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.