Broche Banter #32 --- Tom
Today, I chat with Tom who lives across the pond in the UK.
He’s always been fascinated with ballet, but only started dancing a few years ago. Before that, he began his journey with mindfulness practice, which helped pull him out of a dark time. That led him to yoga, and finally now to ballet.
He now teaches both yoga and mindfulness, and enjoys ballet for the purity of the movement, and strives to enjoy every step of the journey without getting caught up into goals. The process and living in the moment is what brings the joy.
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.
In this episode, Tom and I talk a lot about mindfulness practice, so let me provide a quick definition to give our conversation some context.
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment with openness and curiosity.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment.
Now, onto the show!
A Journey from a Dark Place to Mindfulness to Yoga to Ballet
Julie: Welcome to the show. Tom. It's so great to be able to chat with you today on the podcast.
Tom: Yeah, it’s great to be here, thanks for having me. I’m glad you reached out.
Julie: So I… we met…. I mean, we've been Instagram followers of each other for a while. But we really kind of met during this whole lockdown situation when you joined the online studio back... I don't know, March/April… it was like early COVID. But I'm really excited to actually get to know your story. Because you do not only ballet, but you do yoga, and also you're into mindfulness and meditation as well. I'm fascinated to hear your story. So let's get into it.
Tom: Yeah. So well I actually did mindfulness, you know, the three hobbies you mentioned, it was mindfulness that I did first. That was the first thing I came to. And I came to mindfulness because I had a nervous breakdown. I had a drinking problem. And I was suffering with depression and anxiety. So I came to mindfulness to that as a way of treating it, as a form of treatment really.
But, I got really into it. I did one eight-week workshop, which was like each weekend doing two days, over eight weeks, to get the basic meditation. And then from there, I've read a lot around the subject. And done lots of lots of other courses, workshops, and I sort of… I wanted movement, because I always quite sporty, I did a lot of running. And I think you can see I've got two trophies there.
So then from there, I did yoga because I wanted something that was movement but more meditative.
And then from there, that took me to ballet, because I liked stretching, but I wanted something more creative. More challenging … and I’d always liked it when I was younger. I flirted with it when I was younger, but never got into it. So that so that's a three year sort of interlink where I went from one to the other, and only do all three. And I think they will compliment each other as well.
Julie: They definitely, I mean… I think I came to it backwards from you where I started with ballet. And that took me to yoga. And then that took me to mindfulness. But coming at it from those three perspectives, I can really see how ballet in it and of itself is actually a meditative practice where you're trying to notice what's happening in your body, you're trying to notice it, accept it, be okay with it at the same time that you're trying to change it. I'm still very new to mindfulness. So please correct me if I'm wrong about what mindfulness is all about. But that is kind of how I see ballet and mindfulness, super, super connected, you want to just notice everything that happens in your body in order to be able to make changes to it and be able to kind of mold it to this world of ballet.
Tom: Yeah, it complements. Yeah, ballet is definitely sort of like mindful movement. Because you're just thinking so much about steps and all the different things you've got to do, so your mind’s a map and you move within in. You're not even thinking about the movement, so your mind's not off. It makes it very difficult for your mind to wander off and get taken downstream by all these negative thoughts. Which is what meditation teaches you to do. But of course, if you're doing ballet, it has the same effect, I think. You’re almost do it subconsciously. You're almost being mindful without realizing it.
“Ballet is definitely like mindful movement, because you’re just thinking so much about steps and all the different things you’ve got to do, so your mind’s a map and you move within in. It makes it very difficult for your mind to wander off and get taken downstream by all these negative thoughts. Which is what meditation teaches you to do. But of course, if you’re doing ballet, it has the same effect. You’re almost doing it subconsciously. You’re almost being mindful without realizing it. ”
It forces you to be mindful. Because if your mind wanders, then you’re off your game, you’re forgetting which step’s next, you're not concentrating on your alignment, your turnout. So you can't afford to be daydreaming when you're doing it. Because that’s what mindfulness is: you let the thoughts go. Now you've got the thought stream, if you think of it as a stream of thought consciousness and thoughts going through your head, and you’re going off in all these different directions, and then you can get taken downstream very quickly. And that can lead to anxiety and depression, because you're getting taken away with the thoughts, but you can't do that with ballet. The two mesh really well.
Julie: It's very true, it does have a very calming effect on the mind. And even for many of us dancers, if we are feeling depression or anxiety, and we do ballet, it can actually help steer out of that and calm your mind out of those kinds of thoughts as well.
