At The Ballet - a not so promising tale of my dancing life

Let us start at the beginning. I started taking ballet when I was 7 years old. My first studio that I went to said you had to be 8 to start "professional dance." So, (like any sane mother would do) my mother lied at said I was 8 years old. My actions proofed otherwise, though. I walked in to my first dance lesson, and the first thing I saw was a man with a wooden stick, about the size of a golf club. I immediately got scared, but he greeted me kindly, seeing that my sister was one of his favorites. I joined the bar beside the other scared little girls (and one boy!) but I quickly realized that all of the people in the room were older than me. That got me even more scared, but I determined that I would look even better than the older ones. The lesson was going fairly well, when I realized: I had to pee. REALLY bad. Looking back, my reasoning for waiting till I wet myself was fairly stupid. I simply thought that was the stick was for hitting people that went to the bathroom. Such an idiotic statement, but when I was 7, it seemed perfectly rational. We were doing grand bat mas (where you kick your leg high) and just as one of my legs was being kicked, I could not hold it any longer. It spattered the floor, and when Fip (yes, that was his name, the studio was owned by 2 gay brothers, Fip & Chip) saw the pee oozing down my brand new tights, he said with horror, "GO TO THE BATHROOM, EMMA!" So I was about to run when I heard gasps from behind me and turned around to see the girl next to me peeing also. Fip was going crazy. The pianist did not seem to know what had just happened, and was still playing.

After that lesson, my mother felt the need to say I was actually 7. Fip said I could still take class, because (minus the peeing) I was an excellent dancer.

A year later, when I was supposed to move to level 2, I was informed that I had to stay in level 1. So much for that excellent dancing I pulled out at the peeing incident. The only other people who weren't moving up was the kid who had ADHD and the fat girl. I felt depressed. Fip informed the incoming 8 year olds that year that we were "Old Birds" and we "knew what we were doing." If were good why do we had to stay here?

A few years later, having been in the Nutcracker as a buffoon and gone up 2 levels, Fip & Chip decided to leave the studio to help there "dying mother." I seriously doubted she existed, but nonetheless, they left. And the studio went really crappy. So we left too.

Studio No. 2 I joined in March 2008. It was quite a bit smaller, and it looked very professional. It was Russian ballet, and the head of the studio boasted to have been with the Joffrey Ballet (which probably explained her snotty attitude.). It looked promising, despite the 500 - pound woman at the desk who told me to pay and extra $15 for a "boot camp class" that she was apparently attending too. I pleaded with my mom to let me see here to some sit- ups, but I was denied.


Even at the beginning, I was an outcast. I was just a little bit fatter than all the rest of the girls, and because I didn't wear an Ed Hardy sweater. But I also wasn't that fantastic. In my first class, I was informed that all my teaching beforehand was "horrible" and that I needed to come to more classes.  Great way to start, right?


I picked up a jazz class, and tried to make friends, but again failed. I dreaded going to classes, and after they upped the prices even more, and in order to be in they're show you had to pay $75 per costume, we left.


Studio No. 3  is completely different. First of all, its much bigger, and the owners are family friends. hey have fabulous teachers, like my ballet teacher Jackie. She is really intense and Canadian and I am really scared of her but in a good way, I guess. She is really awesome and sometimes she's kinda cruel, but.......no, there's no but. She's just cruel sometimes.


My class is fairly huge, and like always, I am not really accepted. Failed, again. But there are these two I like to think of as my friends. One's new with glasses, and the other one is kind of an outcast of this studios version of the Ed Hardy girls. We never talk, but I know they both know that were best friends. Today, we were doing splits on the wall, and the girl with the glasses said, "Oh my god, this hurts!" to me! Progress! 


So, there it is. Not the greatest, but not the worst. And I can do the splits to prove it.