Class With Kathy Mata

Recently I was in San Francisco for an orthopaedic surgeon conference. I was slated to give a presentation on my research in shoulder surgery to a crowd of full of  long in tooth experts. The thought terrified me. I am dealthy afraid of public speaking and usually I spend my time trying to hid behind the podium.

While in town I took class at the Alonso King Lines Ballet Studio with Kathy Mata, renowned on You Tube for her adult classes. This thought did NOT terrify me.

I had it the wrong way around.

I thought Ms. Mata's class would be good but maybe not as hard as the intermediate/advanced classes I take at my two home studios. I was woefully mistaken on this point. First of all the room was about 90 deg, the class was packed with people, and I felt some pressure to at least look more graceful that the 2 gentleman who clearly had medicare cards. Second, I was not used to teachers paying me any attention. Usually my teachers spend a lot of time correcting the teenagers who are taking extra classes in preparation for a professional career while I hang in the back and try to disappear. I am not faulting my teachers at all- I think they can pick up on my look of terror/confusion and try not to overload my brain with corrections. I am usually grateful they leave me alone.

  There was no hiding from Ms. Mata- she picked up on everything I did incorrectly. Interestingly, she seemed to understand which corrections would be most beneficial for me.Of the myriad of mistakes I made, she found the five or so that changed my dancing. In addition, she did not stop between sides and her combinations were longer than the combinations I am used to. All those things made the class physically challenging as well as mentally challenging. This class was my far the hardest thing I have done, physically or mentally, for quite a long time.

How did the talk go the next day?
 Cake Walk.
 I had just been to a ballet class the night before where there was no place to hide doing something I constantly screwed up.  I didn't need to hide behind the podium to talk about something I already knew like the back of my hand.

Thank you Kathy Mata.

Close your eyes

Sometimes I find it very hard to check my day at the door when I step into ballet class. Usually this results from some problem at work and is related to a self-perception of incompetence in the operating room. My brain turns "oh my god I am a moron who can't even fix this very simple fracture that I am sure all the boys can fix, etc." into "whoa what is the combination again? You want HOW may pirouettes? Fat chance!..." and I decompensate from there. I think this happens to a lot of us and manifests in other ways- such as "you want me to help you with your algebra homework? Fat chance!" or "there is no way I am making it the whole 5 miles I am supposed to run today..." I get that negativity is a poor way to live and and I should have a positive outlook but I'm not exactly the kind of person who can give myself a good pep talk and rise above self-doubt. So what's a girl to do? I pay good money for class and I HATE to ruin a class in this manner. My solution is to close my eyes during the plie combination. Once the combo is explained and the 4 beat preparation is over I just just close my eyes and listen. I listen to the tone and pitch of the music. I listen to my legs, my feet, my arms, and my back as I move through the positions. I forget about the really good girl in class, I don't watch her. I don't compare myself to her, she doesn't exist. (Any adult dancer will empathize with me here as every class has one of these girls- my class happens to be populated by several of them and they are about 15 years old). I'm sure I look like a nutcase but I don't care. It works. Its like a reset button somehow. I can't explain how it works but when I do this my class goes really well and I can finally get rid of my crappy day. Apparently we don't all need a pep talk in dogged determination. Some of us just need a moment of pause.