Happy Wednesday, dear readers! Oh, what a joy it is to tap on the keyboard with long acrylic nails… the nails from hell, I call them. I just finished a ballroom dance competition– BYU Nationals, my first time at this comp– and if you know me, you’d know that the only thing I resent more than spiders and heights is long nails. The one exception I make is for dance competitions. Long nails is part of the performance “look”… but man, is it a pain in the ass to type with them. I’ve backspaced the keyboard at least ten times in the last brief paragraph. But alas, it is high time to write and reflect, for it’s been a while!
As always, getting back into writing following a hiatus is daunting. I’m out of practice, so the words don’t flow as effortlessly as they once did. But every writer knows that the only way out of writer’s block is THROUGH! Keep writing, and when you don’t know what to write, write about the block… What is making you feel blocked? What emotions are you experiencing right now (hair-tugging frustration)? What’s going on in your body (heart palpitations)? What kind of thoughts are you having (racing thoughts, or none at all)?
A map of Bel’s inner state, 1pm sharp:
- Body: heart rate picked up a couple paces; nagging heaviness in my abdominal region, like I just ate a rock (well, I did just eat Starbird chicken chopped salad and 3 chicken nuggets dipped in honey mustard); pain in the right side of my back (overexerted myself with physical activity… I need to take a rest day)
- Emotions: general contentedness at my one free day of the week. Wednesday. Well, it wasn’t totally free, since I taught an 8am mat pilates class this morning… but the rest of the day is mine to enjoy!
- Thoughts: What to write, what to write? Oh god, I’ve lost my writing mojo. Don’t worry, it’ll come back. Keep those fingers tapping away and you’ll eventually finish this post. Oh, I know what to write about. Stream of consciousness, coming your way!
So, last week I competed at my first ballroom dance nationals in Provo, Utah. The competition is America’s biggest amateur ballroom dance event of the year. It was also my final competition with my dance partner, Wen, since he decided to retire after nationals.
The competition came and went, and what an experience it was! We competed against over a hundred novice and pre-champ level couples. Got knocked out of pre-champ after round 2, and made it a little further in novice. I was pleasantly surprised that we made it to round 3 (out of 7) rounds in novice, considering one of my teammates, a couple from California who have been dancing together over 3.5 years, and are objectively better than us, got knocked out after round 2.
Competitions and performances always light a fire under my ass, stoking my motivation to do better, be better, and work harder to become the dancer I was destined to be. I know I am a talented dancer with a lot of potential, and most importantly, a strong personality that will get me far. In fact, the woman who did my hair and makeup at Nationals, Katya, has seen me dance at practice rounds and told me that I have what it takes to dance at the professional level because of my “strong personality”, which she says will carry me further than talent. I know I can work like a dog when my mind is single-mindedly focused on a goal.
Here’s my present dilemma. I work as a full-time fitness instructor. I tallied up all the classes (group and private) I teach each week, and it amounts to over 30 hours, which is actually insane. Even 20 hours of group fitness teaching a week is pushing it, according to my friend and mentor, Chelsea, who is a successful pilates instructor. Chelsea told me that I will have to drop some teaching commitments, eventually, and focus more on teaching private lessons that don’t require me to be up in front of the class doing the workout with my students. I love what I do and don’t want to drop anything right now, and maybe because I’m 27 years old and at the physical prime of my life, I can handle my current workload. But it’s challenging, for sure. Past couple days, I’ve battled intense back pain in the right side of my back. It hurts to walk. It hurts to get out of the car. It hurts to turn the steering wheel. I have no idea how I tweaked it as badly as I did, but if I had to guess, it would be from the demands of the ballroom competition, and overdoing it in hot yoga on Sunday (I took 2 classes that day). My back pain was so intense that I had to cancel my two classes at Bay Club– yoga dance and dance fitness– on Monday, because there was no way in hell I’d be able to survive. My physical health and well-being is not worth the $100 I’d make from teaching. My students can survive a week without me, and the world will keep on turning.
So, back to my dilemma. I work a physically-demanding job, and the cost of that has been my dance training. How can I possibly get myself to practice 2 hours of dance a day if I’m teaching (and driving to my various teaching commitments) from 8am to 7pm? My reality was echoed by a coworker, Debbie, who has been teaching fitness full-time for longer than I’ve been alive.
“I used to love playing softball,” she lamented. “But I had to sacrifice that once I did fitness full-time. There was no way I could get myself to practice after a long day of teaching.”
Sigh. I am not ready to hang up my dance shoes, not when I’m just getting started. I’m still young, and if I pour myself into training, I could go far in the ballroom world. My teacher, Simona, told me that this is just the beginning for me, and urged me to keep on working. Multiple teachers of mine have confirmed my potential. How can I reconcile the demands of my work with my desire to dance to my potential?
I ran into Victor Fung, World Champion ballroom dancer, in the hotel lobby at nationals. I had interviewed him 7 years ago for Athlete Voices and wrote a feature article about him that went viral in the ballroom community. He remains a friend and mentor, to this day.
I asked Victor, “Did you take rest days when you were my age?”
He replied, “At your age, no. But as you get older, you’ll realize just how important rest days are. Your body will feel it.”
Very true words from a wise and humble living legend. I don’t want to wait until I’m physically crippled before I start listening to my body’s signals to rest. I must be smart with how I navigate my dance and fitness journey.
24 minutes later, and I’m all written out. My writing stamina has decreased with lack of practice, so I’ll go ahead and end today’s post here. Thanks for listening to my litany of thoughts, and I’ll talk to you guys soon!
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