Tom: Yeah, that's totally. It's interesting, actually, that nobody's really picked up on that more. Because with mindfulness, you can get things like, I've got books: mindful running, zen running, or mindful drawing… yoga, and meditation clearly go together. But then you think why?… someone could do mindful ballet, you could you could actually do that as something that….. maybe I should write a book on it, maybe that's something I should do.
Julie: Yeah, it's fascinating. The more I get into mindfulness, I mean, it's only been about three months that I've been getting into it. But like what you're saying is so interesting, because if I hadn't, if I had studied mindfulness earlier in my ballet training, I think I would have gotten farther faster. Because I didn't know what I was trying to do with my mind, I think it was actually very easy to let the anxiety creep in. Because when things are moving fast, and you feel lost, and there's a lot going on, it's easy to just overwhelm your mind with anxiety and just feel anxious about the speed of things and feel anxious that you're not getting it. But I think if I had studied mindfulness sooner, I mean, obviously, it's good whenever you come to these things, but I think it would have helped a lot in the beginning of my ballet training to understand my mind and understand what was happening up there and not just be like, at the mercy of my mind.
Tom: It doesn't really matter how you get there. You're all trying to get to the same place really. So it's all different paths to the same spot. It’s funny, I remember being in therapy years ago, and my therapist said, I swore you’re dancing, I swear I saw you dancing, and he directed me to do this thing called, I think it's called four rhythms, I don’t recall, but it's mindful dancing. And you sort of let yourself go, and and I didn't really fancy that I wanted more disciplined, but so there is mindful dancing, so it already exists. So I think it might I think having some discipline to it is a bit easier. Otherwise you just sort of *flailing motion*
Julie: Right. And I think in some ways, the problem is the lack of discipline, right? The problem with letting your mind wander down the dark holes is the lack of being able to kind of, it's not about controlling it, but about being able to accept it and not not just letting your mind wander and letting your mind get the best of you. It's like being there with it, but not just believing everything it says to you or getting swept up with your mind. So I think the discipline and the structure of ballet does help with that, of keeping yourself on track and keeping your mind focused.
Tom: Yeah, and I think a lot of athletes use mindfulness as well. So if you think it's gonna be good for ballet. If tennis players doing it, and football players are doing it and track athletes are doing it, then why wouldn't you do it if you do ballet, because it's a physical, it's the same thing. You’ve got to be an athlete to do it. Well, you don’t have to be, but it's not an athletic pastime. Johanna Konta, who is a tennis player, does every day and swears by it. It’d be interesting if they were any ballet dancers that do meditation. I haven’t come across any, but I’m sure there are.
Julie: Yeah, there probably are. It's just not as widely talked about in ballet, I think.
Really diving into the crux of meditation and mindfulness and how that helps with negative thoughts
Julie: So I'm curious on your thoughts on this because you know a lot about meditation and mindfulness and we've talked about it a lot. So one of the things that I struggled with a lot in meditation and in mindfulness is this idea of accepting the things that you're thinking and feeling at the same time a not necessarily deciding to keep them. As dancers, we’re often very ambitious, we want a lot of things, we want to get better, we want to be better, we want to be farther, but at the same time, accepting where you are, while wanting to be farther along in your journey seems very confusing to me as a concept. How can I accept where I am while also wanting to be better at the same time? Can those two ideas live together? Do you want to talk? Does that make sense? It's a confusing question.
Tom: Yeah, I think it’s getting this balance between not getting taken by the thoughts, but not pushing them away. If you push the thoughts away, like, “ahh, I don't want to think about that.” That's not good because obviously, that's creating tension, and those thoughts are just going to manifest in depression and anxiety later on. If you have any negative thoughts, it's kind of accepting them and saying “well, it's okay to think that, but I'm not going to be taken by that.”
So sort of having that balance between, I accept the thoughts or the feelings, it could be feelings as well, accept the bad feelings coming from the thoughts, but I'm not going to let them take me over.
If I'm sad, for example, if I’m sad for a reason, like if someone died and I'm sad. Or something didn't go well, if you think of ballet, if a practice was awful, then that's okay. It's okay to feel like that. Accept that. Feeling the negative feeling pass through you, and then just letting it go.
Because when you do meditation, when you actually practice the meditation, you come back to the breath first, you’re thinking about the breath, concentrate on the breath, and then the thoughts are coming in, and you're not trying to stop them. But you're letting your thoughts go.
