Broche Banter #24 -- Rosy
Today, I chat with Rosy, a kind soul, private ballet coach for adults, and a professional dancer.
Even though this was the first time we’ve met, we quickly connected over so many topics, including mental health challenges that dancers and athletes face, a little about our own mental health running our businesses, and why we both love working with adult dancers.
Enjoy!
Before we get to the show, let’s take our Broche Bite!
On this segment, we’ll talk about bite-size ballet tidbits to give you something to chew on while you listen.
Today, let’s talk about what ballet training even is. What are we doing exactly, and why do we use the barre?
We are training our body to understand and adopt an entirely new movement pattern with our legs facing away from each other, aka turned out.
We hold onto the barre while we are strengthening and developing new movement patterns so that our body will be comfortable enough in taking the physical risk to let our default muscle patterns go, and allow the smaller and less natural muscles to learn to take over the job.
When at the barre, we learn all the ways in which the body can move, but with the legs turned out. Bending, straightening, lifting, pushing, circling, etc.
Then when we let go of the barre, we train our body to balance and move in this new way, building these new movement patterns into our quote-un-quote natural vocabulary of motion. Cool, right?
Now, onto the show!
Hello! When did you start dance and what do you do now?
Julie: Rosie, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have a chance to chat with you today.
Rosy: Yeah, me too.
Julie: So you are …. tell us a little about what you do with the adults in the ballet community! Tell me a little about your about your your life.
Rosy: Oh, okay, so yeah, I'm based here in rainy cold England. And I have been dancing professionally for five years now. Previously to COVID. I used to do a lot of face-to-face teaching and coaching adults and of course COVID came along, and that's kind of when I sort of transitioned to doing more online stuff. But yeah, I mean, I do a lot of freelance work, and I dance with a company called New Works Ballet Theatre part time. Obviously, that's all on hold. But yeah, I have quite a broad dance background. My training was pretty much you have to do everything regardless of what your favorites are, so to speak. And then you major in one or two subjects, so ballet was one of mine. And then you go out into the world and, you know, end up where you end up. And then Coronavirus happens, and then you're at home anyway. So you know, it's sort of a funny old world right now. But yeah, so I'm normally quite busy.
Julie: So when did you start dancing?
Rosy: I started when I was about, I think a few months before I turned three. And my parents actually thought, I might not like it because I was really shy. And they thought, “Oh, you know, it's good to get your kid into stuff.” And I was quite shy, but turns out that I actually just went and loved it. It didn't make me feel shy. Whereas talking to people when I was a little kid used to be like, “Oh, God, don't speak to me, I'm going to hide.” but I got into a dance studio and I didn't feel like that anymore.
Performing in dance versus public speaking
Julie: Isn’t that funny I've found that, um, of people I've talked to performing dance isn't as scary as public speaking. Is that the case for you as well?
Rosy: Yeah, I don't even know why. But it just seems to be a different feeling, I guess. I guess the kind of like response you get when you're doing it when you're moving. It kind of releases that positive feeling, doesn't it? But I guess when you're speaking perhaps there, I think for me, like it would be pressure to say the right thing or I don't know… It's funny, but I think it's definitely something about that that feels different.
Julie: Even singing, I could I mean, singing terrifies me. But obviously I get up and dance in front of people all the time, but to sing I mean, to even start singing lessons in my apartment where someone else could hear me Oh my god. Can you imagine?
Rosy: Yeah, it's really strange, isn't it? how, you know, you'd think it would be the same thing. But it just isn't. It doesn't feel the same. Weird.
Julie: Yeah, weird. Would you still consider yourself to be shy? Or have you kind of grown out of that over the years?
Rosy: I yeah, I wouldn't say I'm that shy at all now, I think, like everyone is, I'm definitely more confident with you know, those people I'm closest with, but I don't really feel that kind of nervousness. Now. It was just, I was just one of those children that was like, Don't speak to me. I'm gonna stand by my mum, you can talk to her. But yeah, I think I kind of grew out of that. And I think dance actually was probably a really big help in doing that, because it gave me more confidence than I had doing normal things, so to speak.
What is the pre-professional training world like?
Julie: So okay, so I talked with a lot of people who started ballet as adults, or people who, you know, did it as a kid and took a long break and came back as an adult, but I don't get a chance to talk to many people like yourself, who started as a kid went through it became a professional and did a little bit more of that traditional what we think of as a dance route? So I just want to talk about that a little bit like What was that like? Did you have …. ? You know, I hear a lot of people who left dance because of issues with being a teenage girl in a teenage girl environment with issues about body image with issues about difficult teachers. I mean, did you experience any of that? What's that going? what's what's going on in that world?
Rosy: Yeah, I think it's a really mixed bag. And I think that would be a definite kind of reason to stop people. I definitely have moments where it did it was difficult, like you say, to be a teenage girl like to be wearing a leotard all the time to feel kind of judged. Like even just as a teenager, you want everyone to like you and, you know, you want everyone to think you're doing good, and I think that was definitely hard.
I would consider myself still to be a perfectionist. And I try now as an adult, not to kind of, you know, fall into that trap as much, but definitely as a teenager, it was a kind of difficult thing.
