On perfection

My new mattress is so comfortable. I also got the same pillow from home and it made an amazing difference. The back pain is receding and I'm very glad. In other news, my heating is broken :( The fight goes on!

In bata de cola class with La Choni. Photo: Ángel Cachón/CAFS

Ten days ago I started to feel very trapped again. I didn't understand why, I thought the crisis of self-doubt and self-pressure was over. I had come back from my holidays, fully determined to be relaxed and enjoy my second trimester of dancing.

The thing is, you cannot make yourself relax. 

The very heavy schedule (I spend up to 6-9 hours at school every day, always till 9pm except on Fridays), the homework, all the things that are still left to learn, and the apartment situation were getting to me. I hadn't been dancing two weeks and already I was feeling exhausted and unmotivated. I sat down to think about what was going on and realized that I was beating myself up about not being perfect again. 

Some part of me thinks I should be able to do it all. To get steps and movements right away and perform them effortlessly. To have the time to do every day what every teacher tells us to do each day. That means: 

• do ballet floorwork and warm-ups
• practice technique footwork
• practice turns
• practice singing
• practice percussion and palmas
• practice bata de cola
• listen to as much singing as possible
• watch the great masters on video
• go watch shows
• practice castanets
• do sit-ups and crunches to train abs
• do my stretching
• eat healthy
• get enough sleep!

I try to pack that list in a day, even though it's the work of a lifetime. Ha!

I often hear that's it's very important to learn about the history and background of flamenco in order to reach a level that would be called "professional". The thing is, I will never grasp and feel flamenco in the same way than someone who has been born into it and heard and practiced it their entire life. And, learning flamenco is the work of a lifetime. It's not only a technique of dancing. It's an art form with a music genre with complex rhythm patterns encompassing over 80 different styles. It's the tradition and culture of an entire of society here in Spain. 

That part of me is constantly barking that only if I know and understand Flamenco the way Spaniards do, only when my body will have reached a certain level of technique, speed, balance, flexibility and coordination - only then will it be perfect. And only perfection counts. 

But this is my year off and I came here to enjoy myself. And, I don't want to become a professional. Maybe if I put 15 years of hard work and dedication into it, i could pull it off. But that's not what I want, and I have to keep reminding me this. I've dedicated a lot of my life to others skills, and that's also who I am. It's so easy to forget who you are and where you come from, spending so many hours per day around professionals of one single art from.

So I'm trying to get back in touch myself. I want to enjoy being at school, enjoy the learning process, be relaxed and happy. It's working better now. My perfectionist voice keeps barking all them time and I am slowly learning to dialogue with it. That's a good start.