“If I’m sad, for example, if I’m sad for a reason, like if someone died and I’m sad. Or something didn’t go well, if you think of ballet, if a practice was awful, then that’s okay. It’s okay to feel like that. Accept that. Feel the negative feeling pass through you, and then just let it go.
Because when you practice meditation, you come back to the breath first, you’re thinking about the breath, concentrating on the breath, and then the thoughts are coming in, and you’re not trying to stop them. But you’re letting your thoughts go. ”
So it's almost like you're pebble in a stream, and the thoughts are just water and they're just washing over you. It's not really affecting you. You're just accepting that it’s part of the human condition. And if you keep doing that, you get to a point where you sort of think, if you keep practicing, if you practice meditation maybe 20 minutes a day, every day, let's say you do it for six weeks, after about six weeks, you'll hit a point where it'll put space between you and those thoughts. And when they come in, you'll be like, “Okay, that's just my brain being… doing what it does, doing those negative thoughts.” And it just, it's not a big deal, you just sort of let it go. And it's not a big deal.
“You’ll hit a point where [meditation will] put space between you and those thoughts. And when they come in, you’ll be like, “Okay, that’s just my brain doing what it does, thinking those negative thoughts.” And it just, it’s not a big deal, you just sort of let it go. And it’s not a big deal. ”
It's just training yourself into that that mindset, if that makes sense. But no, I hope that makes sense.
Julie: Yeah, it does. So maybe a way another thing I've heard. So like, obviously, I live on social media, right? I'm there all the time maintaining two brands on there, and you get a lot of positive comments, and you get a lot of negative comments, like you get a lot of comments. You get a lot of feedback, you're out there, you're interacting with people. And one thought I heard was that, you shouldn’t let either the positive thoughts or the negative thoughts affect you. You should just see them as neutral comments as like just not affecting you. You can't get wrapped up with the positive ones or the negative ones. They're just comments. They're just thoughts, they're just things in the world is that kind of maybe what you're talking about?
Tom: Yeah, hundred percent. I think also, the key thing is the emotional side of it in that you can't not be emotional. So if something does upset you, you're upset, it's gonna make you happy, it's happy. And that's okay. And it's not getting drawn into, on an emotional level, into that in a really intense way and getting taken down stream. It's just sort of accepting it. But so not pushing it away, accepting the human condition, if you like, in a bit more disciplined way.
“The key thing is the emotional side of it in that you can’t not be emotional. So if something does upset you, you’re upset, or if it makes you happy, you’re happy. And that’s okay. And it’s not getting drawn into, on an emotional level, into that in a really intense way and getting taken down stream. It’s just sort of accepting it. But so not pushing it away, accepting the human condition, if you like, in a bit more disciplined way. ”
So there's just, “I’m happy” “I’m sad,” but I'm not going to go to the extremes when I don't need to. You’re sort of level… more level. So I find that if someone comments about something on social media, and I think that's pretty negative, they don't like that. That's okay. But I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm just going to say, “Yeah, I'm not happy about that.” And then I'll let the thought go, I’ll let the feelings go. It doesn't affect you as much.
Julie: One thing that gets dancers down a lot, especially ballet dancers who tend to be of the perfectionist tendency, which I am as well, is like, if you mess something up, it can really derail you for a little while if you let it. And also if you do really great at something, you can let it derail you, but in a positive way you can let it you know, fly off the handle and kind of go into like a manic side of things, on the other hand. So like evening it out, like all of this as part of the ballet training: the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazing. It's all just like part of it. And it's not anything to get hung up on in the process.
Tom: Yes, yeah. Because it's all about the process. I’ve taken this into my yoga practice more than ballet, but I always if you're doing yoga, if you want to see all these crazy poses, you want to think, well, I will get there. But I don't need to worry about getting there. It's about the process. Because it's not about that. It's about the process of the breath and going through it. And so you can almost apply that to ballet. If you say I wanted to be doing triple pirouettes extremely easily, then I can just concentrate in the process because I know if I work in the process and not get taken away by “Why can't I do it as well as that person,” “Why can't you do well” — because if you put the work into the process that will take you there anyway. So that will take care of the ego. I can just immerse myself in the process. And then that by immersing yourself in process, you're being mindful because it's all about being in the moment. The past is gone and the future is yet to come. So we only have moments. So it's only by immersing yourself in the process, that you're going to get where you want to be, because that's all you've got. So that's the key, and that I think works very well with ballet personally.