Difficult teachers as well… I was really fortunate that when I was at the kind of most tricky age, maybe 13 to 15 is probably that kind of really awkward, horrible stage.
Julie: Yep
Rosy: Um, I had really, really lovely understanding teachers at that point in time. But moving on to professional training, I had some incredible teachers. And I also had some teachers that were amazing teachers, but they were very old fashioned. And so they would still make those comments that nowadays we would kind of consider unacceptable. You know, commenting on your body, or the fact that you didn't look as good as someone else, or that she was better than you, or why did you do this, you know, really quite personal things. And I found that very difficult, to be honest. And I think you'd be hard pressed not to find that difficult, even if you were a super confident person.
“I also had some teachers that were amazing teachers, but they were very old fashioned. And so they would still make those comments that nowadays we would kind of consider unacceptable. You know, commenting on your body, or the fact that you didn’t look as good as someone else, or that she was better than you, or why did you do this, you know, really quite personal things. And I found that very difficult, to be honest. And I think you’d be hard-pressed not to find that difficult, even if you were a super confident person. ”
So yeah, I think taking the traditional route like he said, of kind of starting young and knowing that that's what I wanted to do, definitely kind of had was a big focus in my life from a young age, I always knew that I love dance. And that was it. It took up a lot of my time. And mostly, that was a very, very positive thing. But I would say that I am someone who found the judgment side of the dance world quite difficult to handle. And I think I probably find it easier and more tolerable now than I did when I was in that kind of training period of my life. I think I would kind of compare that environment to being a kind of incubator for competition. Like, you're literally told, like, you know, you're here to make friends, but you're also not here to make friends because realistically, in three years time everyone in this room is your competition. And it's not like a great mindset to have about the world, I don't think. But, you know, I think in that environment, you do make friends. And it is kind of this weird relationship with “Okay, like, I really like you, but like, are you better than me? Like, you know, and I'm not sure that's a very good environment. And I think having left that and gone into the world, what I see as now is that there is a place for everybody in the creative world. And I don't think it needs to be such a cutthroat situation.
“And I think having left that and gone into the world, what I see as now is that there is a place for everybody in the creative world. And I don’t think it needs to be such a cutthroat situation.... I think the world of dance and of any creative industry is much broader than we think it is”
I mean, there are situations where I've rocked up auditions. I've got up at five o'clock in the morning, stood at an open audition and then got cut, like three minutes into it, having been up for three hours, like you just think, “Oh my god, what am I doing with my life? Like, I'm going back to bed now.” And so it is cutthroat but equally I think the world of dance and of any creative industry is much broader than we think it is. I think there are more avenues that you you can take as well that maybe you aren't introduced to. And I think the older I get, the more I kind of say no to things that I don't want to do, and look for jobs that I really want to do. Rather than like, in the beginning, you're like, “Okay, I've got to take anything that is offered my way, whether it's great or not, I have to do it.” And I just don't think that's true. Like, I think you have to find your own way in the world.
On Fear as a Motivator
Julie: Yeah, I think there's, you know, fear can be a great motivator. And it's the easiest thing to motivate people with is fear and saying, If Yeah, or if you're not a good person, if you're not whatever, then do then you won't make it right. That's an easy thing to I mean, it's not easy, in that it's, like easy to tell someone that they're not a good enough person or whatever, but it's a simpler way to motivate someone, or is this finding what really makes them tick and driving them to control their mind and control their body and like push them to their potential in a positive way? I'm curious if you have have had any experience with other things other than ballet, right? Is this happening in Olympic level ice skating? Is this happening in high levels of all sports? That fear is the main driver and motivator? Or is this like, somehow ballet got stuck in this closet of like, scaring everyone into doing better?
Rosy: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing. I think there's definitely like, a kind of chunk of it across a lot of genres of, you know, like you say, like, gymnastic. Or, like, I think there is definitely a kind of belief that you have to be kind of scared, you have to be kind of motivated by the fact that if you don't work your bum off, you're not good enough. But I think what I've noticed, definitely from where I trained, I noticed a real difference between the teachers who were of a certain age, those kind of younger teachers were less kind of like that. They were much more about finding the way that you work and finding what motivated you and kind of really driving home that actually having mental strength is really important. And I found it more the older teachers who were stuck in that kind of more old-fashioned way of thinking, and I imagine that that's the case across the board. I imagine that generationally, hopefully, we're going to kind of phase it out. Because people are more educated now. And I think people are more aware that actually there can be a lot of negative effects of like, scaring people and kind of not treating them as kind of an individual as well as whatever sport you do.
Julie: Right. Yeah, I think it's, um, I've I teach mostly adults, as I know, you work with many adults as well, and over the years, I've had a chance to work with just a couple of kids that I had in the beginning spoken with some parents of kids and I think, for a lot of people, my teaching style wasn't hardcore enough, or, like they wanted the environment for their kid to be pushed to the limits and like, leave the class almost in tears and like they wanted that intensity for their kid. And that was just fascinating that also, there's a mindset that “My kid is never going to be good enough if you don't, if you as a teacher are not going to give them that experience.” Have you seen that?
