I felt both frustrated and humiliated at my last lesson with Maja. There was a touch of despair as well. I asked Maja if she could feel me doing my jobs. She said, “I can feel a whisper of you doing them.” Part of what I struggle with is understanding what I’m supposed to do in the first place. What does practicing my jobs actually look like? She asked me how many times a day I do “ribcage down.” I had to be honest and knew the answer would be pathetic…”probably 20-30.” “I did them about 300 times a day for three months. Then I danced with Benny for three months. Then I finally danced with Glenn for the first time at a competition and we were 8th in the world.”
We also practiced me listening to the lead, which seems to be a big problem as well. I keep guessing which step is coming next. Part of that is because Ibrahim and I know a routine, so my body is conditioned to follow the routine. However, in a competition – and even in a showcase – the routine can fall apart and I have to be ready to go immediately with whatever he gives me. Thinking like that is like having an active, blank brain…I’m thinking furiously and yet not thinking at the same time. Sort of similar to meditation? Actively keeping your brain blank? I kept messing up while we danced, but gradually became better throughout the lesson. Not without some bruising to my ego.
At times throughout the lesson I felt really dumb. Why couldn’t I get things? Why couldn’t I get them quickly enough?
At the end, I thought, I need to see if I can get concrete information about my jobs. So I asked, “Part of my problem, I think, is that I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be feeling…I don’t understand the goal.”
“Have you ever been world champion?” she asked. Is this a trick question? I started to regret mine.
“….No….”
“Then you wouldn’t know what it feels like. Only those who have been world champions would know what it feels like. Also, something may feel one way for me and feel completely different for you. I can't know what you feel, and you can't know what I feel. When I dance, I may feel like I’m upside-down, but I don’t look like I’m upside-down. Only when you reach the top level will you know what it [dancing] feels like.
When I was taking lessons with Benny, he had two hooks outside the door: one for feelings and one for ego. He told me to hang my feelings and ego on the hooks before entering the studio. If I said, “I feel –“ he would point to them and tell me to put my feelings back. When Janet Gleave came in for a lesson –and she had already been amateur world champion twice – she said to Benny, “But I feel…” and he said, “You aren’t qualified to feel!” He was a bit nicer to me and said I didn’t know enough to feel. But you see, even a world champion didn’t know what she was supposed to feel….Benny would tell me all the time to stand up straight, so I stood how I thought was straight. He’d say, “That’s not straight!” and position me so that I felt like my butt was sticking out. “There!” he said. “That’s straight!” This would happen over and over until eventually, when he’d say, “Stand straight,” I’d stick my butt out and he said, “Good!” To me it didn't feel straight. It felt crooked.”
I just looked at her, probably with a perplexed and slightly disheartened expression on my face.
“My suggestion,” she continued, “is to find how you use your jobs in everyday life.” I’ve been thinking about that since our last lesson and I still don’t know! “You’ve done all the actions by the time you’re seven years old, just not those particular ones in that particular order.”
As she was leaving, she said, “The feeling [of dance] is bizarre. It’s so bizarre and chaotic. Learn to embrace the chaos.”
What the heck was I supposed to do with that? Ibrahim and I stayed after to review. The lesson wasn’t entirely philosophical: we went over the basics of Viennese and fleckerels, and I practiced maintaining the “third leg” in tango (making sure one of my legs is always connected to Ibrahim’s). But I felt so confused and frustrated that I couldn’t think. I was bothered for the rest of the night and into the next day.
I texted Ibrahim at work:
A: One of the implied takeaways from yesterday’s lesson is that I essentially need to do my jobs 9000 times [but really 27,000 times] before I can move on to the next thing, or before it’s worth having another lesson. Until I gain a small mastery of them, there is really nothing new to learn in the meantime.
I: I don’t think you should be this disheartened, and I don’t think there’s “nothing to do.” Mastery of these small jobs comes with experience, and it’s quite clear from what Maja was saying that even the top pros don’t quite have it. You gain this mastery by practicing and analyzing all the stuff that we do – well, that’s what we’re gonna do, right? Your jobs are triggered by me when we dance, right, so much of your learning is in reading this kind of information off me.
A: And furthermore, no one knows exactly what me mastering these jobs looks like…so after I finish the 9000 times, how is anyone going to know if I’m on track? That’s what I heard Maja saying…I’m supposed to do something no one knows is actually correct and then when I think I’ve done it, [there’s no one to judge or know] if it’s correct.
I: Well, she got a bit too philosophical over there (that’s what I was a bit afraid of). It’s like Buddhism – “the world doesn’t exist.” “it’s all an illusion,” blah blah. I think if you concentrate on smaller things, e.g., go understand your jobs in specific situations, you will be able to make lots of progress.
A: I don’t even know what to ask her for our next lesson. Go back to working on specific sequences I guess.
I: I guess so. We should dance all the stuff that we can for her and see what input she has. Then have a list of things we want to target ourselves.
A: ok
I: Just don’t be disheartened. Everything is going fine, we’re dancing better every week!
I was trying to think about how I could possibly fit 300 repetitions of my jobs in during the day….unless I completely give up my other practicing. I suppose this is where the “find your jobs in everyday life” comes in…so you don’t have to set aside three hours a day of practice.
The thing about Maja’s teaching is that sometimes it’s explicit…she tells you exactly exactly how you’re supposed to move your leg, turn your hip, direct your hand. Often, however, lessons are theoretical or seemingly vague. With other teachers, they’ll tell you the specific process (turn your hip out and point your toe down the line of dance) or give you visuals that will help you reach an end result. With what Maja tells me, though, I’m supposed to do exercises to figure out what I’m supposed to do in order to reach an end result. I want to say, Can’t you just tell me and show me how this works? Can you give me an approximate feeling so I can try to imagine and imitate it?
All I can do at this point is try to figure it out for myself and hope that after 9000 tries, she’ll tell me I can move onto the next part.
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