I remember being a little girl and being in the parent waiting area with my mom while my sister took ballet lessons. We could watch through a big, one-way mirror to see what the class was doing. I loved to watch my sister’s teacher dance to show the students how they needed to do the different moves. She was so graceful and so disciplined. I wish I could have taken ballet lessons.
I have this weird thing about my joints. It is especially noticeable in my elbows. Everything bends out way more than other people’s joints. Because of this, which I was born with and can’t do anything about it, the dance teacher told my mom that I could never be a ballerina. The way my elbows let my arms over-extend is not attractive or graceful. In ballet, the arms are almost as important as the feet.
It was humiliating to be told I was too ugly to dance. That hurt my feelings and self esteem for a very long time. But my sister doesn’t have this same problem with her joints, and she took ballet lessons for many years. She was very good at it. I wonder if she ever thinks about that and has has happy memories about dancing?