Rosy: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean like because I would say that I am someone who challenges a student, but I never want someone to leave feeling negative about it. For me, that just isn't that doesn't feel right to me. I don't feel like I've done a good job if someone leaves feeling like terrified of what we just did, or, you know, like really bad about themselves because it was too hard. For me, that doesn't work. I don't feel good about that.
“I am someone who challenges a student, but I never want someone to leave feeling negative about it. For me, that just isn’t that doesn’t feel right to me. I don’t feel like I’ve done a good job if someone leaves feeling like terrified of what we just did, or, you know, like really bad about themselves because it was too hard. For me, that doesn’t work. I don’t feel good about that.”
But I would say there are definitely a having done quite a bit of work with kids as well. I would say that I like a bucket of parents who who believe that who want their child to be the best and perhaps one child to be the best, maybe more than the child wants to be the best. And mostly, I found that at some point, that child just stops dancing, because when they get old enough to kind of make that decision themselves, they're not gonna want to do it because someone else has been like forcing them and pushing all this pressure on them. Like and that for me is the beauty of working with adults is that they've chosen to be that they've chosen to show up and they want to work hard. And in that environment, I don't feel the need to be this terrible scary person to push them because they want to push themselves. That's why they came right?
Julie: The the woman who taught me how to teach. Her name's Beth, she taught me how to teach she kind of gave me my start in teaching ballet, her number one rule was always make sure they leave with a smile on their face. So finish with changement, finish with something fun, like you can push the heck out of them all class but you have to make sure that they leave having had a good experience. What workout class do you go to that they don't try to pump you up at the end? Like what workouts ever as an adult do you ever go to where they're like let's make these people feel like garbage? You need people to feel like they want to keep coming.
Rosy: Yeah and I think you're absolutely right i think that's what's so fascinating about the way the dance world sometimes conditioned you to think that you need to kind of be that kind of bully almost like because like you say, I mean I have never gone to a gym where their sole aim is to make me feel terrible about myself because quite frankly I would not return I did actually have is quite comical in hindsight, we had one teacher who like came maybe once a year, and he was terrifying. I don't think I've ever been scared of anyone more. He turned up and it was all like fitness and he would just like, batter you for the hour and a half that you were there. He would have us running around the streets. He have us doing star jumps on the corners of like the city center. And it was just brutal, you left that class feeling that you were going to throw up or pass out. And it was horrible, absolutely horrible. And he was just of a generation where that was the way that you teach people to get fit. I remember I went, I think in the first year in the second year, like I was very, like diligent student, I never really missed anything. Like, I was like, okay, even if this isn't my class, like I've got a show up and put the work in. And I think in the third year, I actually just didn't go, because I was like, this is gonna ruin my week. And I know it's gonna ruin my week because I did it the last two times, and it was awful. So I don't really understand why it is that in dance there is this kind of like, ”Oh, you should feel like, inadequate to be pushing yourself”
On Mental Strength
Julie: Yeah, that's odd. I don't know. And I want to back up to where you mentioned, you just mentioned it in passing, but I think it's a really important point that I want to dig back into you said, “mental strength is super important,” right? You're talking about dealing with all this stuff, right? And you just slipped in there “mental strength is really important.” Tell me more?
Rosy: Yes, and I think I'm learning more and more about that all the time. But it's a me. For me, it's being able to manage how I feel in a dance context. So not feeling bad about myself, because I didn't execute something as well as I did the day before.
“I’m learning more and more about [mental strength] all the time. For me, it’s being able to manage how I feel in a dance context. So not feeling bad about myself, because I didn’t execute something as well as I did the day before.”
And also being able to use dance as a way to support how I feel. And I think that's perhaps easier for some of the adults that I coach because it's an addition to their life rather than their job. I think when it's your job, there's like that extra pressure to to push yourself. But I think sometimes you reach a point where your desires to improve and get better starts to chip away at how much you're enjoying something. Because you're more consumed by “I'm not good enough, I did a terrible job. Everyone else is better than me.” or anything of that variety. There are millions of kind of versions of that thought. And for me, like mental strength is being able to work on that and not just get stuck in the trap.
“Sometimes you reach a point where your desires to improve and get better starts to chip away at how much you’re enjoying something. Because you’re more consumed by “I’m not good enough, I did a terrible job. Everyone else is better than me.” or anything of that variety. There are millions of versions of that thought. And for me, mental strength is being able to work on that and not just get stuck in the trap.”
Rosy: I'm definitely not a finished product in that way whatsoever. I mean, is anybody? I don't think so. If they are, like I need their tips.
Julie: Tell me your secrets!
Rosie: Bottle it up and sell it to me, please!
Julie: And thousands of dollars! We’ll pay thousands of dollars for that.
Rosy: Oh my god, I would so do that. I really hope someone's working on that. They’re gonna be very rich one day.
Julie: Yeah.
Rosy: But I've had a lot of issues with anxiety. And I don't think it's something that ever completely disappears like it's something You have to be aware of all of the time. And I think now as time passes, there is a lot more focus for dancers on that than there was when I was training, even though it wasn't that long ago. I think it's constantly kind of growing that they realize actually the mental health of performers is very, very important. I think the mental health of anybody who does any kind of freelance work, self-employed, runs their business… I think that's not talked about enough. Because when you are, I'm sure you found, when you are the sole provider of anything or you're selling yourself, that's a lot of work. And I think people who perhaps work a standard job who rock up at their job and finish at five o'clock and go home, probably can't empathize with how emotionally taxing it can be to be the kind of the front of the ship all the time. I don't know if you felt that at all yourself. But I know for me there are days when I'm like, okay, we just got to do this today. Come on, let's go. You know, and I think that's perhaps something that's quite different if you just work in an office or something and you come home and you turn the computer off, and that's it. You don't have that do you, really, unless you create that for yourself. I'm not sure how good you are at that. But I find that a challenge sometimes. I have to force myself to be like, “Okay, I'm not looking at that anymore. I'm going to switch Instagram off. I'm not going to reply to any more messages. I'm not going to create any more content. I'm not going to go and train. I'm actually just not going to do that for the next three hours or something.” Yeah, for me, that's a challenge.
Julie: Totally, you're you're preaching to the choir girl.
Rosy: I think it's because it's something you love, right. If you do something you love, then you're more likely to want to spend more time doing it. If you hate your job, then switching off your computer at five o'clock is probably the biggest relief in the world. You're just like, “oh God, thank god I'll go home now and enjoy my life.” If you enjoy what you do, like it's very easy to fall into the trap of working constantly and I think for me Coronavirus, has taught me how much I was working. Like, I kind of hadn't realized that I was always ridiculously busy. And I think doing anything creative whatsoever, whether you're performing teaching, drawing, illustrating books, anything like that, like I think you're taught that, or you somehow come to believe that, if something's offered to you, you should take it because you don't know when the next opportunity is coming. For me that means “Okay, well I'm I'm not confident enough in myself that I'm going to get another job so I just have to take this one even though I don't want it.”
Julie: Right. Right. There's so much there in what you just said because you know as we look at being a having a dancer mentality ballet specifically and then also running a business, in ballet, you that you can work on 1000 things right? You can work on your feet, you can work on your fourth toe, you can work on your eyebrows, you can work on your facial expression, you can work on your elbow, you can work on your core, what can't you work on right? There's so many things. Like for me, I can work on not sticking my tongue out, because I always do that when I dance, right? There's so many things that we can work on. When you're running a business, there are just as many if not more things you can work on. You can work on your branding, you can work on your logo, you can work on your messaging, you can work on how well you talk to people, you can read books, you can follow influencers, you can I mean, God knows, you know, you could literally do a million things and just the same as it's overwhelming to be like, “okay, so I have 20 minutes what should I do with these 20 minutes?” It's the same thing with like, “I have eight hours, what should I do with these eight hours” and you're just like, “all of it, all of it, I want all of it!” And then you have to like chill yourself out and be like, “just do eight hours.” Like, chill yourself out.
Rosie: Right, and then stop!
Julie: You see how many people you can help and you see how great it can be. And you can see the vision of what you want to do. You know, you have a message you want to spread, right? You have a message that you're trying to put out, you see people where you were 10 years ago, and you just desperately want to help them get to where you are now and you know it’ll be great if you just put in 30 more minutes, but that's a trap.
Rosy: That's a trap. Because then there’s another 30 minutes after that, another 30 minutes and then it's like midnight and you should probably go to bed. Yeah, I think like you say there's a never-ending list. You could have a list as long as your arm never get to the bottom of it and just kind of feel like you haven't done enough and I think always Coronavirus coming in, it's really changed my schedule and my outlook on how I was working before and actually just having a bit more analytical mind over it and going you know what, I had this like one job where I didn't enjoy it. And I only did it because I felt like I should do it because it was something in my field. And actually it was time consuming and I didn't enjoy it and I'm not going back to it. But previously I was like, “Okay, anything, I have to take anything because that's what you're supposed to do.” And I think yeah, I think it's partly an age thing as well. Like, I have a bit more kind of like, maybe a bit less tolerance now for like some of the jobs that I maybe did like straight out of college like, you know, now I'm kind of like, Okay, well, this is what I really love doing. So I'm gonna just go for those things and keep growing my own business and not kind of feel this obligation to do everything all the time.
Julie: But I think that requires a lot of confidence because as you said, when you're freelancing, you don't know when the next opportunity is coming on. And so you have to gain enough confidence to know that if you say no to this, it's not going to ruin your…. like you're going to pay rent next month, right? It's quite challenging.
