I hate myself and my dance sucks but I’m still TOTALLY better than Billy. Or, what the hell is dance image neutrality?
Approaching west coast swing as a human being, Episode I
A few years ago, I came across the idea of body
neutrality. I worked in the fitness industry as a strength coach and became very familiar with how negative self-talk affected people. The desire to
measure up to impossible, airbrushed standards on magazine covers, web pages
and tv. One of the suggestions I received from some very, very intelligent
coaches (and good people) was to supplant aesthetic goals with performance
goals.
Rather than getting validation from others complimenting
your appearance or comparing yourself to someone on a movie screen, you’d focus
your efforts on what your body could DO—be it powerlifting, a triathlon, yoga,
rock climbing, or anything else. For women especially the sensation of being
strong, physically capable, and literally taking up space was a drastic change
and improvement from where they’d been.
Here’s the problem. That approach was body positivity—like
the ‘big is beautiful’ message that has resulted in followers crapping on others’
desire to (for example) be healthier or to think about their diet at all. Or,
for a competitive lifter to ridicule your average gym rat’s desire for abs and
arms. Silly rabbit, bench press is useless and I’m better than you because I
front squat.
Nothing really changed at all. One very toxic desire was just replaced by another. Being contrary and trying to squash their own more conventional desires just resulted in bitterness and resentment.
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Hopefully, you can see where this is going. A close equivalent would be saying that really, competitions don’t matter and it’s xyz technique, or your connection that really shows true value or ability in our dance.
But guess what—if you’re coming at it from this angle, it’s
the toxic positivity approach. “Okay so and so beat me in comps but I have
better technique where it matters, I’m more fun to dance with, my connection is
better….” Heard it before, maybe said it a time or two yourself? No Mando, this
is not The Way.
Even worse, it’s going to actively hold you back. If you’re clinging to such and such an idea of why your dance has value (I’m creative! My connection feels this way!) it’s going to be VERY VERY HARD to accept anything that you’d perceive as a negative comment concerning those things. Trust me when I say as a teacher that if you want to actually develop those skills you’ve come to care about, you’re going to have to let go of that defensiveness and latching onto those attributes as your rebellious choice for perceived value. It’s not a personal attack if you have ‘I’ve got a great connection’ as part of your dance identity and I say you should work on this or that aspect. But it might feel like it!
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So, body neutrality. If our default approach is, I want to value myself by society’s standards. The body positivity approach is screw you, I’m going to value myself by my own standards that are totally way better (this is what often happens, I’m not saying this is the actual concept of body positivity). Body neutrality is….
I have a body.
That’s pretty much it. I have a body, I live here, and I should
appreciate having one and make it a nice place to live in. I can totally
acknowledge why I have these natural biases—hear enough women drool over the
V-shaped hip creases on an actor and I’ll very much notice if mine blur out.
But I’m going to do my best to look at things in a very neutral, almost
clinical way. Not lose sight of the forest (you live here, idiot) for the trees.
Are your trees taller? Is wanting trees silly and should I feel good because I
have more mushrooms, which are what secretly matter so much more?
I have a body.
My body has value because every body does, because I live
here, because it is mine. No matter how it looks or performs.
Here’s the equivalent.
I dance. I do west coast swing dancing. I lead, or follow,
or both. I do it because it’s fun and I can share it with my friends and loved
ones.
It’s entirely natural to want to have Jordan’s magical
elasticity, Maxence’s leg lines, Emeline’s foot articulation, Victoria’s daring
athleticism. You need to let yourself know that. It’s entirely natural to want
to measure yourself by society’s standards of points, finals, placements,
glossy videos. To crave that recognition and applause.
If you want those things, work for them! There isn’t
anything wrong with that. But they aren’t at all related to the intrinsic worth
of your dance because, well.
Uh.
Yeah, you have one.
You have a dance, you do the dance, you are a dancer. Full stop.
Reflect on the body example again for a quick second. Have
you heard the “want a bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. Congrats.” That’s
the idea here, that’s our solution. NOT “I need to lift my butt to be worthy of
this string between my cheeks.” NOT “caring about how my butt looks is dumb, check
it out I’m actually better than you because I’m empowered not to care for such
trifles.” Put the bikini on your body. Pat yourself on the back.
The way to begin putting this into practice is through process
goals. With dance, the equivalent of aesthetic goals in fitness would be
the finals, placements, and points. The equivalent of performance goals, like
powerlifting or yoga, would be working on connection or listening better as a
partner or enjoying your prelim dances. Again—what happens if you hate your
prelims dances. What then?! Now you haven’t made finals, which were sour anyway
and you didn’t really want them. But then you wanted to hang your hat on
having those fun prelims, and they weren’t fun; so now you are just as down on
yourself as before and have extra resentment to boot.
What are process goals?
I will dance X amount of times per week if I can. I will prioritize sleep at events if I care about feeling good physically. I will develop and put into practice my very own pre-comp ritual that will help me perform more the way I want to. I will wear my toe separators and roll a lacrosse ball over my feet after cramming my feet into dance shoes for 4 hours. I will recognize that being silly, or dramatic, is what I enjoy about this song and dance that way to that song when it comes on and own that shit because it is My Dance. I will work to say no every time misogynistic-dude-who-yanks-on-my-arm-and-hurts-my-shoulder asks me to dance.
It’s cool if you want to make finals. Super cool, in fact!
Competing can be fun and awesome and a great way to give you things to tinker
on and learn about. (I can maybe help you with all that, too, that’s kinda
something I do.)
That just isn’t what really matters here. What matters is
that you dance. You make the choice to dance. You realize that your dance has
intrinsic value. You work on learning to dance for yourself and do what truly
makes you happy. Peer approval is just something you’re using dance to get. You
can examine the how what and why of that some other time.
https://www.instagram.com/arisdemarco.floortime/
arisdemarco@gmail.com
Next up
Working on dancing without being a dick. Or, we don’t have
to be frenemies, really!
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