Before I moved to where I live now, I used to watch the movie West Side Story all the time. I loved the fight scenes not because I liked the fighting, but because I enjoyed the dancing. I wanted to have the same powerful grace that those guys had. I wanted to be able to casually whip out some mega-jump with a cool finish just like them. I wanted to be a Jet. When my dad got transferred, my mom did some research into the town that we were moving to. She found that there was a dance studio there that offered classes to all ages and both genders. Me being the cheerful six-year-old that I was, I was grateful and quite excited about taking classes.
When we moved here, I was one of the only boys taking dance at all. I struggled to make friends in this new, strange place and I wasn't having much success. I was young for my grade, so the people there weren't as appealing to me. But in dance, I met several wonderful people that were kind and friendly to me. These were the people I would eventually call my friends.
But for the moment, I remained friendless. I didn't much care, though. I was just as happy by myself.
And besides, that's not the point.
I continued through dance class, enduring higher difficulties of exercises, further grace in movement, and endless teasing from my classmates due to the fact that I was, as they called me, "the tutu girl." While I insisted that they were entirely wrong ("Boys don't wear tutus, stupid," I'd say to them.), they persisted. It eventually got to a point that I made a decision that would change my life forever.
I got in my first fistfight in the fourth grade.
See, during second through most of the fourth grade, I was off-and-on about whether I wanted to stick in dance. It wasn't particularly the fistfight that changed me, but it was the fact that I was sticking up for what I wanted to do instead of backing down and laying low.
The boy's parents were angry, but I didn't get in much trouble, since he'd already been harassing me for quite a while and the principal was already aware of this. They punished me, but it wasn't too harsh.
Anyway, I've been in dance ever since, participating in ballet, tap, jazz, and modern, switching between most of them quite often.
I am now the most skilled male dancer in the dance program, a part of the Fireweed Dance Company (the private studio company), and in the highest offered level of class. I take dance class four days a week for about two hours each class. When 'company,' as it's been called, is in practice season, I sometimes practice for nine hour days on Saturdays.
Today, I had class. Today, we did floor-bar. Today, I am sore.
For those of you that don't know what that is, I'll explain:
Official Voice
In a usual ballet class, it is begun by performing exercises while standing with one hand on a chest-height bar. Floor-bar is when all of the bar exercises are performed on the floor, generally on one's stomach or back.
My shoulders are sore from holding my arms above the ground while lying down, my hip bones are aching from rolling all over them while extending my legs to the back while on my stomach, and my stomach is doing flips from the previously mentioned activity.
I hurt, but I'm glad my fingers are okay.
fin