Rosy: You have to believe that you're, that someone out there will want to offer you something else if you say no to this. And it's kind of hard because it's not in your control at all. Like I've gone to auditions where they cut me because I wasn't tall enough. Or they picked only blonde people. It's ridiculous reasons, but that's the way it is. And I think it's taken me quite a long time to kind of feel like where I'm living now that I have kind of a broad enough network to have things that are coming. So I moved nearly three years ago. And previously to that I was dancing abroad, so I had this like security of like, “Okay, well, for the next eight months, I know that I'm performing every night and I've got this job,” but then it ends and I came back here and I was like, “oh, okay, I'll have to start again now.” And I think now I've been here for a little while. I'm a little bit older, I'm a little bit more experienced, like I have that that confidence now that there's enough going on in my world that I don't need to just kind of do something that I hate or do something that is underpaid or the conditions aren't good. And that's one of the things that I like about running my own business is that I get to set those conditions for myself. So, am I gonna do something that requires me to stay up until 2am? No. I's a never ending challenge though, like you said, because then there's the flip side of, well, you could be reading more books, or you could be working on this or you could be, you know… so there's still that kind of temptation there like the dangling carrot of like, “Oh, I want to do all of the things.” But at least I think you have a little more say in it. Like if you kind of open your eyes a bit. “Yeah, okay. Actually, that was a bit ridiculous that I was awake for like that many hours yesterday. We're not gonna do that today.”
Julie: We talked a lot about words like that you used in that sentence. Are you talking about a job you didn't like? You know, I “should” do it. I'm “supposed” to do it. Like these, these words, I feel like whenever I hear these words, like I've trained myself to like set off alarm bells, right. You know, you hear the word “should” … What do you think?
Rosy: I agree, like I think often times, I think what I've noticed is that anyone who seems attracted to ballet tends to be more of an “I should” person tends to feel maybe a bit more… is perhaps quite self-motivated, perhaps has quite good attention to detail, perhaps wants to challenge themselves. And I think there's something about it that tends to draw, for the most part, that kind of person. And I think feeling the pressure to do certain things a certain way, whatever level you are, there's that level of self-pressure and that self pressure creates an “I should” mentality, I should be doing more than I'm doing now. I should be working harder. I should get up at stupid o'clock to do X, Y, or Z. I think it's just a self-pressure thing. And I think for most people, it's definitely for me, it comes from a lack of confidence that I feel I should be doing more. And like you were saying, you try to set off those little alarm bells in your head like, “why am I saying I should be doing that? Like, does that actually make sense? Yeah, probably not.” I think I'm getting better all the time at trying to do that, and I think it just goes back to the fact that I love it, and so that pressure, perhaps doesn't feel like the same pressure as it would be if it was … if I worked in a bank, and I just felt like I should work harder. That would probably be less attractive, because I wouldn't want to do it. So I think it's kind of a boundary thing, isn't it with yourself of “Okay, well, I want to achieve x, y or z, but that doesn't mean I should be doing something that's ridiculous during the kind of A to Zed journey.”
“Often times, I think what I’ve noticed is that anyone who seems attracted to ballet tends to be more of an “I should” person, is perhaps quite self-motivated, perhaps has quite good attention to detail, perhaps wants to challenge themselves. And I think there’s something about it that tends to draw, for the most part, that kind of person. And I think feeling the pressure to do certain things a certain way, whatever level you are, there’s that level of self-pressure and that self-pressure creates an “I should” mentality: I should be doing more than I’m doing now. I should be working harder. I should get up at stupid o’clock to do X, Y, or Z. I think it’s just a self-pressure thing. And I think for most people, it’s definitely for me, it comes from a lack of confidence that I feel I should be doing more.”
Julie: Yeah. And it's funny I've been in... I mean, when I first graduated college, I worked in a professional setting as a computer programmer for the first three years, four years as I worked as a product manager in a software company for another two to three years. So that was my initial background was doing that, you know, nine to five thing. And I think when you are this type of person, that is also stressful in a different way, because you still want to work really, really hard. And you still have that same drive, but yet, you don't call the shots. So if there's something going on, that you disagree with, and it's going to be the same in dance, too, right.. if you're in a company and you don't like something about the choreography, or you have no control over it, it's the same thing. So you're expected to do things that you maybe don't believe 100% in and that can be really stressful in its own way, because you're working really, really hard, but for something that you maybe don't 100% believe in, and I found that to be the most stressful part of that environment. Whereas now of course, I believe a hundred percent and everything I'm doing, but stopping the fire hose is the challenge.
Rosy: Yeah, yeah, I hear exactly what you're saying like I think I mean, just like most people when I was in college, I also had like two part time jobs, you know, students are poor, let's just, you know, put that out there. So I worked in like a sort of pound shop, like a cheap pound shop. And I've also worked as a waitress and I worked doing phone calls for a company. And just like you say, I still had that drive. I still wanting to perform well in that setting, even though I didn't care about it at all. I'll say, you know, it's like, “why am I putting in so much work to this for minimum wage, like, you know, why am I doing this?” But I think like you say, if that drive is in you, it's in you, and it's going to be kind of a challenge to rein in in whatever setting. I mean, I think it's a good thing, ultimately, I think nobody ever achieved anything great without having a drive to do it. Like you just have to kind of have the drive to do it. And also remember to like, get enough sleep and you know, do the other things in your life as well.
“If that drive is in you, it’s in you, and it’s going to be kind of a challenge to rein it in in whatever setting. I think it’s a good thing, ultimately, I think nobody ever achieved anything great without having the drive to do it. You just have to kind of have the drive to do it.
