acknowledge it and honor it, then we're actually going to get way way less out of this than we would have to start with.
Julie: Yeah and I you know, what's the Winnie the Pooh quote: “He says how lucky am I to have something that I'm so sad to have lost?”
Cody: Right, aww, Oh, yes.
Julie: Very sweet.
Julie: Well, Cody, do you have any words of wisdom when parting in parting words of wisdom that you want to share or any last points you want to make here about ballet or quarantine or or life or even a few points that you want to make?
Cody: Hmm Um, let's see. I think just coming back to like, you know, the, the temporary nature of things, right. Like it's important for us to like appreciate what we have while we have it. Whether that’s in-studio classes or online classes now, and hopefully the online classes, especially for those who have really, really benefited from it during this time, hopefully that continues to be a thing, even after this is over, because I know that it's been wonderful for people. Or, you know, whether it's our health or whatever, whatever enables us to, like, have these like really wonderful, happy, beneficial things in our lives. Like, we need to, I think just kind of acknowledge them and, and be happy to have them because so much of that is temporary. And that doesn't mean that it's, you know, also because it's temporary, it's permanently gone when it's gone. Like that's, that's not at all what I'm saying. Because oftentimes, these are things that we get to come back to and that's I'm living out right now. Like that's something I'm so excited about, getting back in the studio. Um, but just having gratitude for what we have while we have it is huge.
Julie: I think this quarantine I realized that I used to Always use the phrase this too shall pass only for negative things. I'm having a hard time we're struggling I tell myself “This too shall pass.” And that helps me find perspective. But I'm not about the good parts I forgot to tell myself during the good parts that “This too shall pass.” And that will help us be more grateful for the for when we have it. All of it will pass and the but the good things and the bad things and that's good news and bad news. But, you know, what we have is special. And when it's special, it's worth, like you've been saying honoring it, honor what's special and tell people that it's special and enjoy it while you have it and really, really try to hold on to it.
Cody: Right. And you know, also hope that not hope but you know, that also like the loss of that isn't forever either, which is wonderful.
Julie: Yeah, nothing's permanent.
Cody: Yep. Good, cool stuff. And it's been a good learning opportunity. And as somebody who likes to like brute force things into existence. It's been a good learning opportunity.
Julie: Well that explains the pirouette.
Cody: Hmm, yes!
Julie: Just push harder it'll happen!
Cody: I will make this pirouette happened …. I absolutely will not ever.
Julie: Right? Unfortunately, pirouettes and life they can feel when you're trying to brute force it.
Cody: Yes.
Julie: And going to sleep.
Cody: Yes, exactly.
Julie: Well, I'm glad you're back in the studio. That's so exciting. And I hope that that starts to give you some peace in your mind and some of that joy back into into your life with with dancing, because that's just a huge part of why we love this whole thing.
Cody: Exactly. And I think to that, it'll help me start to re associate that happiness with potentially taking online classes to um, I'll be able to conflate those two things again, instead of just having it be like, Oh, I'm on zoom. I'm at work great. So that's, that's definitely something that I'm hopeful for.
Julie: Maybe it'll be like, I'm on zoom. I'm practicing for class next week.
Cody: Yeah. Exactly.
Julie: Not like I'm on zoom, ugh!
Cody: Yes. Totally.
Julie: Well, thank you so much, Cody. This was such a fun and insightful conversation. I'm you. You've done a lot of self reflection that I know will help many of our listeners with things that maybe they couldn't put into words about what they're experiencing about why they are having trouble taking advantage of what should seem like a great opportunity, but doesn't always feel like that and feels really, really painful sometimes.
Cody: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I hope that this is that this resonates for somebody else. If not, that's okay. It was good to talk it out in any case. This has been really nice.
Julie: Yeah, fascinating. I really appreciate your time.
Cody: Thank you, Julie.
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