“If you say “I want to be doing triple pirouettes extremely easily,” then I can just concentrate on process. I know if I work in the process and not get taken away by “Why can’t I do it as well as that person,” because if you put the work into the process that will take you there anyway. So that will take care of the ego. I can just immerse myself in the process. And then by immersing yourself in process, you’re being mindful because it’s all about being in the moment. The past is gone and the future is yet to come. So we only have moments. It’s only by immersing yourself in the process that you’re going to get where you want to be, because that’s all you’ve got.”
Julie: So when people when when people say trust the process, this is what they're talking about?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, hundred percent. You know, because, if you’re dwelling on the past all the time, coulda, shoulda, woulda, should have done this should have done that way, could have done that, would have done that. That’s the path to depression because you're dwelling in the past. If you think about the future, you’re thinking that I need to be doing the splits six months from now perfectly front and side, then that's just going to create anxiety, because you don't know what the future holds. You have all you have to ground yourself in the present. That's what mindfulness is all about. That's why you ground yourself in the breath. Because that's all you've got, you've only got the present. And so if you ground yourself in the process, then you're not worried about what what you did wrong, or what you might do wrong in the future. You're just worried about that. And that's all you've got, you can only work with this moment that we have right now. And then it's gone. And then you move on to the next.
“If you’re dwelling on the past all the time, coulda, shoulda, woulda, should have done this should have done that way, could have done that, would have done that. That’s the path to depression because you’re dwelling in the past. If you think about the future, you’re thinking that I need to be doing the splits six months from now perfectly front and side, then that’s just going to create anxiety because you don’t know what the future holds. You have to ground yourself in the present. That’s what mindfulness is all about. That’s why you ground yourself in the breath. Because that’s all you’ve got, you’ve only got the present. And so if you ground yourself in the process, then you’re not worried about what you did wrong, or what you might do wrong in the future. You’re just worried about that breath. And that’s all you’ve got, you can only work with this moment that we have right now. And then it’s gone. And then you move on to the next. ”
Julie: It's pretty I mean, I'm like getting chills every year, it's like very intensely wise. It's a very, like, it makes a lot of sense. It's hard to implement, do you still find this hard to maintain over time? Or is it kind of easy and natural now to maintain this focus?
Tom: The key is to have some sort of regular meditation practice. I had a regular meditation practice, and the more I practice easier it’s got. I've let my practice slip, because I'm doing a lot more yoga, so I'm getting a lot of what I needed from mindfulness from the yoga. But there's still things for meditation and mindfulness that I can't quite get the yoga. I’m thinking specifically with the pandemic, I’m getting a bit anxious, getting little mini bouts of depression. And now I realize actually I need to keep myself grounded in some sort of meditation practice, even if it's only 20 minutes every other day, because it gives me something that I can't quite get anywhere else. So I think the key is, is just meditative practice. It's kind of like if you don't practice ballet, it's no good saying, “Well, I've got the ballet brain now. So I'm always going to be good.” No, you’ve still got to maintain you've got to practice to do it. And it's the same lens, you have to think of mindfulness as going to the gym. So if I want to maintain the fitness or the physical body and one has to work at it. And that's what meditation is almost like it's like going to the gym for the brain. Work on the brain and practicing it. So it process and work in the best way it possibly can. And that’s how you have to view it: it's healthy body and mind.
“You have to think of mindfulness as going to the gym. So if I want to maintain the fitness or the physical body and one has to work at it. And that’s what meditation is almost like it’s like going to the gym for the brain. Work on the brain and practicing it. So it can process and work in the best way it possibly can.”
Julie: Amazing, it's fascinating. Once you start thinking of your brain as a muscle, like everything else, I think it does help change the perspective as well. Like, it's easy to feel and think or like feel the intensity of the thoughts coming through and think that you will be able to change them or that they are their own entity or that they’re something that that is just like kind of on its own. But then when you think about and start to actually be able to see changes in your mind I think that can be helpful to start to understand your thoughts are what they are then they're not like the boss of you.
Tom: Yeah, totally. I think Oh, yeah. I've lost this I was gonna make a valid point, but not too big too mindful. I've listened to what you're saying and it's gone away.
Julie: It's just fascinating how all of this relates to dancing it. The pandemic has been really hard on dancers, it's been really hard on everyone. I mean, but maintaining the consistency of practice, I think has been an incredible challenge for people during this period of time. And I think it's challenging because the motivation has changed, the motivation is different, in that there's often no motivation. I mean, there's no class to go to, there's no friends to go see all of the external motivators have been completely removed. And so the only… the reason to do it, the only reason to do it is if you love the process, or if you're willing to start loving it for the process of it. And I think that is actually a really challenging transition to make from a recreational hobby that you go and see your friends to do to like a serious meditative daily practice whether or not you feel like doing it, I think that's a huge shift that people are starting to come around to understand.
Tom: Yes. Oh, yeah. I think I think I found that. I am out of lockdown here. But the first couple of months of lockdown I was all at sea. I'm very lucky, I've got a lot of solitary activities that I've done before we came into it. Meditation being one, running being another, yoga being another. And of course, all I did was simply do those things and integrate ballet into that world. I went and got a ballet bar. And I got on Zoom, into your class. And eventually, I just got into that part. And that just, it just became another activity, which I practice at home, like it was my home yoga practice or something like that, and just immerse myself in it. And actually, it's made me better because it's given me a bit more discipline. It's made me realize how much I enjoy it. You can always get a few other items, a little dancewear, and that’ll get you motivated.
Julie: Yes, yes. And we always have you have, you have a more extensive lightning collection than I do, actually. Which is quite impressive, because I have a lot of leggings, but I think you actually have more colors and patterns than I ever even knew existed in terms of leggings and tights.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, definitely that’s a hobby. Definitely that’s a hobby. Yeah.
Deep dive into mindfulness and coming out of the dark time
Julie: So okay, so when you got into all of this, what were you doing for work at that time? Or were you still in school? What was what was like the beginning of all of this? Were you still working professionally somewhere when this all came into the side? Or how what was your What was your life like pre all of this stuff?
Tom: I was working in a pub. And I was drinking heavily. I was also doing an architectural design and technology course/degree, and was doing a long commute. And that's probably when I went off. And things went in a dark place. At the time, I’d not long broken my hand. And I so I wasn't doing any exercise. I used to do a lot of soccer, and surfing to the coast. And that was sort of keeping me afloat. I couldn't do that because I broke my hand. And then when my hand healed up, it took a long time to heal, I was living in that lifestyle of going out and drinking a lot because I did a bar job. And so lots of my friends worked for the industry, so they all loved to drink. And, and when I did this architecture design technology course, what I realized is I was struggling because I realized how much I drank. And, a combination of those things.. and I got a difficult relationship with somebody who was a bit narcissistic, toxic, and all of those things came together and it just crashed, completely crashed. I just couldn't handle it anymore. I just lost the clock completely. And I took a long time then to sort of work through them … I'm not going to go into too much detail but that's that's where I was.
So then I had to work through piecemeal all the problems and try and break them down and deal with them individually. And the first one is the drink, I had to get rid of that and then have to deal with the depression, the anxiety, letting go of the toxic relationship. All these things have to deal with and mindfulness was absolutely key in helping me get through that. There's other things I did, I went to AA, therapy, but mindfulness was a key ingredient.
Julie: Definitely, I've definitely seen it have a very healing capacity for myself as well going through this whole pandemic period of time, it's very helpful to be able to be with the negativity that you've experienced and felt and make sure you come out of it learning good lessons, because I think it's very easy to come out of a traumatic situation learning negative lessons. It's easy to come out of it, saying all people are bad, or the world is scary. It's easy to take negative lessons out of negative experiences, but I think mindfulness has really helped me be able to take positive lessons out of negative experiences, and change it around as opposed to just just going into a dark place. Because it would be very easy to go into a dark place when you have what feels like the entire world against you, and in a really challenging situation.
Tom: Yeah, I think also that there has to be a note of caution as well with mindfulness. Because a lot of it, like for example, snipers do mindfulness now. And they actually train mindfulness meditation to concentrate so they can just start with a gun and concentrate for long periods of time. But there's a lot of stuff out there, that’s taken a lot of the spirituality out of it, which is okay, but you want to you don't want to water it down too much. Because the danger is if you become too almost inhuman, it can leave you feeling a bit numb. And I've experienced this. So you need to do you need to do your homework, do your research. The teacher I did mine this with, she was actually doing a post grad in Buddhism studies at the time, she was coming from the Buddhist perspective, I'm not saying you have to be a Buddhist for that, but she was still grounded in the spirituality of if you hadn't sterilized it too much.
You have to be careful with it typically in the corporate world, mindfulness is designed to make us more compliant workers, and that can be a negative thing, because it was watered down too much.
And there is an author who's got a book called Mindfulness, and I can't remember his name. But I'm just saying make sure you get the right type of mindfulness. I would recommend people like Thich Nhat Hanh. I'd recommend his sort of stuff. You don't want to get too far away from it, because it could... There's a lot of charlatans out there. There's a lot of people now peddling mindfulness who maybe don't know as much as they think they know. You've got to be very careful, I think as well, just a note of caution, because it's brilliant. Brilliant. I think it's transformative. But you've got to try and make sure you don't get taken down the wrong path. Just something I thought I’d throw in there.
Julie: So I can see basically, that kind of mindfulness or like, the more negative kind of mindfulness, in the sense of trying to almost like, numb yourself to the thoughts. So you don't want to get swept up in either the good or the bad. But you also want to make sure that you're still a part of the human condition and not like, trying to deny all of your emotions or like push them out. Is that what you’re talking about?
Tom: Kind of, but just for example, I did a meditation which, basic meditation is mindfulness with breathing, and mindfulness of breathing, you just concentrate on the breath. And that's what it's all about concentrate on the breath to get you started. If you just keep doing that, that can actually be quite numbing, particularly if you do that… because some people meditate for a couple of hours at a time. But then there's a Tom Glenn meditation, which we'll do, which is another good one, that involves a bit of visualization, you thinking about healing, because all the visualizing … you do the breath as well to get you started, but then you're thinking about visualizing all the planet, so all the creatures on the planet, and nature and trying to visualize yourself from an earlier point in your life when you're not doing so well, and try and give yourself a mental hug. You visualize people that you find it difficult to work with or to get on with and you try to be loving to them. Now we're doing little meditations where you integrate that kind of visualization, that keeps it alive. It keeps it real, it stops it from getting sort of numb, we're you’re not just cut off from everything. So it's just gonna be I'm just using that as an example because there's different types of guided meditation if you get CDs or you go on YouTube or books. You want to keep that balance, you know what I mean? So you don't get to sort of numb. Yeah. Different ways of doing it.
Julie: And you know, it's funny thing about humans, we do have a tendency to want to numb ourselves, right? It feels numb the pain, it feels nice. Like, you know, this is a, this is a thing that we do with drugs with substances, it sounds like it's also thing with meditation as well. It's like comforting to not have to feel all of it, because sometimes the feelings are too big to feel. So it's nice to kind of feel like you can turn them off. So that's not necessarily the point. It's like to feel the intensity of them, but to not get swept up in it.
When did ballet come into the picture?
Julie: So you started mindfulness eight years ago, when did yoga and ballet come into that picture in your timeline?
Tom: Yoga was about five years ago and ballet was about 3 years ago.
Julie: And you now teach mindfulness and yoga, as part of your profession as part of your work is? That's right.
Tom: Yes, they do. Yes. I do. I still do a bit bar work.
Julie: Well, that's very common in the arts industry anyways.
Tom: Well, yeah. We'll do a bit of that.
Julie: It's always interesting when when I talk with adults who are getting started in these kinds of things. And interestingly, ballet has such a stigma around starting late, whereas yoga definitely doesn't. And mindfulness definitely doesn’t — it's very normal to start yoga and mindfulness late and become really good at them and become professionals and become teachers. That's super normal to do that as an adult and become a teacher. But ballet doesn't really have that in it. So it's interesting to see the almost the normal-ness of starting yoga as an adult becoming a yoga teacher, that feels like a very normal trajectory. But starting ballet as an adult and becoming an adult ballet teacher is actually a little bit more complex, or like a little bit more odd of a thing. What do you think about that?
Tom: Well, that, to me is one of the benefits of doing a lot of mindfulness and yoga. That made me mentally strong, and crave more of a challenge. And I wanted to do something that most people don't do. I was like, “I want to do this, so I'm going to do it,” and that’s it. And whereas before I did my first yoga wouldn't even have considered it. So I think that's one of the benefits of my practice is I’m like, “I'm going to just do, whatever I think… if I think I can do something, I'm just going to do it.” And I'm going to enjoy the challenge. I’m up for the challenge of doing that. And I'm certainly up for challenging any stigmas. I haven't got any time for that talk. So that's a bonus to me, like I can challenge any sort of stigmas around guys doing ballet when they’re older? I’ll take that head on it. I'll enjoy that.
“Yoga and mindfulness made me mentally strong, and crave more of a challenge. And I wanted to do something that most people don’t do. I was like, “I want to do this, so I’m going to do it,” and that’s it. And whereas before I did my first yoga wouldn’t even have considered it. So I think that’s one of the benefits of my practice is I’m like, “I’m going to just do, whatever I think… if I think I can do something, I’m just going to do it.” And I’m going to enjoy the challenge. I’m up for the challenge of doing that. And I’m certainly up for challenging any stigmas. I haven’t got any time for that talk. So that’s a bonus to me, like I can challenge any sort of stigmas around guys doing ballet when they’re older? I’ll take that head on it. I’ll enjoy that.”