And also remember to like, get enough sleep and do the other things in your life as well.”
Julie: Right? Yeah. And I think I have come to learn that I need to be able to tell myself that I am good enough, even though I still want to be better. Those are not mutually exclusive words. That’s really challenging to say like, “my business is good enough. But I also want it to be better.” “Me as a dancer, I am good enough. But that doesn't mean I can't also want to improve.”
Rosy: Oh, my goodness, like yes. 1,000,000% Yes. I think that's the challenge, isn't it really? To know that there are things that you want, and to not let that mean that well what you're doing now is trash because like, you know, you're not where you want to be. I think it’s kind of one of those things where there'll never be an endpoint because they'll always be something that you want to tweak, whether it's in business or in dancing, that there could always be something like, “oh, like, actually, let's just kind of change the direction” or “that finger wasn't right” like and it sounds silly, but it's true. There are always things that you can change and tweak, but it's not really worth it if all the time you're doing it, you just think “oh, I should be doing better” like because you're not actually you're not gonna enjoy it, then it's just going to be it's like really painful slog the whole time. Which I don't think anyone really wants to do. So I think Yeah, you're just bang on. Like, you have to try to have a bit of patience I guess, with yourself, that even though you're really driven, if it's not perfect, this second, the world isn't gonna, like, fall apart.
“You have to try to have a bit of patience with yourself, that even though you’re really driven, if it’s not perfect, this second, the world isn’t going to fall apart. ”
Julie: Oof, yeah. Feels like sometimes but yes, you're totally right.
Rosy: Yeah, sometimes like, you know, and there are days where like still I just end up in that trap of like doing something 50 times over and over again because it wasn't perfect bla bla bla bla bla, and you know, get really stressed about it. So I think even once you've noticed that, it's still not going to be perfect, like there are still going to be days where you overwork because you're really enjoying it and you've just really, really want to get it right. But yeah, I definitely, like the older I get, I think I'm definitely noticing more that you have to enjoy things like as they are, because especially if it's like a limited time thing, like you don't want to spend like the whole time just kind of wishing that it was better, or that you were better in it. It's just not worth it.
“The older I get, I’m definitely noticing more that you have to enjoy things like as they are, because especially if it’s like a limited time thing, you don’t want to spend the whole time just kind of wishing that it was better, or that you were better in it. It’s just not worth it.”
Julie: You know, it's so true. I think so really the worst day in my recent memory was the day that I had to tell my team that I was going to close the studios. That was a horrible day, right? Terrible. Can't imagine doing that again. Terrible, right? So my best friend is also named Julee, and we talk every morning for 20 minutes and it's super fun, but that day I was just like a wreck, right? That morning I was just like it was a disaster, right? And she's like, “But this is your life. Today is part of your life. Don't wish today away because today is a part of it. It's going to be who you are. It's gonna keep shaping you and even though it's a horrible day, you shouldn't wish any day away. And you should just like be with the be with these moments. Even if they're horrible, or you want them to be over a change. It's like that still... Your life is made up of these days.” And I was like, “That sounds horrible. But you're right about that.”
Rosy: Yeah, annoyingly, right.
Julie: Annoyingly, right. But I think that's an extreme example of it where like you every single day is is a day that you don't get to live again and every single day is a day that's like, you can make it what you want it to be. And you should because you really don't get them again.
Rosy: Yeah, I think at the start of like, our kind of lockdown and stuff here in the UK, I mean, I spent the first three weeks probably like just being a wreck. I was like, “Okay, I had all this stuff that I got, and that's all like disappeared overnight.” I didn't want to answer my phone because it was usually someone calling me to tell me that something was cancelled. So I was like, “I don't really want to talk to anybody because you're gonna tell me something I don't want to hear.” And that was really horrible, but then on the flip side, the way that things have then translated online for me has been better than I could have imagined. And that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't ended up in that situation. So it did have a payoff. It just wasn't instant and I think humans tend… we like to instant gratification, don't we? So, you know, it's it's hard in the moment, like, but it usually has something good after it.
“At the start of our lockdown here in the UK, I spent the first three weeks probably just being a wreck. I was like, “Okay, I had all this stuff that I got, and that’s all like disappeared overnight.”
I didn’t want to answer my phone because it was usually someone calling me to tell me that something was canceled. So I was like, “I don’t really want to talk to anybody because you’re gonna tell me something I don’t want to hear.” And that was really horrible.
But then on the flip side, the way that things have then translated online for me has been better than I could have imagined. And that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t ended up in that situation. So it did have a payoff. It just wasn’t instant and I think humans tend to like instant gratification, don’t we? It’s hard in the moment, but it usually has something good after it. ”
A little about Rosy’s life now during COVID
Julie: Yeah. So tell me about your business now. We, I mean, we got right in. We went hardcore right away in the beginning of this show. Let's .. I know we went hardcore we went deep
Rosy: Straight in!
Julie: So let's back up a sec, what do you do now?
Rosy: Rewind!
Julie: Who are you and what are you doing?
