Did you miss part 1?  That’s ok, catch up here!

Once I was in the studio, things got better and more complicated.  This was my one outlet outside of the church.  This is one of the first times that I really felt like a fish out of water.  I had no context for the pre-teen’s pop culture.  I would sit and not talk, listening to everything until class would start.  Then I would dance my heart out and then leave, not really speaking.  A lot of the kids thought I was stuck up.  I was just terrified.  I knew I couldn’t talk about what went on at home, I couldn’t talk about the tv shows or music they knew, because I didn’t participate in their culture.  They were “of the world” and their teasing was, as the apostle Paul said “momentary light affliction”. I went into my head and worked on my routines obsessively.

Another issue at the studio was an ego jolt, I went from shining at my church class to being the bottom of the barrel in the other classes.  And because of my lack of experience, I was in a younger dance company.  So, the kids I was placed with were a couple years younger.  I was the same age as the senior company, but placed in the junior.  So I had to dance and work like crazy to work my way up, which I eventually did.

We competed at regional and national levels and won many awards.  My teacher was amazing.  I think when I started in the dance studio she was at least in her 70s.  She was one of Tommy Tune’s teachers.  She was ancient and put up with none of the kid’s shenanigans.  Every day she wore a different pastel dress pant and shirt or sweater, she would with great labor get out of her chair to start teaching.  As soon as the music started she never missed a beat, she would tap out rhythms that would dizzy our heads.  She would make us practice turns across the floor with record jackets on our heads.  (Kids: google record jackets, music used to be engraved on wax disks and was protected by a “jacket”. )

She was terrifying and wonderful; you knew whether you were on her good or bad side that day.  She was an amazing mentor, and also the first authority figure I had outside of the church.  And the first female authority figure that stood on her own authority.  I loved her.  She loved me too, and when I was 13 she told me that she thought I would make a great teacher.

I was a great technical dancer.  But my performance was lacking, and as any performer knows you have to be very in touch with yourself to give a moving, authentic performance.  I was too bottled up and terrified to be self-possessed enough to really perform.  I continued with my training in tap and jazz and added on at that point her Teacher’s training class.  A few select others and myself learned how to teach, how to make a lesson plan and how to choreograph.  This may have been my favorite part of my dance training.

I liked to compete, but I loved to teach.  I was hired by the dance studio to teach when I was 14 and I had a few dance classes a week.  I had baby tap, which was a co-ed class of 4-6 year olds (omg cute)!  And the class that changed my life, which was a woman’s beginner tap class for women 40+.  It was crucial for me to be to be around these women, these silly, powerful women.  For someone who was terrified of all the adults in her life, I got my first taste of leadership.  I got to be the guide of and witness to these women who were doing something for themselves for the first time in their life.  And I adored them.  I called the shots, I taught, they giggled and didn’t take me seriously at all.  They gave me hope that not all women were living like me and the women in my church.  They set an amazing example for me, and they shook a wicked calf too.