Julie: It's um, yeah, definitely. There's there's also with men doing ballet as a whole other thing. I didn't even think to bring up that topic. But yes, but I it's it to me, it's just so normal because I used to it. I'm so used to it. But actually, for a lot of men coming into it, they may not be as used to it. I'm in the ballet world, right? So I see all the men, I see all the men like you and like the other people I interact with on Instagram and in the online studio, so I'm very used to it. But yeah, it is actually probably kind of intimidating to start ballet as a man. Is that true?
Tom: It wasn't for me, too much, but that was the mindset I had. But I think it generally speaking it is. I think there was there was some trepidation about doing it. But it wasn't like overpowered it was just like “I don’t care, I’ll just have a go,” but I think for a lot of people it is. If they haven't been building their mental strength for five years previous started like I had.
Julie: It's so true, the mental strength is key, and I hope more people will, will build it. Because once you feel like you can take on challenges and once you trust yourself to take on challenges, I think the world is your oyster. That's when I think you feel actually free in your body and in the world when you feel like you can handle what the world throws at you.
Tom: Yeah, I think freedom is a key word you said there. I think that's part of the motivation is to feel the freedom to say just “To hell with it. I'm doing this because I want to do it. Not doing anything to please anyone else. I’m doing it for me because I want to do it.”
Why do you love ballet?
Julie: What drew you to ballet originally, you said you liked it when you were younger? What about ballet, what qualities about it was mesmerizing to you?
Tom: Just watching the movement, lines, and discipline. It’s the purest dance form. I see other stuff and I enjoy it, the contemporary stuff, but I can remember seeing as a very young kid… back in those days, they used to actually have it on terrestrial TV, which they don't…. I mean, you don’t even see on Sky arts now on the cable channels. But in those days, you did you see it sometimes and I just found it mesmerizing as a child. I thought “wow, it's incredible,” in a way to other dance it just mesmerized me it just, I can't explain it completely. It's just an emotional thing was just like, “wow, that's brilliant. I'd love to be able to do that. And I could watch that for hours.” I think it would have been like six years old. Probably when Fontane was appearing on Russian TV towards the end, reruns, that era. Yeah, that's why.
“Just watching the movement, lines, and discipline. It’s the purest dance form. I see other stuff and I enjoy it, but I can remember seeing as a very young kid… back in those days, they used to actually have it on terrestrial TV. I just found it mesmerizing as a child. I thought “wow, it’s incredible,” in a way of no other dance. It just mesmerized me. I can’t explain it completely. It’s just an emotional thing was just like, “wow, that’s brilliant. I’d love to be able to do that. And I could watch that for hours.” I think it would have been like six years old. ”
Julie: It is very magical. And it's one of those things that almost looks like it defies gravity, right? The way dancers move and the way that they move at a different speed than normal things would move. It makes it have a very ethereal quality to it.
Tom: Yeah, totally on this one of those things where you just think, “Well, I didn't have the opportunity to do it when I was younger." The opportunity never rose itself. And then I was off doing other things. And you know, so I didn't have the opportunity when I was 910 eight 712 13. It just wasn't presented or never presented itself. I didn't know enough about it in order to sort of say “Oh, is there a class you go to?” when you're a kid you don't I don't really think like that. So yeah, making up for lost youth, you know?
Julie: Well, I guess as you said earlier, it just we all It doesn't matter how you came to it right? All the everything leads to it out there at the right time in our lives. And who knows, maybe you wouldn't be ready for it when you're young. I don't I know. I wouldn't have been.
Tom: I think I’d have loved it when I was younger. But no, it just wasn't what boys did where I lived at that time.
Ballet goals and enjoying the journey
Julie: Do you have goals with ballet? I know we talked so much about the journey, but do you have like dreams or somewhere that you want to head with your ballet journey?
Tom: No. I totally…. if we’re talking about being mindful, I'm totally in the process. It's one of those things where I do with with yoga and stuff. I'd like to be able to do this, I’d like to go to this retreat. And I'd like to do a 300-hours and I've got my 200 hours. But with ballet, no, I just want to enjoy it. I want to immerse myself and enjoy it. Sure, there might be “I want to get better,” but I’ve decided I’m not going to set myself any goals. I'm just gonna be totally…. this is something I do that I enjoy. And that's what it is. It's not something that I do to try and make any money off. I'm just doing it purely as a hobby and at the moment, that's where I'm keeping it in my life. It's just something I enjoy doing.
