|

Life lessons from soutenus

As I go about documenting my experiences with dance, I try to make a deliberate effort to acknowledge my accomplishments. Ballet is such a technical and detailed art that it is easy to get bogged down with a never-ending list of imperfections. There’s always something for a dancer to improve. I try my best to be positive, but now and then, you run into an imperfection you just can’t ignore. This happened to me over my last month practicing soutenus.

I guess it is a pretty standard turn as far as ballet goes. It’s not one of the more complicated turns that you learn. However, if you missed the lesson on soutenu, you can go on to try more complex things without ever really getting a good handle on how to do them.

I regularly record video footage of my online class to track my progress. Although watching the footage can be fun, it can also feel torturous. You see every single flaw, every little shuffling of your feet, anything that is not refined. It was while watching video clips of my dancing, that I realized- I have a serious problem with soutenus!

In retrospect, I think this revelation has been a high point of my practice recently. Yes, even though it is embarrassing to see these horrible turns, I think I can take this as a moment of growth. Like most people, I have an aversion to failure. I like to feel that everything I do is a success. As you would expect, I love to see video clips that show me dancing at my best. However, when you think about it, the truth is, we don’t learn new things by being good at them. We learn new things by sucking at them, at least at first. If I didn’t stop to acknowledge I wasn’t doing well at this turn, I would probably just carry on doing them with messy technique.

I feel that there are lessons in this scenario that one can apply to everyday life. I’ve been trying many new things lately and have taken some big steps. I experience discomfort with every new venture, because I am acutely aware of the possibility of failure. However, I will apply the same approach I take with learning soutenus. The first step towards growth is to accept the possibility of failure. Once I stopped hiding from my soutenu challenges, my next order of business was to actually hunker down and learn how to do the step. This is the second part of learning something new. It was a big relief to find a method I can follow for consistently beautiful soutenus.

I got some instruction from my teacher in class and this made an immediate difference. I also found several excellent YouTube videos that broke down the turn into smaller steps. Since soutenus are everywhere in ballet, my dancing has generally improved by learning this one turn. With some repetition, I began to see things that were making my turns easier. For example, keeping my pelvis tucked under and pushing myself high onto my toes helped quite a bit. It also helps to remember not to panic! A kind of panic can set in when you feel uncomfortable with what you’re doing. It creates a tension that makes turns more difficult.

The sad part of learning is that it takes time and discipline. You can know what to do without being able to do it, which brings us to the third phase of learning something new- practice. I will have to practise repeatedly until the correct movement becomes habitual. I must practice my coordination, alignment and timing until I get it right. It is not a linear path. I tend to neglect my practice when life gets crazy. However, I try to be gentle with myself when this happens, remembering that discipline is a skill too. Like other skills, it can be learned. And once learned, it becomes habitual. I apply discipline to practise soutenus, and practice soutenus to learn discipline. Then both of them become habitual with practice, reinforcing one another.

It is truly empowering to remember that these steps work with any new skill. I’ve taken more than expected from learning soutenus. It certainly hasn’t been easy, but it has been good!

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *