Three things about my ballet teacher
I started ballet classes at three and a half years old. Here is a memory of my teacher and me.
A requirement of my course in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes is to attend a minimum of 10 therapy sessions. I recently filled out a form with an online service requesting to be paired with an existential therapist1 (ET brings elements of philosophy and psychology into therapy to help you understand your place in your world). However, when I arrived at my first session the therapist said she was mostly practicing Internal Family Systems2 (IFS is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families, “parts”, within each person’s mental system). She asked me if I was curious to try it out. I was. I am. I’ve had five sessions so far. The first “part” I encountered when I was invited to “focus inside”, was a 3-5-year-old self wearing a fluffy pink tutu — quiet and shy and scared. I started ballet classes at three and a half. The classes were held in Petersham, inner Sydney, at a church hall under the instruction of stern Miss C. I remember I would hesitate at the entrance to the hall, and my mother would place her large hand on the small of my back and gently push me inside. Once inside I was mostly okay, except on this one day — which I share below.
Dear You—
There are three things I will tell you about my ballet teacher.
The first thing about my ballet teacher is that she owned a Kombinations-kraftwagen (or Combi van as we called it Down Under) in a kind of orpiment orange. It was the most unlikely vehicle to transport a group of baby ballerinas to eisteddfods and Royal Academy of Dance examinations. From the outside, you couldn’t see our tutus and glitter so it must’ve looked like our Fraulein Dance Mistress, dressed in a skirt suit uniform to match the pigment of the vehicle, was transporting us to camp.
The second thing about my ballet teacher is that she disapproved of non-Balanchine bodies. You know, the pedigree breed of Ballerina: long, lissom, and limber. Now, I was bred from an ancestry of women who were built to hike over miles of mountainous terrain with milk pails and goats or something like that and who were built to birth many children - and I had the girth to show for it. It was quite obvious—even at three-and-a-half years old when mother first pushed me into Miss C’s church hall—I was destined to be more Marge than Margot when I grew up.
The third thing about my ballet teacher is that she disallowed interruptions of any kind during class. She wouldn’t budge, even if, say, I wanted the toilet. Once the class had begun and I’d shuffled to the barre and I’d rearranged my tiny pink paws—first my right to point to two o’clock and then my left to point to ten—I followed her commands like a shaking, panting, yawning puppy in a tutu until I was dismissed.
On this one day, we’d finished with the barre and moved to the centre of the hall. The other little ballerinas were buzzing around me like big fat Australian bush flies while Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” was playing on repeat.
I was still in first position. I pressed my chubby thighs tight against one another and raised my right hand up towards the church spire as high as I could reach. I stretched up like a swan and I was lofty and long but Miss C did not pause the Tchaikovsky.
I can’t remember how long I held that stretch but I know I must have relaxed. The final release came slowly, in a warm trickle along the undulating terrain of my thighs, until it all formed into a pool around the soft pink slippers at my feet.
—Until my next letter,
Meet me in the comments section:
Do you have a childhood memory associated with a specific adult? I’m curious to know more. You could try by identifying the adult and then — without thinking too much — invite yourself to freewrite a list of all the things you remember about them and about you with them. Once you have your list, scan over it and notice three things that stand out or surprise you or make you curious. Then, spend some time freewriting on each of those three things. What comes up for you?
What is existential therapy?, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Internal Family Systems Therapy, Psychology Today.
I loved reading this post Kathryn! And the photo captures the elegance of your movements even now: I really can't picture you as the stocky rural woman you describe. You capture the child-like innocence so well, and I can just imagine - feel - the shame that you were too young to feel, but felt nonetheless. I can't recall any specific incidents like this, but I'm sure there must have been some, because your writing resonates at a very deep place - and, just like you, I always make sure I visit the toilet before I go out and know in advance where the nearest toilet is (I even have a phone app called 'Where is Public Toilet'!). Thank you for writing and sharing, and look forward to the next instalment.
oh how i enjoyed this, KK! so many details in which i laughed and nodded and felt what i experience as that sense of shock and shame.... and you reminded me of my ballet days a touch older, in elementary school, with a teacher who taught throughout her pregnancy, I think she might have had her water break during class? I most remember my friend Jenna and I chatting at the barre and her displeasure at our obliviousness to the class!