Rosy: Hi, hi, I'm Rosy! Nice to see you. So, previously, to kind of moving things online, I had a very kind of hectic schedule of rehearsing and performing alongside teaching jobs kind of here, there and everywhere. Doing kind of one-to-one private sessions, doing a little bit of teaching for other people kind of just, I was all over the shop really. There's something magical about teaching children. I don't knock it at all. Like, I definitely love that kind of little ways and their innocence and that kind of sense of magic.
But there's something about teaching adults, where I think the reward is just really unique. Because adults who come to dance are truly, truly invested in that journey. Like, as an adult, you don't choose to go to a ballet class if you're kind of planning on half assing it the whole time, like you’d just go to some random aerobics part of the gym, you wouldn't hunt out a ballet class and go to it.
“There’s something about teaching adults, where I think the reward is just really unique. Because adults who come to dance are truly, truly invested in that journey. Like, as an adult, you don’t choose to go to a ballet class if you’re kind of planning on half-assing it the whole time — like you’d just go to some random aerobics part of the gym, you wouldn’t hunt out a ballet class and go to it. ”
Rosy: And so now, my main focus is working one to one with adults. We usually work across a kind of intensive, eight week kind of block. And it's very personal. So I really enjoy figuring out the puzzle of their body and their technique and working on strength and conditioning alongside working with their ballet. Kind of taking them where they're at taking their goals and then I kind of consider my job to be good “Okay, this is where you want to be, so this is how we're going to get there.” And it's, it's been far more rewarding than I thought I was. I was frankly skeptical about going online to be honest. Like, I didn't think I'd like it at all. I'd done odd bits online because you know, people moved or whatever, and they wanted to keep seeing me. But it's actually just been really good. It's taken the barriers of like location away. And I think also sometimes people are more comfortable if they're at home. So they're kind of in their own environment. There's something to be said for that. So I coach people of all levels, from people who have done ballet for years and have just never really nailed their technique or their flexibility or they have a back pain that they want to get rid of…. kind of right down to people who have always been scared to try and want to kind of welcome themselves into ballet in a very kind of gentle way, one-on-one, not in a pressured environment.
So yeah, it's very, very personal. I meet the people, we do a chat like this. I don't kind of have any booking system where people just book and rock up. We always have a chat first to see if they get on with me, because I think you got to like the person on the other end, you're going to get anything out of it. So if they talk to me and they hate me, then that's not a good start. I haven't had anyone tell me that they hate me yet. So that's good, I think.
So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at, and obviously with all the current mess that the world's in and the restrictions and everything, it's my main focus really right now, and I fully intend to keep growing it and keep helping people with their dancing and helping people to enjoy dance: feel strong, feel good about it, feel confident. Like it's just the most amazing thing when someone comes to you and says, “Oh, no, I'm not very good at this or my left legs rubbish,” or “I've got no turnout,” or “I'm not very strong” or whatever string of things they tell you. And to then see them in a couple of months doing these things that they told you, they were terrible at. Like, “Oh I can't do that,” just to see that shift in people is…. I feel really lucky that people trust me to kind of be really honest about how they feel about it, and you know, look at that confidence side as well.
“It’s just the most amazing thing when someone comes to you and says, “Oh, no, I’m not very good at this” or “My left leg’s rubbish,” or “I’ve got no turnout,” or “I’m not very strong” or whatever string of things they tell you.
And to then see them in a couple of months doing these things that they told you, they were terrible at. Just to see that shift in people is…. I feel really lucky.”
So yes, is pretty great. And it's also the online stuff is really flexible. Sometimes I'm traveling when I'm performing and so it means that I never have to stop doing this because all I need is myself and my computer. So it's, it's great. And ditto for people on the other end, you know, other people's schedules are changing and all that stuff. And I think it, it makes life easier when all you need to do is just head on to zoom.
Julie: Right.
Rosy: Zoom must be making a lot of money out of this pandemic. Can I just say?
Julie: Yeah.
Rosy: Smashing it? T
Julie: That's right. I mean, problem and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. They're … they are linked to each other.
Yeah, I think one thing interesting thing about teaching adults is that oftentimes, we've pieced together our training from different places and different people and over different times and got weird injuries, car accidents, weird stuff that's happened to the body, right? So there's so much work to be done on an individual person where they have these random gaps and knowledge and these random things that they're Rockstar at and these random things that are going on in their ballet journey, so it must be very fascinating to get to work with people very, very one-on-one. And I always love that with our small classes getting to be like, okay, here's where you're at. There's all this random stuff in here that you have or don't have that we can fill in and then you get like a solid block.
Rosy: Exactly, I think, like I've taught group classes as well. And I do once a month, do a group thing on zoom. Just maybe for people that just want to come and meet me or try it or whatever, whatever the case may be, but I always try to keep it quite small because I found that one of my own personal frustrations as a teacher when teaching a group is that I could see all of these all of those little gaps and things, and there's never enough time to sort them all out. Like, there's never enough time to kind of stop and really get into it. So when you're just like one-on-one, someone can say, “hey, look, I have no idea what that thing is,” or, you know, just “I really can't do this” or, you know, “I did this one thing, and then I can kind of do the end result, but I don't really know how the middle works” like you can kind of fill in those gaps. Which is nice.