Julie: That's fascinating, but you have a very different viewpoint on those two different parts of your life. As you mentioned, you have specific yoga goals, you have specific things you want, but you keep ballet in like a separate cubby. It sounds like it was very deliberate. Why is that?
Tom: Because I didn't have something….. like I do a lot of running, but I was always trying to beat my PB in running. So if I did it in half an hour for an hour 26 I want to do it in an hour 25. Yoga I’m always trying to do different workshop learn new things. So I wanted to have something where… like I do a lot of writing, but then with my writing, I'm looking to self publish some of those books on Kindle. So I wanted to have something that was very pure as something that I enjoyed without anything that…. suddenly becoming a business or a job, just something totally pure as a pastime, because that's what I probably didn't have in my life at that time. So it's still a nice hole. But that's for me, you know, that's a personal thing. I'm not suggesting anyone else do that. That's just how it worked for me.
Julie: That's fascinating. I never thought about that. But I can see how the added pressure of making it into something can remove a little bit of the enjoyment of it, or the purity of the enjoyment, as you talked about, like the purity of the enjoyment. It's solely for me, it's for no one else. If I don't want to do it, I don't have to do it. It's because I love it. It's like for all of those really pure reasons.
Tom: That's it exactly. Yeah. But you know, who knows, you know, maybe that will change one day.
Julie: One day, you'll maybe catch a bigger bug. Who knows?
Tom: Maybe I'll be teaching in 10 years, I'll be this person who teaches. Maybe I’ll get to that level.
Julie: Maybe you'll be the first mindfulness and ballet teacher.
Tom: This is it, don’t encourage me. It’s the only hobby I’ve got.
Julie: Nevermind, forget I said it! [lots of laughter]
Parting advice
Julie: So one last question. If you have any words of advice for anyone, whether they're male or female, just who wants to get into the world of ballet, what would you What would you say? What what's your last parting words for our listeners?
Tom: If you want to get into I'd say feel the fear and do it anyway.
“If you want to get into I’d say feel the fear and do it anyway.”
Julie: Feel the fear and do it anyway. Is that what you said?
Tom: Yep, feel the fear and do it anyway. But that's not me. I stole out of a book paper by a lady called Susan Jeffers. But I think that sums up what I feel about it.
Julie: That's, it's, it's the definition of courage, right? Feel the fear and do it anyways?
How about for the people who are in it? For people who are in the journey, and are wavering on their motivation? What What would you have for those people?
Tom: Enjoy the moment, make the most of it. Enjoy the moment because you only have that moment. You don't know what’ll. You may have an accident and you can’t dance ballet. You don't know do make the most of it. Because you don't know what the future holds, you can't change what’s happened before, so make the most of that process of doing it. I’m doing what I enjoy. And that's the most important thing. And what happens afterwards, or what happened yesterday, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I’m here doing what I love. What could be better than that. So make the most of each moment in doing it and view it like that. Because think of all the other time you could spend doing something else that you don't want to do. You're doing this thing you enjoy. You've got this moment. That's the best place to be. That's the best place to be in your life.
“Julie: It’s so true. It’s so true. I love it. Great, great parting words. We really have to take every single day, as we’ve learned this year, what we had in February, we took for granted and now we know how much the world can change in a moment. So it’s always true in our lives that the world can change in a moment. So enjoy, enjoy what you got right now.
Tom: Yeah.
Julie: Well, thank you, Tom. This is such a fun conversation. I learned a ton and it was so fun to be able to hear your perspective on all these different on all these different aspects of the mind and the body and movement. Thank you so much for your time and perspective.
Tom: Thank you. It was a pleasure, loved it, enjoy talking to you.”
“Enjoy the moment, make the most of it. Enjoy the moment because you only have that moment. You don’t know what’ll. You may have an accident and you can’t dance ballet. You don’t know do make the most of it. Because you don’t know what the future holds, you can’t change what’s happened before, so make the most of that process of doing it. I’m doing what I enjoy. And that’s the most important thing. And what happens afterwards, or what happened yesterday, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m here doing what I love. What could be better than that. So make the most of each moment in doing it and view it like that. Because think of all the other time you could spend doing something else that you don’t want to do. You’re doing this thing you enjoy. You’ve got this moment. That’s the best place to be. That’s the best place to be in your life.”