i am super excited about today's theme!!! i can't even stop smiling. below is a ted talk that i was directed to by my lovely ballet teacher kate. she was chastising us - her sad adult students - for being defeatist in class. ballet is scary and hard, and you sure as hell can't pirouette if you tell yourself you're going to fall over before you even plié. kate told us about the video. (also, she pokes at us for being so pathetic and scared when we come to dance class for FUNSIES because obviously none of us think we'll be ballerinas... so. duh.)
yaaaaayyyyyy! right? it makes so much sense. generally speaking, women are conditioned to take up less space. to cross their legs. to be petite. sarah has directed me to a social scientist, carol gilligan, who writes about the differences in women's use of their bodies from a young age onto adulthood and who i am SO SO excited to read. sarah gave the example of asking 5 year old and 18 year old girls to kick a soccer ball. the 5 year old will use her whole body - leg through hip through back through arms - and the 18 year old will kick only from the leg. we have the extent of our physical range conditioned out of us. and when i think about how bold and brave and occupying-of-space 10 year old erin was vs the accommodating thing i found myself to be in my early 20s... well. ooooof. i always wondered how i'd lost confidence with age and experience. this feels very true to me. (also, i do believe that i was taught the 'fake-it ' skills without knowing that that's what i was doing, and i have benefitted from that ability many times. thanks mom and dad!)
i feel like i'm too fired up on this particular theme to have made a lot of sense today. but i will read and think and reflect some more, and hopefully write a very coherent series of posts over time. seriously so excited about this. bodies, yo! space! extension!
happy friday!
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