Over the next two months, I’m embarking on a new dance adventure, something I’ve never done before as an adult dancer. Even though it’s a new experience for me, that very fact makes it fit naturally into my lifelong dance journey.
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This month’s guest is a fellow writer/dancer who has explored a variety of partner dances for almost 20 years! Her latest passion is Argentine Tango, but from every style, she’s found another piece of the puzzle that is her true self.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Karen Kaye.
I had an idea for my next post, another one about climbing out of the comparison trap. I wanted to come up with a list of real things that I or anyone else could do that would help stop the comparisons and get back to a more positive mindset. The exercise in gratitude was ok, but I wanted something more practical and more concrete. When I am having trouble with a ballroom step, Teacher can give me very specific things to do to correct the issue. I’ve been stuck in this self-pity state for longer than I’d like to admit. I have plenty of excuses and some good, honest reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m only hurting myself. I actually googled “how to stop comparing” to see what others have written about the subject.
I came across this video on Facebook this morning and felt compelled to share it. It is an advertisement for some kind of drink, but that just comes at the end. The message in the video is beautiful. A guy meets a bunch of different people, all adults, in a restaurant and asks them what they want to be when they grow up.
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Our story begins with a podcast that has nothing to do with ballroom dancing. But since it is the thing that put me on the path to writing this post, I am starting there. Lewis Howes was interviewing Lisa Nichols. You may have heard of them if you’ve gotten into personal development, life coaching or entrepreneurship. They’re both very successful and worth checking out if you’re interested in those things.
Anyway, I was listening to the podcast at work, and at one point, Ms. Nichols was talking about the different types of relationships you will experience in your lifetime. One of them was a purposeful relationship. Someone comes into your life for a specific purpose (whether you’re aware of it or not), and once the purpose is fulfilled, the relationship will become stagnant or break down completely.
There are plenty of directions you could go with this idea, but my mind was transported to my very first competition: the 2014 San Francisco Open.
Today’s Ask the Girl episode was inspired by a conversation I had with the creator of freeballroomlessons.com. He specializes in teaching social-level ballroom dancing, but used to dance competitively. We were talking about how expensive ballroom competitions are, especially for a pro-am student like myself, and about the emotional rollercoasters that competing in ballroom puts me on.
He wondered, with all of the financial and emotional stress involved in competition, why do I do it?
Welcome to the second episode of Ask the Girl!
If you have a question or topic that you would like me to address, leave it in the comments or contact me directly. I’m excited to hear from you!
Today’s question comes from Kelly, founder of Lady Boss Lifestyle:
When do you know that enough is enough? Is it totally ok to simply dance without a longterm goal of competing? Or do these types of dancers typically just need a great coach to build up their belief that they can trust their passion and set competition goals?
After getting a bit of a mental smackdown courtesy of my demons last night, I considered letting them write today’s post. But I’m going to pull myself together and focus on the productive and the positive.
Another lesson and another repeated mantra from Teacher yesterday led to this extension of yesterday’s post on Trust and Ballroom.
You have to trust your partner in order to dance ballroom. But you also have to trust yourself.
The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 