Julie: You called it a puzzle too, I call it a puzzle as well. It's like you’re basically … your pelvis is like a huge puzzle. We have no idea what's going on in there. We're going to figure out how to get those legs to turn. And we’re just going to do our thing.
Rosy: Everyone's very different. Like, it is a very personal thing. And I think also the way people learn is quite individual. So figuring out what kind of correction and guidance works for that person, I kind of enjoy the challenge of that… figuring out what makes them tick and how they kind of best understand me.
Julie: Yeah. So as a teacher, right, we are one of our big jobs and goals is to motivate and encourage people, but I'm always very interested in the language that we use when we do that, right? So it's been proven that you know, people who have a fixed mindset don't believe that they can improve, whereas people have a growth mindset think they can improve. So I'm always very cautious of things that are like encouraging a fixed mindset and always trying to encourage people with like, things that would encourage them to say, “Wow, you can do this that you couldn't do in the past” or like “This is so much better than that.” Or words like that. What are your top tips there, for me as a teacher, what what words do you like to use to encourage your students that encourage them that way?
Rosy: Yeah, I think I know exactly what you mean, I never want to kind of tarnish something as being incorrect or like bad. Um, I kind of more go for, “okay, like, let's make it better,” rather than “you're doing it wrong. Now, let's do it right.” I think the other thing that I'm a really, really big fan of is kind of creating a visual image for them. So you know, say, I don't know, turnout, say they say that turnout’s rubbish, and they're never going to be able to turn out and I can't do it. So I'm just listening to that. I'm thinking, “Okay, that's probably not true, but you believe that, okay.” So creating an image for them of what it might be inside their body, and kind of saying, “Okay, so let's imagine that you're rotating this amount. Take that image and rotate this amount and see where you end up.” So it's not that they're doing it wrong. It's just that they have more available to them than they think they do. And I think that's what I try to instill in people. There is always more.
I had a teacher that used to say if you were doing push ups or crunches, like, they would say that you are always capable of doing two more than you think you can do. And I think I kind of applied that like to capabilities in dance. So if you don't think you can do jumps, well, actually, you've probably got room for two more, you've probably got another centimeter of being able to point your toes in there. So I tried to kind of instill that, that I believe, they have more available to them. And I really, really believe that. So that will eventually catch on. They’ll be like “Okay, well, if she really does believe that, then maybe she's right.”
Julie: Yeah, I had a coach who’d always say “One more for good luck.” So I tell that to my dancers. Always one more for good luck.
Rosy: Yes! I say that! “Let’s do another one for good luck.” I say that! I said it this morning!
Julie: I say it all the time. I'm like, it's 2020, we need all the luck people. So let's do like five more.
Rosy: Yeah, we really need some kind of magic lump right now.
Julie: Imagine if all you had to do was 100 rélevés and you get 100 bouts of good luck, then I’d do 100 rélevés. You know if that's all you had to do, I would totally do it.
Rosy: I would, sign me up. I'm there.
Rosy’s parting words
Julie: Well, let's just take one last minute here to offer any last words you have for people, whether that's advice for dancers or a big philosophy if you have that you want to make sure you have a chance to share with the world.
Rosy: Um, I think probably one of the main things that saddens me that I hear adults say is that they're too old or that they have the wrong body. Or they can't dance because they have no rhythm or they can't Dance because [insert excuse here]. And I think I know how joyous it can be to dance, and I truly believe that that is accessible to everybody. That feeling is available to everybody. I don't care about any of those extra details. I don't care if you have the best feet in the world, or whether you're six foot or four foot, or big or small, like it really, really doesn't matter. So if you want to dance, you should try it. There's no good reason not to.
“One of the main things that saddens me is that I hear adults say is that they’re too old or that they have the wrong body. Or they can’t dance because they have no rhythm or they can’t dance because [insert excuse here]. And I know how joyous it can be to dance, and I truly believe that that is accessible to everybody. That feeling is available to everybody. I don’t care about any of those extra details. I don’t care if you have the best feet in the world, or whether you’re six foot or four foot, or big or small, like it really, really doesn’t matter. So if you want to dance, you should try it. There’s no good reason not to.”
Julie: Amazing. Love it. It's so true. Dance is worth it in every way, in more ways than you even would know when you started it for the first time.
Rosy: Absolutely. I think people underestimate kind of what a good addition it can be to your life at any age at any level. And, you know, you just need to look online, see the people that have started that journey “late” so to speak. And it's now like, you know, a staple of their life and what a good thing that is. So it's, it's totally possible. You just have to kind of bite the bullet and try it.
Julie: Amazing. Rosie, thank you so much for your time. Today is so fun to have you on the show and talk about all kinds of things. I didn't know where the conversation would go and it went so many wonderful places.
Rosy: I know, I know. It's awesome. It's really lovely to meet you. Well sort of meet you “Zoom meet.” And yeah, I hope that everyone is staying safe and dancing. Always.
Julie: Always.
